April 2020
Dear reader,
you're probably visiting this website because you know the name Jo Hammar (often misspelled as Jo Hammer or Joe Hammer) mainly as a photographer.
And you might have wondered why the website of JH (www.johammar.com) had been switched off for quite some time.
The reason for this was that JH is no longer professionally active (we now have 2020, he turned 74 this year), and that therefore he felt that his website would no longer be necessary.
Well, that was and is quite wrong, hundreds of enquiries over the last few years say the opposite. And I share that opinion.
I, Helena, have been his wife for many years now, and I have made it my mission to bring the site back to life for all the friends and fans of JH.
It looks different now, but is online again under the same domain (www.johammar.com).
JH has led an adventurous life. He was air force officer - fighter bomber pilot, survival expert, close combat specialist, wing commander; he was touristic manager of a hotel in the rainforest of Malaysia; general manager of a famous night club in Hamburg, Germany; director of a crocodile breeding farm in Venezuela as part of a nature conservation programme; president of a television production company in North Hollywood, California; and a restless globetrotter all his life -
but he became known to a global audience primarily as a freelance photographer, especially as a PLAYBOY and FETISH photographer.
Therefore, this website is mainly concerned with the decades of his activities as a photographer (advertising & fashion, music business, nude & fetish, reports & nature/wildlife), but also provides an overview of his entire life.
For months I have looked through the large archives of JH together with him - many hundreds of voucher copies and many tens of thousands of transparencies.
The result is this website - a small selection of pictures from JH's photographer's life (nevertheless there are total nearly 400 pictures on this website) and a lot of informative text.
JH who is of Swedish origin has lived in many countries - Sweden, USA, Spain, Germany as well as on the Philippines, on the Canary Islands, on several Caribbean islands like Barbados and Nevis, on the Pacific Island Vanuatu, in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Borneo, Singapore, Venezuela and others.
Today, JH and I live together in a secluded paradise wilderness, but he still participates very actively in social, political, scientific and global life. And of course he still is a passionate photographer.
You want to know more about JH? Read here - A Closer Look
Heartily
Helena Hammar