When I asked Hunter Freeman to consider the questions, “Who is your hero?” for our blog series, I wasn’t surprised by his answers one bit.
Here is what he had to say:
“This is difficult to narrow down to one person. Photographically, the closest I can get to one “hero” would be Elliott Erwitt. He is to me the epitome of a joy-filled photographer. He’s able to see so much love and joy and fun in our world, which can be an enormous challenge, considering all the tragedy that confronts us on a daily basis.
I feel that he would rather show us the love that is in the world than the hate, show us things that will uplift us, rather than depress us. To help explain what I mean, for example, there are many reasons that soldiers make jokes in the midst of tremendously awful situations (which can often seem macabre to any civilian, including me), but with so much “awfulness”, I conclude that what they, and by extension, all of us, most need, is not for that awfulness to be constantly pointed out, but for something funny, or ridiculous, or just outrageously incongruous to spotlighted.
It allows us to relax, to feel at ease, not under pressure, not filled with the cares of this world. Elliott Erwitt has persistently focussed on that which is funny, or charming, or goofy, or just simply lovely. With so much crap out there bombarding us all, that persistence is heroic, in my book (or iPad).