It’s ironic when you think about it. Cities have never been more crowded with people. Yet for those who live in them, it's common to feel lonely and isolated.
London photographer Mark Fearnley has spent years exploring that tension through his lens. And now his work is presented a new book published by teNeues, titled The Art of Solitude.
The pictures here all follow a similar approach. A single, anonymous figure is framed against a huge architectural space: a sweep of concrete, a soaring atrium, a gleaming staircase. The people are tiny. The buildings are huge. The impact is profound.
The way I've described it here might sound depressing. But as you can see from the photographs on this page, the effect is actually pretty positive and uplifiting.
In the words of the press materials, this work “celebrates human resilience—transforming everyday spaces into poetic narratives that invite us to step out of shared isolation and rediscover connection and hope".
Sense of scale
Like so many photographers, Fearnley started out as painter, with his working including large-scale murals. Then around 10 years ago, he swapped his brush for a camera, and quickly saw the parallels between the two art forms in terms of composition, focus and use of light.
That painterly background is evident throughout in the book. These photographs are carefully constructed compositions, in which every line, curve and shadow has been placed with intent.
Take the picture at the top of this page, of a cyclist gliding beneath what looks like a forest of angled concrete ribs. This imposing structure is mirrored in the water below, so that the rider seems to be passing through the centre of a giant eye. It’s a masterclass in symmetry, and in timing.
The same dynamic applies equally well indoors. In the photograph below, a man in a suit stands in a white gallery, gazing up at a vast lattice of metal rods hanging above him like a storm cloud. The latter fills around two-thirds of the frame, so you feel its weight pressing down.
Scale is at the heart of Fearnley work. In one picture, the curves of a futuristic building rise like a frozen wave beneath a dramatic sky. The tiny hooded worker at its base, hose in hand, is easy to miss; but without him, this would be a striking architectural shot. With him, it becomes a meditation on the relationship between people and place.
Elsewhere, there’s real joy. In one shot, pigeons burst into flight in front of a gridded wall, while a lone figure walks towards it. The birds break up the rigid geometry and bring what might have felt like an austere scene to wonderful life.
With a foreword by filmmaker and photographer Sean Tucker, the timing of this book feels spot on. Urban loneliness has become a concern in cities around the world, and architecture is often part of the problem. These pictures don’t lecture us about any of that. Instead, they make us feel it.
The Art of Solitude: Street Photography by Mark Fearnley is published by teNeues, priced $90 / £60. It’s a 208-page hardback, out now internationally and published in the US on November 24.
