Fifteen participants contributed 41 images in response to Tim Ewbank’s challenge to photograph people from behind. Strangers, friends, relatives and the self were engaged as subjects. They were variously cycling, painting, jogging, climbing, feeding swans, going to work, walking the dogs, sitting in cafes, taking photographs and having a haircut. Venues ranged from Japan to Cornwall, Canary Wharf to Cambridge and Verona to Oxburgh. Many people felt free to include images not made during lockdown, suggesting they were not inspired by the challenge. Few managed to achieve the sense of mystery that is essential to the ruckenfigur. We Zoomed to look at and discuss the images on the 29th June – much of it was anecdotal or technical (including a minor obsession with straight horizons). All images are available at https://www.zimbushboy.org/lockdown-2020.
I tried to see my three pictures within the framework of why they were taken, what they are of and what they are about. They have appeared previously as Covid 19 posts.
Photo 1, Selfie Why: To meet the requirements of the brief. Of: Me. About: It’s a challenge to the essential vanity of the selfie.
Photo 2, Couple, St Mary’s Street, Cambridge Why: To meet the requirements of the brief with a piece of street photography. Of: Two visitors from somewhere in the Far East strolling around the centre of Cambridge in the quiet days of lockdown. About: How much can be revealed by the view from behind – youth, elegance and otherness. It’s also a comment on our current social distancing rules.
Photo 3, Senate House Hill, Cambridge Why: To meet the requirements of the brief and catch what I saw as an interesting composition. Of: A woman making a guided tour of Cambridge by phone (I had seen her in several other places). About: the contrast between new and old; and the role of technology in sharing and virtual tourism in the time of lockdown.