Mometimes you have to step back to see the big picture—or not just a step. With his drones, Johnny Miller brings considerable distance between his object and the viewer. But it is precisely this distance that makes some things visible: with her help, the American photographer focuses on social inequality from a lofty height, in his adopted country of South Africa and elsewhere in the world. The project has been running since 2016. From above, he shows what remains hidden from a frog’s perspective: contrasts between districts, houses and landscapes that, from a distance, almost overwhelm the viewer.
The images show the gap between rich and poor with a clarity that sometimes seems almost staged. Between roof terrace with pool and corrugated iron hut. Between a private golf course and densely packed houses in the middle of Mexico City. Between beach resort and slum. The picture from Lima, which shows the so-called Wall of Shame, a wall separating a slum and a wealthy area of the Peruvian capital, looks almost as if he had two photos glued together, the contrast is so stark. But the picture only shows the clean dividing line that really exists.
Real walls also feature in other of Miller’s photographs. An example: the neighborhood of Masiphumelele, about 20 kilometers south of Cape Town. Around 38,000 people live there, sandwiched between the picturesque suburbs of the South African city. It is estimated that around 35 percent of the residents are HIV or tuberculosis positive. The clean line separating these people from their super-rich neighbors is an electric fence.
The colors also speak a clear language in the photographer’s work. Juicy green, because it’s apparently regularly watered, stands next to dusty sandy yellow on a photograph by Kya Sands in South Africa, the ground on which the tin shacks are crowded together. The viewer can literally smell the fresh, humid air between the luxury villas on the one hand and feel the dust in their eyes on the other.
One of the most famous images from the series, which has already been recognized in publications such as Time Magazine, is a photo from Brazil. For Johnny Miller, the huge country is one of the scenes where inequality is most evident: “Millions of people live in slums within sight of expensive luxury villas,” he writes in his photo book “Unequal Scenes”. Miller doesn’t stop at places he longs for: he photographed the luxury hotel “Essque Zalu” in Zanzibar, which uses enormous amounts of water and electricity, while people live next door in simple dwellings. The tourists bring money to the island and are therefore important for the local economy. But the difference between the pools and palm trees on the white sandy beach and the simple huts of the locals – hidden from the ground behind small groves – is striking, as made visible by the aerial view.
“Unequal Scenes” now includes recordings from all over the world, including countries that belong to the “First World”. There is, for example, the homeless tent city between glittering office towers in Seattle in the United States. Johnny Miller does not judge per se with his pictures, he simply shows facts that are otherwise often hidden from the eye. Because most observers are frogs – they can’t afford to fly a helicopter over their area or buy a drone. Although the aircraft are now much cheaper and more widely available, he says it was one of the reasons Miller got into aerial photography in the first place.
It is up to the viewer to evaluate what is portrayed – but it comes to mind: Can so much inequality be fair? Miller himself has an answer: “The sheer scale and unmistakable regularity around the world suggest the systemic nature of inequality…and it’s killing us.”
For more images of Johnny Miller’s photographic work, visit his site or under his Instagram account: @johnny_miller_photography
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