Talk about setting a scene!
Creating an image that seems like an everyday photograph of street life. Creating an image of a place where people are entering another piece of their own world, without them being aware of what happens in their direct environment. That is what Philip Lorca-diCorcia shows in his photographical series Streetworks.
To understand what Philip Lorca-diCorcia wanted to do with this series, we can start to see how the process of making the photographs took place. Before the pictures are taken, carefully a spot in an urban setting is chosen;
So after designing this setup carefully, he does not expect the right person to walk into the scene, but it happens from time to time. So what does he hope for, if it is not coming true? What does he hope and think the picture will look like beforehand? It must be the subjects in his photographs that disappoint him in the end, because they are the only thing left up to chance. They use the space of this photograph in their own way, it can not be directed. And so we all inhabit the spaces that are designed around us.
Havana, 1999, Philip Lorca-diCorcia
The theme of the series, when looking through them, there is a feeling of isolation; people are alone with their thoughts in the crowded context that surrounds them. It reflects the individualisation of the world, where people are disconnected from each other and their surroundings. There exists an unawareness in these subjects. Without the realisation of where they are, and oblivious of who they are with and of what it is they are doing.
Londen, 1993, Philip Lorca-diCorcia
This sense of obliviousness is something which can reflect on a lot of people in the current development of globalization. Everything is preconsidered for us. Spaces are adjusted to what is known and they are mostly designed by these ‘standardizations’ that have developed over centuries. They make us move in certain directions without even thinking sometimes. How many times have a cycled down the same sort of road, being unaware of people greeting me, until you are called out of your individual line of thought, which has nothing to do with were you are at the moment; and when you arrive at the end of the road, the time that’s past on this one road, is not realised in your mind, you don’t remember anything of the reality of how you got there, it has become an everyday ritual and you can do it without being aware of anything in your environment, which is the reality.
In his Streetworks series, Philip Lorca-diCorcia highlights these everyday rituals as being something more or at least something different from time to time, if seen from another side. The people in his picture make the space around them what it is, without them knowing it. Take them away and what will you have? An empty street, with buildings, all made with the preconceived thought that it would be used in a certain way; a stage set is created by Philip Lorca-diCorcia. People follow the rules of usage of this reality space, but he waits for them to do something else with this space, something that makes the picture.
Highlighting the people in the scene is also done by Barry Frydlender, an Israelian photographer from Tel Aviv. Although he doesn’t use additional lighting that is set up beforehand, like diCorcia does, still his pictures, like the Tube, 2005, can have the same effect as Lorca-diCorcia’s. There are people in the scene, who are not taking notice of their designed environment; they are in their own individual space, even whilst they are among other people.
The Tube, 2005, Barry Frydlender
Even when around a very large number of people these pictures can show this individualism that is growing in the world, especially in the city, this is apparent in the works of both these photographers, for instance The Last Peace demonstration, 2004, by Frydlender or New York, 1998 , by Lorca-diCorcia.
The last peace demonstration, 2004, Barry Frydlender
New York, 1998, Philip Lorca-diCorcia
The people in the different urban settings all look another way. They don’t notice each other, and most are not looking at their environment either. They are in their own thoughts, their own world. The people that are highlighted by the photographer, by either natural or unnatural light, are the one's we can see looking the other way, never looking at anything real.
By setting up a scene beforehand, Lorca-diCorcia sees what he wants to depict beforehand. His intentions must be to show the individualism that lives in the current world of globalization, which is apparent in cities around the world. He wants to show in his photographs how this is affecting people, possibly protest, but at the least make people think about this way of living where the space around us, and the people, are dismissed.
