This photo collection is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “Man of the Crowd,” delving into urban alienation and the enigmatic nature of human beings. It explores the idea of the “flâneur”. Flâneur is a French word used by Baudelaire, literally meaning “stroller” or “loafer”. A detached urban observer, strolling with the purpose of absorbing modern life. Though, in this collection a “flâneur” is a curious observer wandering city streets, reflecting on being watched by another flâneur.
“Gazing on other people’s reality with curiosity, with detachment, with professionalism, the ubiquitous photographer operates as if that activity transcends class interests, as if its perspective is universal. In fact, photography first comes into its own as an extension of the eye of the middle-class flâneur, whose sensibility was so accurately charted by Baudelaire. The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world “picturesque.””
—دربارهی عکاسی - سوزان سانتاگ
—دربارهی عکاسی - سوزان سانتاگ
