"When we do right, nobody remembers. When we do wrong, nobody forgets."

Bandanas and leathers, Sportsters and Fat Boys, no helmets.
Wind-blown hair, well-worn boots, Ray-Ban shades.
Ragged clothes, imagined reek of pot, concluded don’t-give-a-shit attitudes.
Bona fide badasses.

These boys and their old ladies are hardened, weathered from a chosen life on the road. They look beat, yet loving every second of it. I would hate to meet any one, or ten, of them in a dark alley, and still, this lifestyle is so...cool to me. The fact that Bill Ray, photographer, was able to capture The Hells Angels is fascinating, really. I feel like I’m getting a sneak peek into the daily life of this gang, even though the photos were taken nearly 50 years ago.
34 images in a series give you plenty to view. I looked through them three, maybe four times, and saw something new in each one, every time. Only the first is in color and the last doesn’t give any hint as to the nature of the six friends sitting around the table. The arrangement seems purely random, which fits with its subjects. Naturally, a story is being told, even if only bits and pieces are given at random. There are holes, holes that allow a viewer to fill in details. My imagination ran wild with assumptions. I couldn’t possibly try to tell those stories with confidence; I’m not a bona fide badass. But I’ve sort of met one.

It was the summer of 2011. I was working two jobs, one selling food (which I still do), another selling bikes on the weekends. Five minutes before closing on a Friday afternoon, an older gentleman sauntered in the shop, looking like hell. His face was cherry-red, beard split in two from the ride, and he carried himself with a kind of audacity I’ve never seen before. I said hello to him, and got nothing. Not even an acknowledgement of my presence. Rude. Getting that suspicious feeling in my stomach, I kept a close eye on him. Then he eventually turned his back to me and my jaw hit the floor. This man’s jacket looked very, very similar to ones seen in the photos taken by Ray—perhaps that’s why the series struck such a chord with me. Right in front of me was a true Hells Angel. (This, and some of his story, was later confirmed by a coworker.) He didn’t stay long and I was chipper in my farewell. Not once did this tough guy look directly at me or speak a single word. And that, frankly, sent a chill down my spine.

The photos in the series don’t give me that sort of feeling. There’s a message here: look how real we are. On my fifth or sixth viewing, I started to read the captions under the photos and admittedly, that really helped with the holes, maybe even changed my perception.

Bandanas and leathers, Sportsters and Fat Boys, no helmets.
Wind-blown hair, well-worn boots, Ray-Ban shades.
Ragged clothes, imagined reek of pot, concluded don’t-give-a-shit attitudes.
Bona fide…misunderstood softies?




http://life.time.com/culture/never-seen-hells-angels-1965/#ixzz1lfBE8IKJ