"Project I": Unknown elderly citizens

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week is the “Project I” series by Irish photo artist Imon Doyle, who is shooting unusual portraits of elderly people whose faces and destinies are inconspicuously passing by us every day.

I studied photography and art at the end of the 80s in Dublin, this is one of my last episodes. I felt the need to maximally free myself from the context and subtexts in the images, including, in most cases, the faces of people. I was always attracted to such heroes, but usually I avoided shooting them. Portraits of the elderly, as a rule, go over-saturated and clichéd. Despite the fact that I shot from a very close perspective, almost from the perspective of a street robber, I tried to behave as respectfully and respectfully as possible. These photos capture only a short episode from the lives of these people, but I would like to believe that they evoke good feelings and empathy in the viewer. In each person's life there are troubles and misfortunes, even if their essence is not always possible to catch and grasp. The fact that, with rare exceptions, no faces are visible in these photos, it evokes thoughts about the unknowability and inconspicuousness of these heroes, and perhaps applies to all those bystanders who we encounter every day on the streets. Most often, people did not even realize that they were being shot. I usually use a wide angle, because of what I have to shoot at a distance of half a meter, so people think that I shoot something behind them. I try to get closer to the heroes of the picture as close as possible, while not violating the stage setting and the natural course of things. For me, as soon as people notice a camera or a photographer, the shot is killed, but this did not make me change the shooting method - there is a risk in this, but this is also interesting. The name of the project refers to Samuel Beckett’s play “Not Me” (in the production of which only the narrator’s mouth is covered. - Ed.).