Untitled, Jeremy Dawson

Jeremy Dawson

Untitled. From The series Men in Suits. 1993.

Gelatin-Silver Print.

16x20 inches.

The photo I selected was from Photography Reborn: Image Making in the Digital Era by Johnathan Lipkin. Dawson’s photographs are somewhat humorous because the images combine street photography and surveillance like images together. After Dawson takes a photo he uses digital technology to alter the image or images. Dawson does this by combining two images together, usually one right on top of another image. He used a 35mm camera, but later put both images on a normal piece of photographic paper, so it looked like one image. The best part about his work is that the viewer does not know if the images have been manipulated or if they are real. Jeremy Dawson was known for these kinds of street photography images that have been manipulated.

The photo I selected was of a man with a briefcase walking past a group of business men looking through a fence in the city. The man with the briefcase doesn’t seem to notice what the other men are looking at, nor does he care. At first glance it’s hard to believe that the image is real. The man walking past the others does not seem to fit into the same scene as the other men. All the other men are very similar to one another, they are dressed the same and are all balding, which is actually kind of funny. The image is intriguing because we don’t know if it was manipulated, nor does the viewer know what the men are looking at beyond the fence. It’s a mystery and could even be a crime scene. Another reason it’s mysterious is because of what’s in the briefcase that the man is carrying.