The photos we published earlier this week from the perspective of the TV also brought to mind a series of creepy photos that were in New York magazine earlier this year — they captured the faces of men watching internet porn, again from the perspective of the screens that the men were watching. Those pictures were taken by photographer Phillip Toledano, and it turns out that he has been working this idea for a while — right back to 2002, in fact, when he published a series of similar photos of people playing video games. As he explains on his website, “I’ve never been very interested in straightforward portrait photography… What of hidden emotions and feelings? Characteristics that are usually secreted from the world? How do we record those? I wondered if there was a way to unconsciously tease out aspects of people’s personality, and capture it on film. So I had them play video games.” The results are fascinating — see them after the jump.
Photo credit: Phillip Toledano
Comments (20)
Excellent way to peer beyond the veil of egoism. Great work. Much appreciated.
Ever heard of “priming”?
I used to play GTAIV religiously. I’d play it for 8 hours at a time and rarely do any missions. I’d run out of the apartment, punch a pedestrian on my way to stealing a car, pull the driver out beat him to death and steal the car. I’d drive around on the side-walk and T-boning cop cars until I had a high wanted level then drive my car into the doorway of the subway station, run into the station and start shooting the rocket launcher towards the door.
After about 8 hours I’d make the decision to stop playing and walk to the store, the first car I saw triggered the response “Pull driver out, beat to a bloody pulp and steal car.” Some say we know the difference between reality and fantasy, some would say I may be an exception, but I never thought of this until it occured to me in private. I was a big proponent of video games, and especially violent war games, I didn’t have “fun” playing The Sims. It took a lot of self-reflection to realize that my joy derived from an inner desire to kill and destroy, a desire which was catalysed by playing violent video games and watching violent movies.
Then I was torn between what I knew to be true and right and my habits and vicarious desires. I still play video games for the sense of accomplishing something and don’t invest any emotion into the destruction and killing, but this sense of accomplishment that comes every 15 seconds of game-play is illusory, by games end I’m in the same chair, doing the same thing I was 8 hours prior, no further ahead unless my goal is to satisfy this inner desire to kill.
Others say this is not the case; it is just for “fun”, but then look at their faces while they are “playing”. They show every sign of a maniacal lunatic bent on killing as many people as possible. I found it was not just video games that brought out this desire, just standing about in the woods, as calm and peaceful as they are, I’d get anxious and start killing bugs or breaking up the woodland. Deep-seated anxiety and angst that evaded my own self-awareness for 25 years, that I lied for, made excuses for and justified with ratiocination.
These totally made me laugh tonight … and I absolutely needed that.
#7 looks like Peyton Manning to me…
[...] solid #cfcfcf}#gallery-1 .gallery-caption{margin-left:0} [Phillip Toledano via Flavorwire]picadService.initialize(); Tweet (function(){var [...]
There’s no chance these photos are real. Somebody coached them.
Thanks for wasting 5 minutes of my life. This is totally staged. You need to be completly stupid to think this is real.
Show them actually playing and capture a live action shot, this obviously has an agenda behind it.
I don’t buy it, my friends, colleagues and I have been playing games for 2 decades give or take a few years and I’ve never seen them pulling faces like that and nor have I pulled faces like that.
So unless the sample set of people had about 1000 pictures of normal people with relatively blank or relaxed facial expressions and then those 9 oddballs I find it difficult to believe these photos are genuine captures of people just playing a game.
[...] Flavorwire ← Titanicul în [...]
[...] fue que un fotógrafo, decidió retratar a los gamers durante el trance del juego, con resultados sorprendentes, aunque esas caras no difieren demasiado [...]
Agreed. Completely staged. I was waiting for the blank expressions, maybe a concentration tongue, maybe a wide grin at a proper moment. But nobody plays games like that.
YAAAAAAAAWWWWNN…..
Phillip Toledano posted some interesting work on our site a couple of months ago. Really fascinating artist.
http://frontpsych.com/2011/05/27/frontier-photography-phillip-toledano/
[...] has “never been very interested in straightforward portrait photography”. Check out his series of photographs of people playing video games. [...]
[...] Link [...]
[...] Fuente [...]
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from the person who shot these photos-
to all the people who said these photos were staged, you’re all TOTALLY wrong.
i shot about 30 people-about half of them made the faces you see-you can believe what you like, but i know what i shot
[...] to note that the children in Cooper’s body of work are far more composed than the adults in Phillip Toledano’s portraits that capture the same moment — perhaps proving that we were more sane when pint-sized. Check out [...]
[...] images captured by this former advertising art director (whose work we’ve previously featured here, here, and here) feel even more relevant over a decade later, in a world where most of us are still [...]
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