@KOCI: Seeing the World in Black and White
A few months ago, I was browsing Instagram when something caught my eye. Among the pictures of sunsets, carefully stylized lunch plates and #ootd- also known as outfit of the day- my eyes stopped at a picture of the silhouette of a man in a hat. His traits were undistinguishable, and in the back of the picture you could see a bird flying. The picture was in black and white, mostly black really, but in this darkness there was a sort of optimism and beauty I couldn’t help but feel. It was more than just a picture, with such little information I felt like an entire story was being told. This is how I started to follow the photographer Richard Koci Hernandez. On a regular basis I would find on my feed shadows and silhouettes of strangers who could be anyone, places that could be anywhere. I was not the first to be attracted by the universal appeal of these pictures, Koci has been on Instagram from its very beginning and he has since been one of its most popular contributors.
Before becoming an Instagram celebrity, Koci was a traditional photojournalist. The California native fell in love with photography at the age of fourteen during a family trip to Yosemite National park. “We walked into the Ansel Adams photography gallery and I was immediately dumbstruck at the beauty of his photographs,” he said. “What struck me was how he could take the landscape and make it even more beautiful and appealing than it was in real life.” From then on, he grabbed a camera and tried to do the same.
After graduating in journalism in 1993 from San Francisco State University he started to work as a photojournalist for The San Jose Mercury News. For fifteen years he covered the world and has had his work published in some of the biggest news outlets, including The New York Times and National Geographic; he was also twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Following his very successful career, in 2008 Koci decided to take a job as an assisting professor at UC Berkley. His future in the tough photographic industry seemed uncertain and Koci was looking for some security. Teaching seemed like a stable solution and he quickly ended up falling in love with the job.
There is a very minimalistic approach to Koci’s pictures, the use of black and white is recurrent and has become more than a trademark, it is his voice. “Some people are not so comfortable with their artistic voice, I decided to own mine” he said. “I like my blacks to be really black and my whites to be white but most of all I like light. A patch of light and I am like a moth to flame.” The use of black and white strips down his pictures to the bear minimum, making the subject the sole focus, free from any distractions. “I like to bring things back to their essence, in photography it is composition, light and moment, color can distract from that,” he said. “ But don’t get me wrong, some people do amazing things with color it’s just more difficult. I took the easy way.”
Koci’s pictures tell stories but when asked what the story is his answer matches the feeling you have from watching the images. “I capture a moment, I slice pieces of everyday life,” he said. “It is the role of the audience to paint the rest of the picture.” But if there was one message to take from his work it is that, “You can’t have dark without light. This is a universal truth. One doesn’t go without the other.”
As soon as he got a smartphone, he started to shoot most of his work on it. “You can’t beat the convenience. You can shoot and immediately share it,” he said. “I was blown away by Instagram. I’m a photographer because I cannot use words to express myself so Instagram was a visual person’s dream.” It became a communication tool, where he could not only share his work but also get feedback and start conversations with thousands of people.
This curiosity towards others and this will to share and learn is why Koci is a truly remarkable artist that will continue to be relevant. He was already a praised photojournalist when he became an Instagram star. He didn’t not let his notoriety get in the way of embracing new techniques or keep him from moving forward with the times. He was able to reinvent himself and remain interested by the evolutions of the world around him. By doing so he didn’t only manage to get professional recognition, but he was also able to open his universe to thousands of people.
