★ Thomas Hawk isn’t Who He Says He Is

jeremynicholl.com:

A few years ago somebody played a cruel joke on Flickr’s DeleteMe group, where a photo is posted and self-appointed critics decide whether to keep or trash the image. A picture of a cyclist was posted and condemnation was quick. “Soft”, “grey”, “blurry” were among the criticisms as the judges decided the picture was, well, a bit crap. Then it was revealed that the photographer was Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The incident was a small but telling illustration of a modern truth: there are now two photographic worlds, one on Earth and one in cyberspace, each largely unaware of the other’s existence. The last two weeks have provided a spectacular demonstration of what happens when those two worlds collide.

Down on Earth Jay Maisel is a very big name photographer. With a 55 year career, multiple high-end awards and work scattered in museums and private collections around the world, Maisel seems a reasonable candidate for that much overused term “legend”.

Likewise, up in cyberspace, Thomas Hawk is a very big name photographer. With his stated ambition to publish a million images before he dies, and tens of thousands of followers across various social media, he was recently named 4th most influential photographer blogger. Yet a lot of professional photographers are now scratching their heads and asking: who the hell is Thomas Hawk? I know this because last week I ran a poll at a mailing list for pro photographers. The poll had two questions: firstly, who here knows who Thomas Hawk is? And secondly, do you know who he really is? The pros did spectacularly badly. Of over a thousand only two had even heard of Hawk; none could answer the second question.

So in the web photo world Hawk is a very big deal; yet back on earth it’s as if he doesn’t exist. And there’s a very good reason for this: Thomas Hawk doesn’t exist.

The name Thomas Hawk is a pseudonym employed by one Andrew Peterson, a stockbroker at San Francisco investment company Stone & Youngberg. Peterson / Hawk’s stated rationale for the pseudonym is that US financial regulations mean that if he were to publish his website under his real name everything he writes would have to be vetted by his bosses. On recent evidence this would be a very good idea, for Peterson / Hawk is one very angry stockbroker.

I read this last night and my mouth was open the entire time. I couldn’t believe and still don’t believe what I just read.