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Eros Hoagland lives the life I thought I wanted. He travels to the world’s darkest corners with just his camera for a shield. His father John Hoagland was a highly respected photojournalist who was killed covering the conflict in El Salvador in 1984. I met Eros while I was in El Salvador in 2004 where he was documenting the escalating gang wars that had resulted from the mass deportation of Salvadorian gangsters from LA. As our conversation deepened, I realized that it takes not only incredible strength and commitment to be a relevant conflict photographer, but also the ability to totally detach from what you are seeing through the viewfinder. As Eros says, “you are not there to help, you are there to document.” This is Eros washing off the blood and dust at P-Pass. Photo: Richard Kotch
I never really wanted to be a surf photographer. I always appreciated it as an art form, and I greatly admired the photographers’ skills but was never really drawn to it myself. I have always been fascinated with conflict photography. Gritty, hard-hitting images from the world’s war zones that would stop and shock you. I would naively romanticize on disappearing into Central America, the mountains of Afghanistan, or the streets of Northern Ireland before reappearing months later with rolls of gnarly black and white images that would be run on the front pages of the world’s biggest newspapers to shock society into action for peace.
It never turned out that way and I have ended up living a quite idyllic life drifting between the Maldives, Indo and Micronesia with my beautiful wife Amy. I think you could say that I got lucky.
See more of Richard Kotch’s work at richardkotchphotography.com and the image that won him the #SpringFwd Instagram contest.