Photographer Turns Most Ridonkulous American Laws into Pictures
Californians can't legally ride bikes in pools, a clever photographer shows.
Did you know that it's illegal to store an ice cream in your back pocket in Alabama? One dare not imagine the horrifying tragedy that must have engendered this law. The destruction of such a very fine pair of acid-wash Levi's. The cruel, undeserved fate of the ice cream.
Ludicrously entertaining, yes, but this is just one of infinite madcap laws that have been passed in the US over time, and now a young photographer is cleverly drawing attention to them through a series of images titled I Fought the Law. Recent School of Visual Arts grad, 22-year-old Olivia Locher, is working through every American state in turn, selecting the weirdest law of each to express as a photograph.
Known for her colourful work and currently seeking Kickstarter funding for a fairly bizarre and intriguing cult-inspired film featuring lean girls in matching underwear, Locher has chosen the literal route for representing the unusual laws, and you can scope them all out here.
Below we have included some of Locher's chronicle of what's verboten, to act as a kind of visual warning manifesto. Back that fixie away from the diving board, hombre, because in Cali it's absolutely forbidden to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool. Enjoying more than two dildos in the privacy of your own Arizonan home? The cops are onto you. (But this instructional video may prove helpful, should you choose to defend your hobbies).
Meanwhile, in enlightened Wisconsin, serving apple pie without cheese is an illegal act. Why? Why should this be so? Does cheese even taste any good with apple pie? The boys in blue don't care for your existential line of inquiry. Coins can't legally be placed in human ears on the island of Hawaii, and Texan children are denied the legal right to get a weird haircut. Little Bobby wants a groovy mullet? Cuff 'im.
