Jack Latham is a British photographer who is best known for his passion for Conspiracy theories and documentary styles photography. For this project - Parliament of owls, he photographed Bohemian Grove and anything that has connections with this subject.
Bohemian Grove is situated in Southern California first established in 1878. During both World Wars, the area was extremely difficult to infiltrate as politicians began to meet here, even the media are unable to enter or get any information from here.
I found it extremely interesting as to why he decided to call the project ‘Parliament of owls’ which he explained very clearly in the lecture he gave us at the University in 2019; in the 2700 acre piece of land, they’re several different species of owls which are secluded from the public due to this being a restricted area, and so he researched the species of owls available here, and he found some that were accessible to him and started to photograph them.
The way he photographed these owls is what attracted me the most as I am looking into photographing certain cameras with this aesthetic.
I would like for my images to fit in my display in a similar way to these with a clear background so the focus is on them.
When he came to the university as a visiting speaker in 2019, I remember him saying that he managed to find a spot where he could see into Bohemian Grove and he was able to get an image of some of the men on the inside, they did see him unfortunately as he was using Large Format camera, however, I found this to be a sort of voyeuristic scene as he was technically trying to get footage without them knowing. It was interesting to see the men inside wearing shorts and a t-shirt when you would sort of expect them to be wearing more formal wear.
Jack Latham - Viewing platform, Monte Rio, 2018
It is interesting how he managed to capture an image of a location which has been kept secret for so long and he did so with a large format camera, so in reality this just shouts to me that no matter where you are, people will always be watching. Even if you are in a highly secret location.