Glimpses is a project inspired by my daily commute to university, in which I observed and documented fellow passengers on the bus. From the voyeuristic viewpoint from which we see others, I was able to witness and experience brief moments of other people’s lives. These snippets and fragments that we are revealed to us is astounding – you hear parts of conversations about love, about friendship, about people’s place in the world. So much emotion is poured out when you’re unaware of being regarded.
This project attempts to capture those fleeting glimpses of lives that we briefly experience around us. Through repeating the daily journey time after time, I was able to be witness to so many different characters being present and just existing around me. The anonymity was managed by keeping a distance of more than 2 metres from the subjects, and using an 85mm lens. It really is key to keeping the mystery alive – we question who are these people, where are they going?
Through doing this project, I have become more aware of how much we subconsciously act in response to other people, for example moving your bag for in case someone wants to sit on that specific seat; we have been engrained to habitually be aware of others. We are aware of other people and it is a point of fascination. Because the subjects here are faceless, they can’t look back at us – so naturally we observe them.
LDillon Photography 