Check out these leather biker gang jackets! ELMC they are NOT!

[Stand By]

And I wouldn't dare anyone to say that the German helmet looks a bit small on him …

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3119817/Haunting-portraits-notorious-gang-New-Zealand.html

 

[nick123]

They'd make excellent Ed Hardy models...

 

[Monitor]

The photos are certainly cool, but that's just too many hakenkreuz for my liking. Cool patina on mr. Bung Eyes jacket. lol

 

[navetsea]

really cool photos, lol about the nazi love, Hitler would have sent them first to the gas chamber before anyone else.

 

[Monitor]

I think these guys would've ended up in Dirlewanger's 36th.

 

[Stand By]

I think these guys would've ended up in Dirlewanger's 36th.

I'd never heard of that brigade - have just looked them up on Wikipedia to see what you meant …
Good Lord.

 

[Monitor]

I'd never heard of that brigade - have just looked them up on Wikipedia to see what you meant …
Good Lord.

Yep, that was pretty much my reaction when I first heard of 'em. Reading about all this crap Nazis had come up with, like the above mentioned brigade among countless other things, or the Japanese Unit 731, it's that sort of stuff that makes me think they never truly had a chance at winning the war...

 

[Stand By]

Yep, that was pretty much my reaction when I first heard of 'em. Reading about all this crap Nazis had come up with, like the above mentioned brigade among countless other things, or the Japanese Unit 731, it's that sort of stuff that makes me think they never truly had a chance at winning the war...

Pure, undiluted evil.
Thankfully we'll never know!

 

[Smithy]

As a Kiwi I saw the Mob around quite a few times and even spoke to a couple of members on two occasions - very, very scary fellas, you would not want to **** with them.

The Nazi stuff is exactly the same as pvnks in the 70s, it's an anti-establishment thing for shock value.

Amazing photos.

 

[Superfluous]

In this context, it’s a very thin line between documentation and glorification. These guys are the personification of evil. The photographer claims that he is merely documenting their culture and way of life. I get that. However, their way of life is depraved and malignant, with no redeeming value. They are murders, robbers, arsonists, rapists, drug traffickers, and Nazis, for whom crime is a daily enterprise, and they do not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way. Therefore, while I see the benefit of documenting their savage and barbaric culture, the documentation should not exalt, glorify or even dignify their inhuman existence. IMHO, these photos have an element of dignification. The subjects are posed and, to the extent possible, made to look interesting and notorious. One of the photos includes two children, which is plainly designed to evoke a positive, empathetic response. I would rather see these guys photographed in prison, or walking to the gas chamber. They do not deserve artistic glorification or preservation.

 

[Monitor]

In this context, it’s a very thin line between documentation and glorification. These guys are the personification of evil. The photographer claims that he is merely documenting their culture and way of life. I get that. However, their way of life is depraved and malignant, with no redeeming value. They are murders, robbers, arsonists, rapists, drug traffickers, and Nazis, for whom crime is a daily enterprise, and they do not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way. Therefore, while I see the benefit of documenting their savage and barbaric culture, the documentation should not exalt, glorify or even dignify their inhuman existence. IMHO, these photos have an element of dignification. The subjects are posed and, to the extent possible, made to look interesting and notorious. One of the photos includes two children, which is plainly designed to evoke a positive, empathetic response. I would rather see these guys photographed in prison, or walking to the gas chamber. They do not deserve artistic glorification or preservation.

Amen to that.

 

[Stand By]

And the "Sons of Anarchy" TV show has clearly added to the public interest (chic?) in biker gangs …
But these guys are the real deal - and they scare the bejeezus out of me!

 

[Smithy]

In this context, it’s a very thin line between documentation and glorification. These guys are the personification of evil. The photographer claims that he is merely documenting their culture and way of life. I get that. However, their way of life is depraved and malignant, with no redeeming value. They are murders, robbers, arsonists, rapists, drug traffickers, and Nazis, for whom crime is a daily enterprise, and they do not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way. Therefore, while I see the benefit of documenting their savage and barbaric culture, the documentation should not exalt, glorify or even dignify their inhuman existence. IMHO, these photos have an element of dignification. The subjects are posed and, to the extent possible, made to look interesting and notorious. One of the photos includes two children, which is plainly designed to evoke a positive, empathetic response. I would rather see these guys photographed in prison, or walking to the gas chamber. They do not deserve artistic glorification or preservation.

First off they are not Nazis. As I mentioned previously, the Nazi paraphernalia is for an anti-establishment shock value.

In terms of the way they have been photographed it's clearly a direct reference to Goldie's hyper-real portraits of Maori which are enormously evocative to NZers and hold such resonance. He's definitely trying to make a statement in art historical terms by photographing them in this way.

Not trying to take away from the fact that these fellows have been responsible for some terrible crimes in NZ but just trying to put the photos in a NZ art historical perspective for those not from there.

 

[Stearmen]

It's a shame what happened to the whole outlaw biker thing! Originally, they were WWII veterans who called themselves 1%ers, because, they wanted to race what ever they had, and not what the AMA told them to. Yes they drank and got into fights, but, it was mostly about the thrill of speed, and with no one trying to kill you while you got your adrenalin rush! Groups like the early Hells Angels and Boozehounds, just wanted to have a good time without having to salute any one. Unfortunately, the former group was taken over by scum, and the rest is history. Ironically, the whole gang thing helped revive Harley, they adopted the look with the HOG patch on the back and vagarious rockers sown onto leather jackets, riding in large groups, with loud pipes, funny how that worked.

 

[Big J]

Yep, that was pretty much my reaction when I first heard of 'em. Reading about all this crap Nazis had come up with, like the above mentioned brigade among countless other things, or the Japanese Unit 731, it's that sort of stuff that makes me think they never truly had a chance at winning the war...

I probably told you this before, but I had a colleague once tell me that we only won the war because of our 'sneaky' atom bomb. I told him that we won because our ideology was better. He said that he didn't understand. I told him that China was the most populous nation in the world, should have treated them well as allies, instead of trying to kill them all.

 

[Benny Holiday]

I don't care how messed up or 'tough' those scumbags are supposed to be, I'd still defy them to have walked past my Dad 30 years ago wearing Nazi paraphernalia and come out in one piece. A big Nazi skinhead made that mistake once when Dad was 60. It took 4 blokes to get the old man off him . . .