Visitors enjoying the last of the daylight as the sun sets over the Angel of the North, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianChristopher Thomond reflects on the photojournalists’ device of including a lone figure or person in shadow to bring an image to life
by Christopher ThomondEight or nine photographers, a couple of TV camera crews and a handful of journalists were standing outside a tired, nondescript building near Liverpool earlier this year as a major news story unfolded. Though this sort of scenario is far from my daily working environment, I recognised the familiar patterns of behaviour. Everyone present had taken and filed the straightforward, scene-setting shots and there was a lull as friendly rivals awaited the next development. No substantial change was expected for several hours. A lone male walked across the scene in the distance and, without a prearranged signal or a word being exchanged, all the Nikons and Canons burst into life and recorded his every footstep at 12 frames per second. As the collective motordrive clatter faded, one of the agency guys broke into a verse of Bohemian Rhapsody: “I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche...”. A muffled laugh among the group acknowledged their identical thought process. The passer-by wasn’t connected to the event being documented but, without exception, this group of award-winning press photographers recognised that an image incorporating a figure in shadow somehow improved it greatly.
The Empire Burnley Theatre in Lancashire, January 2020
In the following days I began to consider how many times I actively include a tiny figure in my work. Not all are strictly silhouettes and some are brightly coloured or even highly illuminated to separate them from their surroundings. Some aren’t even human, as dogs, cats, birds and even farm animals have received the same treatment.
There are more than 100,000 of my photographs on the Guardian’s archive dating back to the turn of the millennium when we started using digital cameras. There are also many more thousands of film negatives and prints filed away in ring binders and old Ilford boxes. During a quick confirmatory search it became apparent that the inclusion of a passing person regularly figured in my work and that of many others. They only account for a tiny proportion of the output but it’s a device I’ve repeatedly turned to over the decades and one that has served many different purposes.
Woodsetts village in South Yorkshire, 2009.
This week I’ve attempted, like many colleagues, to illustrate the country’s social isolation strategy by portraying a succession of individuals traversing an otherwise empty urban setting. I’ve also watched through the viewfinder for the perfect juxtaposition of pedestrians as they furtively shuffle around each other or even cross the road. The recent views of London and other large UK towns and cities on lockdown have felt so stark because we are presented with well-known vistas that are usually teeming with life. There’s something missing and invariably that thing is a person.
In normal times the inclusion of people can be used to add scale, inject a sense of life and vibrancy or show a space being used as its designer intended. Conversely, given a different context the near identical human form could emphasise emptiness, neglect or to imply an area is down at heel or unloved. Over the years the solitary anonymous figure has been entrusted to illustrate articles about local politics, crime figures and health statistics. They have served as a proxy for the many individuals who are adversely affected by job cuts, those whose lives are impacted by a proposed infrastructure project or either the promotion or relegation of their local football team. However, on many occasions they are merely used as an element that complements the overall design of an image.
Young jewish children playing outside in Broughton Green, Salford, November 2014.
Perhaps my northern upbringing meant I was always likely to have a soft spot for silhouetted people in pictures. I went to primary school in the Salford of LS Lowry at the time “Matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs”, celebrating the work of the local artist, was at No 1 in the pop charts. My immediate predecessors at The Guardian, Don McPhee and Denis Thorpe, were two of the finest exponents of black and white photojournalism. They criss-crossed the globe during distinguished careers but both lived in and around Manchester and documented the human condition in the north of England. They were a huge inspiration and inevitably their work included many street scenes featuring workers, shoppers, parents with prams and children playing in the street. Don captured many fine photographs this way but his own personal favourite from a 26-year stint at the newspaper was of a little girl, wrapped up against the freezing elements, making her way through impossibly deep snow near Oldham.
A child struggling through the snow in Oldham, 1982, by Don McPhee.
Though long retired, Denis is still busy taking classically beautiful photographs for his own pleasure. During a break from archiving and organising prints this week, he was asked to consider the connection between many of his most memorable images taken during a near-50-year working life. Until I rattled off the list including Arbor Low stone circle, a policeman in Liverpool’s St George’s Square, a miner in Ashington, and the opening of Thelwall Viaduct on M6, he hadn’t really considered just how many of his successful pictures featured silhouettes, either as the main focus or a design element within the frame.
Arbor Low prehistoric stone circle, 1975 by Denis Thorpe.
Policeman in St George’s Square Liverpool, 1990, by Denis Thorpe.
Miner taking concessionary coal in Ashington, 1982, by Denis Thorpe.
View from a window, Mansfield, 1950. Las Ramblas, Barcelona, Spain, 1956, by Denis Thorpe.
One of the earliest examples was taken in 1950 when he was still a teenager. It was shot at night through a bedroom window of his family home in Mansfield and features two women crossing the road, one holding an umbrella. It’s perfectly timed, subtly composed and of course the women are silhouetted against a rain soaked street.
Terraced houses waiting destruction in Salford, 1979, by Denis Thorpe.
Nearly 30 years later Denis immortalised another street, this time featuring a row of terraced houses in Salford which were due to be demolished. Dispatched to illustrate the story, he again found a raised vantage point giving him a symmetrical view of the cobbles which provided a shimmering backdrop after shower. Once in place Denis realised there was a vital missing ingredient. “I’d often spend hours waiting for people to walk into many of my pictures.” The woman in Salford was no exception. “I had an idea with the rainy street but I couldn’t let it go like that. Because the homes were empty there’s no cars and no clutter but it had to have someone in it. When the woman and her children are added it just springs out, it takes on a whole new life. In my mind I could see the picture I wanted but then I had to spend all day waiting. Nobody ever insisted I stand there all day but I saw the potential and thought it was worth persevering.”
Children in the playground at Bury Grammar school in Lancashire, 1990, Denis Thorpe.
Denis offers a theory as to why we desperately want to have people in the composition. “It’s all about humanising the landscape” he says. “People add to the atmosphere. Some pictures don’t need it but most do. Arguably Denis’s own best-known picture was taken in 1978 in Hebden Bridge.
Terraced houses in snow Hebden Bridge, originally published in The Guardian on the 3rd April 1978, Denis Thorpe.
It’s a giant patchwork panorama of the streets and houses stacked above the hilly West Yorkshire town after snowfall. Again he waited hours for perfection but this time the reason for delay was all about the light and, unusually for him, there’s not a soul in sight. “However someone contacted me more recently saying they’d been looking at it with a magnifying glass and think they’ve found someone.” Its creator is not convinced.
Joggers in winter in Tokyo, 1986, Denis Thorpe.
The use of small figures is hardly original, as Denis acknowledges. “All of us are influenced by others. The great painters copied elements from their predecessors and I’m no different. Bill Brandt was quite an influence with his instinct to just let things happen knowing that sometimes you will get lucky.” Denis also greatly admired the French painter, photographer and Magnum founder Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Hungarian born photojournalist André Kertész who both frequently featured single or groups of figures in their work: “Henri Cartier-Bresson took the perfect composition of a man cycling down the street in Hyères, 1932. It’s a favourite picture of mine. He looked down from some steps and saw the cobbles below in beautiful patterns. But he waited and waited, knowing it needed something else. The bike came past and created the perfect geometry.”
A cyclist in the Var department, Hyeres, 1932, by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
It provides succour to the rest of us that even Cartier-Bresson was prepared to patiently bide his time until all the elements fell into place: “Sometimes you have the feeling that here are all the makings of a picture – except for just one thing that seems to be missing. But what one thing? Perhaps someone suddenly walks into your range of view. You follow his progress through the viewfinder. You wait and wait, and then finally you press the button – and you depart with the feeling that you’ve really got something. If the shutter was released at the decisive moment, you have instinctively fixed a geometric pattern without which the photograph would have been both formless and lifeless.”
Voters arriving at a mist covered mobile polling station at Holcombe village in the marginal Bury North constituency, December 2019.
A visitor outside Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium where the team were due to play Crystal Palace to potentially clinch the Premier League title before the game was called off.
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