Feature Work: One Hundred People Project

The Hundred People Project represents a segment of the population that lives or works in one neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Most of the people who make up the project are artists of some kind. They have come to New York from all over the world in order to pursue their craft, whether it's acting, painting, cooking, or writing. And they are all united in the pursuit to perfect their craft. Because each photo is unplanned, done on the spur of the moment, the camera captures each person as they would appear on any given day, on their way to the subway or going out for their morning coffee.

The project leaves room for imperfection, for spontaneity, in other ways as well. The shots are taken with a 4X5 view camera, a camera that allows a photographer to control every step in the process, but which also requires extra time and concentration, admitting more room for error. They could have been shot in digital, making it easy and cheap to re-do any flawed shots, but film, the riskier medium, results in a richer, more substantial image. The presentation of the pictures, each portrait actually two shots, top and bottom, cut and pasted together, further underscores the fact that these images are objects. They have mass, and they will persist, a record of the people that inhabited a particular place at a particular time.

Finally, the stark white background of the studio allows the individual to emerge from the other common background of neighborhood and class. So while each person has become, through the project, part of something greater than themselves, we see beyond the things that bind them together, to the qualities and characteristics that set them apart, the things that belong to them alone.