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The Enduring Spell of Visual Tension on the Streets of Paris
Exploring ambiguity in photographic storytelling and the natural urge to resolve mysteries
As a general rule, I don’t like to mix my work life and my private life. I spend so much time in the office, I would rather view the street as a refuge from work than an extension of it.
Yet that doesn’t mean that these spheres never cross.
Whilst I do photography outside of work, I pretty much got into it because of it: I wanted a hobby to let off some steam, and as I write for a living, the idea of spilling even more ink would have doubtless given me an aneurysm. The act of writing is mentally taxing enough — especially when your words seldom survive intact beyond client presentations.
But aside from work formally introducing me to the world of photography, it also taught me a valuable lesson in visual communication. It doesn’t have an official name, as far as I’m aware, so I’ll just call it completing the circle.
The idea is that for communicating certain ideas visually, it sometimes pays not to show something in a straightforward way, but to portray it in a slightly unexpected manner — either by withholding certain details or by twisting the details that are present.
