There aren’t really a lot of words to go with these pictures. I just like them.
They come from a photographer named Lucia Braham, who is apparently based in Sydney, Australia. I found out about her from a Guardian article about an exhibition she had last month. It’s too late for you to go to the exhibition, and you would have had to travel to Sydney.
Outside of the Guardian’s tiny blurb – “Lucia Braham has spent 10 years documenting women in motorcycle culture in Australia and the US” – I’m finding it difficult to hunt down a great deal of information about her.
I’ve been able to determine that she has an Instagram account filled with all kinds of images that are simultaneously intimate and distanced. You don’t feel that you are ‘in’ the world of the photo or that by viewing it you are being either transported or intrusive. You are simply observing a flash of a moment – one that feels disconnected from time or place.
I’ve learned that Braham has a 1993 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200. Or, at least, she did five years ago, when she did some photography for a jacket brand I’ve never heard of.
“It’s very far from stock and I’ve done most of the work myself,” she told Merla Moto.
Her LinkedIn profile says that she is a “jack of all trades” and that her work “is grounded in a strong design sensibility and a clear understanding of how to bring ideas to life — visually, spatially, and experientially. In recent years, my focus has expanded to photography, with featured work appearing in a number of leading media outlets and top-tier publications.”
But, as I say, I just like the pictures.
I have always been fascinated by the grubby-cool-kid side of motorcycling. Perhaps because I’m not any of those things. I have long wished that I were; I often feel inclined to dress as if I were. But Britain is generally too cold and wet for three-quarter helmets and old leather jackets. And I lack the personality to back it up.
Remember in college/university, there was that guy who responded to the world-view altering experience of no longer living with his parents by affecting fancy toggery? A trilby, perhaps. Or a greatcoat. Or a pocket watch on a kenspeckle chain. Or he smoked a pipe.
And you’d think, “Well, there’s an interesting fellow,” and you’d go up to talk to him, at which point you would discover that his accessory was his personality. He had nothing interesting, clever, or funny to say. He lacked any discernable talent. He was just a guy with an interesting hat.
That was/is me. I never smoked a pipe, but that’s only because I lacked the originality to think of it. So, whereas I would really, really like to dress like Morgan Gales (for whom I have long harbored a mancrush) and stand around waiting for someone like Lucia to take pictures of me, I know that as soon as she did she would be disappointed.
“This man is nothing but a coatstand,” she would think. “He’s not rock ‘n’ roll; he’s just a mobile place to hang an Aero Bootlegger.”
And that’s 500 words. Apparently Google likes it when articles are at least 500 words long. Even when you can’t really come up with 500 words for the thing you’re talking about. Which is simply that I like Lucia’s pictures.
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