PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you

April 7, 2010 7:07 PM

"Questioning the modern world in which we are living and trying to break this individualism and the anonymity of the big city. By going into “Non-lieux” (no existing places) (subways, malls, and crowded streets at rush hours …;) and by talking to people to take photos, I break the usual way this modern world works for a few instants. I make real these “non-lieux” by creating an event that the stranger will remember." Welcome to the moving, inspiring and always beautiful world of Benoit Paille's Stranger Project. [some links NSFW]
posted by fight or flight (11 comments total)

Alternative non-flickr link to the series.
posted by fight or flight at 7:10 PM on April 7, 2010

A guy I once knew* wrote a song lyric that went "we're happy to be strangers until we meet/then anything that's keeping you can wait".

Which is true.

-------
*That guy's a stranger again.
posted by notyou at 7:46 PM on April 7, 2010

Love this.
posted by HyperBlue at 8:53 PM on April 7, 2010

Anyone know if the photo in the "beautiful" link is photo-shopped? The eyes certainly do not resemble any shade of blue eyes I've ever seen.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 9:12 PM on April 7, 2010

Not necessarily shopped but, intentionally overexposed.
posted by mek at 10:36 PM on April 7, 2010

Pretty much all professional photos are treated in some manner. Judging by the blues in the hair I would guess that he did some color balancing that affected the color of the eyes.

I love this collection. Very well done.
posted by Scott H at 11:37 PM on April 7, 2010

Mod note: added an nsfw link, full on naked dude pix sort of needs one, carry on
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:07 AM on April 8, 2010

I like this one.
posted by thermonuclear.jive.turkey at 6:25 AM on April 8, 2010

Really enjoyed these images. They aren't alienating, even though the faces may be strange and of strangers. I've always disliked it it when photographers, such as Diane Arbus, made, in my experience of her art, strangers into objects, freaks in a carnival, to be ridiculed or scrutinized as The Other, rather than just people, humans, like us, same blood.

Though there is a Diane Arbus feeling in the rawness, the blunt rawness and strangeness, loneliness too, there is still a loving eye in these photographs. I like that.

Wondered what happened to some of the old time hippies.

On NPR: A photograph of a 53-year-old naked man, sitting on a child's chair, beat out 15,000 other entries from across the world in the Art of Photography competition in San Diego this weekend.
posted by nickyskye at 8:09 AM on April 8, 2010

I would like to put in my vote for the evolution of nsfw. It should include a text description so one can decide if it's not safe for their work.

Nsfw somehow covers everything from "one of fifty photos has ladynipples and a hint of pubic hair" to every scatological depravity out there.
posted by beardlace at 9:49 AM on April 8, 2010

The general deal with NSFW on this site is that if a site has something visual (nudity, graphic sex) or audible (sudden noise, loud noise) where it might not be expected, we'll try to mark it (with the caveat that we can't always do this, so people in situations where they need to be cautious need to be cautious generally). We really see it as mostly binary and there's basically no utility into indicating just how workplace unsafe something is. Sorry for the derail.
posted by jessamyn at 10:17 AM on April 8, 2010