P & P - People Interacting with Place - Exercise 3 - Making figures anonymous

This exercise asks for some photographs to be taken that include a person or people in a particular place but make them deliberately unrecognisable.

When i started thinking about this and looking at some of the suggestions for the exercise there are a lot of ways in which this can be done but the art is to capture moments that can tell a story. This then becomes more difficult since most images of people contain their faces, and its through their faces, their expressions, and their body language that we can understand the emotion and often its this that we want to express in the final image.

The challenge is to take some images that contain unrecognisable people and that the image is primarily about the place.

I've continued to convert my images into mono as I feel I can lose the distraction of colour and move the viewer to my subject more easily



Image 1

In this image I've used the 2 trees to help contain the image and the key figure in the foreground has their head down whilst using their mobile phone. For anyone who has seen the youtube clip "Look-Up" its prime example how using a mobile phone for reasons other than making a call can isolate you to what is going on. The lady certainly didn't see me taking her photograph.

Whilst Gary Turk's "Look-Up" video suggests we look up and away from of "devices of delusion" as mentioned in my earlier post with quotes from Cartier-Bresson I feel I have also started to learn to look-up and see things, things I can begin to capture with my camera. For those that haven't seen this video, do watch this and listen carefully to the words, also wonder think how you could also apply this to photography:

Look-Up Video Clip



Image 2

Under exposing the image and adjusting the contrast has given greater anonymity to the person in the foreground looking away from the camera and also to the people walking toward the camera.

Is this simply a timely capture, is the darkened figure stationary waiting in the dark for those in the light to move into the dark, or is the person stationary and wary of the people walking toward them?

Photography can create awareness and give clarity to a situation but it can also cause some confusion. If it creates a talking point then perhaps the photographer has succeeded


Image 3

A side on view maintains the anonymity of the couple but placing them in the foreground gives more interest, especially with the lady's finger pointing at an item. The lead in line as a diagonal also takes the eye past the couple and to the people sitting a tables in the street. I've used a blue filter which gives more contrast to the image and also darkens the tree in background which is important as I feel this is the final resting place of the eye as it move through the couple, the people at the table and then to the trees.

Image 4

Initially the man with the dogs was interested in what I was doing, waiting around taking the occasional picture allowed me to wait until he become interested in another subject and I could capture the moment when he became anonymous to the camera.

Looking at the image I wonder which person captured his interest but if you look at the reflection behind him in the shop window it perhaps answers the question?