Out of all the galleries we visited in Chelsea the Yossi Milo Gallery with photos by Pieter Hugo was my favorite.  Two pictures caught my attention and this was the first one.  Situated near the entrance of the gallery this photo depicts a man having a cigarette.  I could not help but  compare it to the famous “The Kramer” painting from the hit television series Seinfeld.  The resemblance is very interesting, but with that aside I really liked this photo because of the realistic simplicity of it.  It’s just a man having a cigarette and there is something about that simplicity that makes the photo very easy to understand.  The man has wrinkles all over his face, possibly suggesting his struggles in life, yet he has a double sided smile when enjoying the cigarette. One could say it is a neutral expression or even slight smirk of content.

The next photo that caught my attention was one of a tree and a man, which was in the back of the gallery.  At the end of the gallery viewing it was explained that a possible influence for these photos was the Apartheid in South Africa (where these photos were taken).  Unlike the first photo, this one below spoke to me as being influenced by the Apartheid.  The South African man is joined to the tree at the base, possibly holding on to it because it is bound to him in some way.  As I observed him laying there prostrate I thought of how the White man subjugated the South Africans into segregated communities during the Apartheid.  The picture really brought this to life for me because the tree being blown in one direction is representative of the inequality present during Apartheid.  Since the tree is on the opposite side of the African man it is in favor of White dominance. Yet the man holds on, hoping that the tree will soon cover both sides and he will not be treated unfairly anymore.