Føtex-projektet The joy of looking at people

One day in April 2010 the camera was taken out from the bag it is carried in, I found myself outside a supermarket close to where I live, found a place to sit, and began to take head shots of one person after the other walking on the sidewalk outside of the supermarket.

When you look at faces through a zoom lens, what happens is that the person you look at becomes the center of attention because there are no details in the periphery of your vision to distract you as you are looking at this one face.

So I was having something to do while I was sitting still, I was enjoying myself looking at one face after the other entering into the frame of the camera, and enjoying immensely the difference between the faces, their unique expressions, the smiles, the glances, the moods reflected in the expressions of these people who were passing by one after the other. Magic.

When you sit still and look, you realize that you don’t have to move to experience a city, the city comes to you.

What at first glance seems ordinary - like an elderly woman with a white bike - is impregnated with meaning when you have the time to look closer. The skin on her flesh that vibrates when she walks, oh, apparently she likes strawberries, she’s carrying a trey that I assume she bought in the supermarket a couple of minutes ago and is now taking out to the street. She walks fast, maybe she did so all her life, not necessarily because she is busy, it’s just her way of moving.

The street never tires of telling you stories, and these stories are frankly very touching, I fall in love with it, I think everyone would see what I mean if they slowed down and simply observed life as it plays itself out in front of our eyes. A sense of gratitude, a sense of connection, a need to smile, and the mild surprise, perhaps, we feel when freshly realizing what we already know: that we’re all in this together and not as separate from each other and from the world as many of us feel we are, seem to be feeling at least.

159 days were spent outside the supermarket photographing people, without a plan. I just enjoyed collecting faces. All these photographs are here now for you to see in Føtex-projektet. I don’t know what you will make of them. Time will tell.

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