Project: People – unrecognisable

Using people to suggest usage of a place is not a new thing. Many examples can be seen in relatively old photographs. In ‘Street Photography’ by Clive Scott we can see Maurice Bucquet’s ‘Rainy Day in Paris’ from c.1898

By shooting into the light he has used silhouettes to make the people anonymous, so directing the viewer to look at the street. The group of people also make the individuals anonymous.

Marcel Bovis’ ‘The Swings at Denfert-Rochereau’ (1931) also mixes techniques to make the people anonymous.

Here he uses motion blur and crowds to put more emphasis on the swings.

In John Szarkowski’s ‘The Photographer’s Eye’ Edward Steichen’s ‘Sunday Papers’ (c.1922) is shown.

The person’s anonymity is achieved by obscuring the face as the head is turned away.

Charles J. Van Schaick also uses a combination of techniques in ‘Special Car of Travelling Minstrel Show’ (c. 1905).

Here he uses a group in the distance and the man in the foreground to point the way to the rail car, so the techniques of ‘small and many’ and ‘facing away’ are used to good effect here.

‘The Genius of Photography’ by Gerry Badger shows an excellent example of ‘silhouette’ in Robert Adams’ photograph below:

The framing of the woman in the square of light brings the dwelling to life. Without the silhouette the house against the clear sky would be nothing. With the silhouette it’s a place that’s lived in and also a powerful piece of art.

Norman McGrath’s ‘Photographing buildings inside and out’ has several images where people have been used to make the buildings ‘live’. I’ve chosen two which demonstrate some of the techniques addressed in this section.

In this first image he’s used a slow shutter speed because of the relatively low lighting. The effect is ‘motion blur’ caused by the movement of people during the exposure. This effectively makes the people unrecognisable while the seating of this hall is shown crisply.

This image demonstrates the use of ‘small and many’ people in an image, to show the scale of an interior. Their size within the image is so small that their faces are unrecognisable, but their inclusion gives the building a sense of use as well as size.

Looking online, the following websites were of interest:

http://www.adamburtonphotography.com/gallery Adam Burton is a renowned landscape photographer and while the majority of his images are landscape panoramas, the odd ones are enhanced by the inclusion of people:

Heading Home – Deception Island, Antarctica

The inclusion of the group of people ‘small and many’ brings colour to an otherwise almost colourless landscape. This inclusion doesn’t detract from the landscape, but gives it ‘life’ and scale.

Looking at the Magnum website and at the work of Abbas, there are several examples where he makes the people anonymous to portray the usage of a space. In his Mali Catholic Missionaries, 1994 we see this celebration of mass

Although the majority of the congregation is facing away from the camera, there is no doubt of the way this space is being used.

In his Nepal collection we see the Brahmin priest performing a ritual in a Hindu temple, to the memory of a deceased.

Using a high viewpoint the participants’ faces are hidden from view, directing the viewer to the way the space is being used.

Chris Steele-Perkins’ image of Kings Cross Station uses the crowds to show the way the station is being used:

Although the crowds are the main way in which the anonymity is used, there’s also a degree of motion blur as well as people facing away from the camera.

We can see from many of these images that more than one technique is being used in individual photographs. I’ll bear this in mind when shooting the next exercise.