2004 Andrew Moisey
When University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Andrew Moisey began taking a camera on his visits to his younger brother's fraternity, he told himself he was documenting the likely decline of his newly pledged brother.
Now, his efforts to record fraternity life over the course of three years have earned him the 2004 Dorothea Lange Fellowship.
"Other photographers might try to do this project as (older) adults, looking down and back at kids they vaguely remember being," he said. "As I photograph now, I am going through the same stage of life my subjects are, at the same college, with similar dreams and similar problems."
An Oakland resident, Moisey, 24, said he has shown his shots to the fraternity members and that they have no objections to his work. "I like hanging out with them, and they trust me," he said.
His work won the apparent endorsement of the fraternity's online alumni newsletter last year when it published a handful of his photos and an essay by him in a web "extra."
In the essay, Moisey mentions joining the fraternity brothers for dinner, for singing at a bar, and for their trip in a rented Winnebago to the Cal/USC football game. He admits that he didn't originally know much about fraternities beyond stereotype, hearsay, attending some weekend parties, and news reports.
Moisey took up photography as a Berkeley undergraduate to learn more about the camera as part of his double major in film and rhetoric — now he always carries a camera with him. He wrote his undergraduate thesis on documentary photographer Walker Evans and is now a Ph.D. candidate in the film track of the Department of Rhetoric.
"I sort of fell in love with this way of thinking and this way of creating that I just didn't understand, that came from inside and within," he said about photography.
When he began taking pictures about three years ago, Moisey retrieved an old Pentax K1000. It had been a Christmas gift when he was 12 and had never been used. He has since bought a Mamiya 6 with a quiet shutter and a square format for his documentary work, which has ranged from life on the bus to happening in a laundromat where he once worked, and more.
Moisey said he is interested in photographing a wide range of subjects but is particularly curious about the structures of patriarchy in our society and how ritualized societies such as fraternities fit into a "cult of modern masculinity."
Although some people oppose fraternities, many consider them an important college-age stepping stone on the way to a successful and influential career. "I was a photographer who wanted to know what the future of the American upper class did inside those houses," Moisey said.
Toward that end, he said, he plans to use his fellowship funding to buy supplies and gear needed to keep shooting pictures at the fraternity and probing deeper into daily life there. Gaining access and acceptance in the house has been a prime hurdle, one he was able to overcome through his sibling connection. Now many of the current brothers don't recall a time when Moisey wasn't hanging around with his camera.
"What I'm trying to figure out is what makes fraternity brothers different from other college students," he said. Moisey intends to assemble his best work in a book that tells this complex story.
Photo Gallery
When photographer Andrew Moisey’s younger brother decided to join a fraternity, Andrew advised against it. “Your life is going to be driven by your testosterone,” he warned him. But Andrew became intrigued by fraternity life, using his camera to explore how this “cult of masculinity” forms a basis for the “structures of patriarchy” that underpin American society, and that are part of his studies as a graduate student in rhetoric at UC Berkeley.
Getting ready for the annual Awards banquet
There are parallels between awards night at the fraternity house and Oscar night in Hollywood. Each fraternity brother dresses up or down for the event according to his imagination.
Pledge ceremony
The rituals of fraternity life seem silly to some, objectionable to others, but they are the traditions that define a house. Their faces hidden by pillowcases, new pledges make their entrance — their identity is revealed, and cheered, by their “big brothers” during the ceremony.
A rough night
Moisey says fraternity members as a group don’t encourage a brother’s decision to test his endurance for partying. “The individual shoulders this burden entirely for his own satisfaction,” he says.
Having fun with the dog
This dog is the fraternity house mascot, an animal who is everyone’s and no one’s responsibility to train.
The only thing in the refrigerator at midnight
The photographer’s little brother, James, has possessed great skill in the kitchen ever since he was a child. Hard to tell from his selection of late-night snacks at the fraternity house, but James recently finished up a cooking school course in Cambridge, Mass.
PearlsThe stereotype of fraternity members as womanizers persists. More often than not, however, says the photographer, “a brother will learn how to develop long-term relationships during the course of his life in the house.”
Project Proposal
A few years ago James decided he wanted to join a fraternity. As his older brother, I advised him that this wasn't such a good idea. "If you join this thing, James," I told him, "your life is going to be driven by your testosterone." He assured me this wasn't going to happen, but he told me he was going to join no matter what—all his dorm friends were doing it.
I didn't really know much about fraternities when James and I had our conversation—just what I'd learned through hearsay and news reports and going to their weekend parties. Secretly, however, fraternities deeply intrigued me. Many people object to them, yet they remain clandestine and ritualized societies of brotherhood, whose members traditionally ascend to positions of high power in the business and political spheres of our society. I was a photographer who wanted to know what the future of the American upper class did inside those houses. So every time I went to visit my little brother I took my camera with me.
It took a long time, but eventually I gained the trust of James's new brothers. They permitted me to photograph as they went about their daily lives, their weekend parties, and their induction rituals. At the same time, in my rhetoric classes, I was and have been learning about the structures of patriarchy that form the cultural basis of our society. And I have found myself in a unique position as a photographer—I can observe and record just how much this cult of modern masculinity actually forms the basis for the patriarchal structures I have since been studying here at Berkeley. It is to this end that I want to direct my work.
I am a truly devout student of the history of documentary photography. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Walker Evans, and for this project I have studied and been inspired by the work of W. Eugene Smith and the early Life photographers who faithfully tailored the form of their pictures to meet the spirits of their subjects. However, there is something that I feel makes my work different—I am photographing my own peers. Other photographers might try to do this project as adults, looking down and back at kids they vaguely remember being. As I photograph now, I am going through the same stage of life my subjects are, with similar dreams and similar problems. Mine is a project that no photographer has attempted before—and no one is in a better position to faithfully record the spirit of my subjects' lives than I am now.
—Andrew Moisey