Being alone can lead to many emotions such as sadness, anxious and loneliness. Many photographers who work alone are likely to experience this and its just as important to document it. In her book, Olivia Laing talks about how loneliness is ‘less a state than it is a fixed part of our identity’.
Sam Hellmann’s work ‘Love and Loneliness’ explores these two emotions that we are all too familiar with. Photographing these emotions can be challenging though, you have ‘to have something that is truthful and personal but not too personal that people feel excluded from it.’
Documenting loneliness is important as so many people experience it but it is not talked about enough. Cedric Roux addresses the subject in his long term project, ‘Solitude Urbaine’. He portrays the feeling of loneliness, evoking the sense of isolation. He developed his work from singular portraits as he said ‘the feeling of loneliness is far more complex than can be communicated by simply isolating a subject in the city’.
I read a blog post by Nico Goodden, he photographed people alone in London. But he said solitude doesn’t always mean sadness. It can mean joy, freedom and independence. He wants to represent the theme of loneliness in a way that people can relate to him. That maybe it is not always a negative emotions.
But why is is important to document loneliness? For the photographer it can help them explore their own thoughts and ideas. To start to understand such a complex emotion. For the subject, a connection with someone might be exactly what they need. And for the viewer, an awareness on a topic they might be completely unaware of.
Lucy Davis 