Surveillance
sərˈveɪ.əns
The act of monitoring behaviours, activities or
changing information. The word surveillance is the French word for
"watching over"; "sur" means "from above" and
"veiller" means "to watch".
On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I went up to the
photographer's gallery in Soho as a trip for inspiration. On the fifth floor, I
placed myself on the edge of the building window. I had a clear view of what
was happening at the ground level. I set up my tripod and started taking
photographs of people walking past. After a while, I noticed a couple sitting
down in the same place for a long time with their back against the wall. I
turned my camera towards them and took their photographs while they ate their
lunch, had their coffee, checked their phone, talked and watched around. They
were completely unaware of what was happening, just like most of us are when we
walk past hundreds of surveillance cameras as we take walks, board buses, trains, go shopping etc. In the way I
had become a floating persona, and was able to view the world in an altogether
different perspective as a photographer. I became an invisible surveillance
camera without realising and in a way "exposing" the people I
photographed.
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