Owen Harvey is a London based documentary photographer, often focussing on Youth, Subculture and Identity.
Harvey works commercially for such organisations as BBC, Time Inc., Financial Times Magazine, GQ Magazine, Sony Music, Fred Perry and many more. Alongside this, Harvey’s personal work has been exhibited internationally at venues including The Photographers’ Gallery, Royal Albert Hall and Photoville NYC. Publications such as The British Journal of Photography, GUP Magazine and online platforms, Dazed and Confused, i-D Magazine and Vogue Italia and featured these long term projects.
About ‘Ground Clearance’:
Hi Owen, please introduce us to Ground Clearance.
In the mid-to-late 1940’s a new subculture in America emerged and grew during the post war prosperity of the 1950’s. Young Latino youths had been known to place sandbags in their custom vehicles, so that the body of their car would ride close to the road; “slow and low” being their motto.
This was aesthetically pleasing for those involved in the scene and would later be technologically advanced, for the same effect to be achieved by hydraulics.
Lowriding had begun and the vehicles were decorated to hold political statements and sported images representing Latino culture. As the years passed and the 21st Century began, Lowriding culture became extremely popular. Often seen in popular music videos, the scene was embraced by cultures all around the world and had huge global appeal. For “Ground Clearance”, I returned to America and documented the scene in 2016 – 2017.
How do you hope the readers will react to Ground Clearance, ideally?
I hope they react to the series with a smile on their face, an excitement to see in to a world they may not be familiar with and perhaps finish viewing the images feeling like they like to cruise around their hometown in a lowrider.
Did you have any specific references or sources of inspiration in mind while working on Ground Clearance.?
I referenced a lot of films from directors such as Nicolas Winding Refn, Cohen Brothers and also photographers such as Gregory Crewdson and Todd Hido. I was also influenced by a lot of Hip Hop music and all the references to Lowriding that I’d heard growing up. The biggest inspiration was my rose tinted glasses of the scene from when I was teenager and the need to discover it for myself.
Why did you give this title to your project? what do you want to communicate with your photos?
Simply that a lot of the vehicles are able to bounce off the ground, up to well over a meter due to hydraulic springs and that’s the reason for the title of the series. I wanted to show the community around this subculture and to discover the scene for myself to learn more about the heritage, identity and rituals of this subculture.
The images will communicate something different to each viewer. I try not to worry too much about what I’d like them to communicate and how they will be received. I prefer to photograph what I see and present them to be received in different ways by different people.
Choose your three words for tomorrow.
Run The Jewels.
