Silhouettes & anonymous portraits
A silhouette portrait can be a good solution when a story is too sensitive for a standard portrait. Think of victims of rape or human trafficking, an terrorism expert, a whistleblower or illegal immigrants.”
Those people may be desperate to tell their stories, but do not want their face exposed in the media. A silhouette guarantees anonymity, and still allows you to illustrate your report with a telling portrait.
“People who finally dare to tell their difficult and often very personal stories, deserve our utmost admiration. I therefore treat them with even more respect than I normally do.”
Jeroen Bouman already made his first series of anonymous portraits while he was still studying photography. Just because it interested him, and just because he could.
“Silhouettes were very popular during the 18th. and 19th. century when they were still cut out of black paper. Photography took over not much later, and even nowadays a silhouette shows it can still have relevance.”
