Category Archives: Ruckenfigur – Rear View

Once again the sea exerts its fatal attraction on ruckenfigurs.  Do they envy those by the sea, or are they just happy to be wrapped up warm on dry land? Photo: Sheringham, Norfolk, 29th August 2011

Like most ruckenfigur these airport waiters with their name cards focus on some distant prospect.  Unlike most ruckenfigurs they have little idea of what they are looking at, it’s prospect as potential – a mystery figure will eventually emerge and, with a … Continue reading →

Another active ruckenfigur.  A beach entertainer performs to the ghost of the West Pier.  What a pity Brighton was not as adroit at balancing the needs of conservation and development when the Pier was more than rusting scrap iron. Photo: … Continue reading →

Ruckenfigurs tend to be static, here they move, albeit at a stately pace, into the view rather than contemplating it. Photo: Goring, Worthig, Sussex, 25th July 2011

Someone contemplates the sad remains of Brighton’s West Pier, a salutory tale of how not to conserve our heritage. Photo: Brighton, 22nd July 2011

Flying visit to Brighton and an hour walking along the prom.  Picture paradise. Photo: Brighton, 22nd July 2011

Ely Folk Festival 2011.  Family event.  Dogs and children welcome.  Is sitting back to the band a critical comment? Photo: Ely Folk Festival, 9th July 2011

Photo: New Street Square, London, 6th July 2011

What assumptions do we make about this person based on a rear view? Photo: Green Park, London, 25th May 2011

The rückenfigur contemplates the landscape or events, is drawn into the scene or the action.  The photographer may observe the rückenfigur without knowing what induces the reverie – the face and the scene remain mysteries. Photo: Aldeburgh, 14th February 2011

Analogue at Riflemaker, a requiem for the darkroom.  Cluttered spaces, tidy spaces; stacks of red white and yellow boxes; coffee cups, CDs, snaps pinned to walls.  The memories of the acrid redolence of dev-stop-fix and the magical emergence of images. … Continue reading →

To London to see ‘Eadweard Muybridge’ at Tate Britain, 10th January 2011.  The exhibition includes three examples of rückenfigur: a figure with a gun beside a lake, in the Brandenburg Album; five figures, again looking out over a lake, Solalo … Continue reading →