VOYAGE

The Feeling of Solitude: 40 Photos that Evoke a Sense of Isolation

“Was this what it was to be an explorer? An adventurer? To gulp this sleeping silence. To be so unutterably alone with it, to wade in it, to find it rising like a tide from the floors, lowering itself from the mouldering caverns of high domes, filling the corridors as though with something palpable?”

Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake

Those who wield a camera are no strangers to the company of solitude. It arises both as a subject of study – finding a muse in the solitary figure or the desolate urban street – and as a way of being – often a necessity born out of the demands of the job. I recently came across an essay by photojournalist Thomas Hoepker that explores the work of several iconic photographers who deal with the themes of loneliness and isolation. Their work evokes a sense of alienation and longing, but also depicts the freedom and feeling of quiet joy that solitude can bring. Take Saul Leiter’s layered fragments of city life, for instance, or Dave Heath’s emotionally charged close ups of anonymous strangers lost in detached contemplation.

These photographs often possess a haunting quality, imparting an impression of loneliness or vague melancholy in the viewer. These kinds of images – for instance, an old, worn woman sitting dejectedly on a stoop – may offer a glimpse into the human psyche, a window into the world of a stranger. Others, like a photo of a deserted city block or a graffitied, crumbling facade, while still evoking a sense of loneliness, may symbolize poverty and other social ills, or speak to the aftershocks of war or natural disaster.

Leiter suggests that “since a viewer can easily relate to the lone, pensive figure, a photograph is open to the interpretations or projections of its audience.” Indeed, it is hard to stare into the face of another lonely soul and not wonder what their story might be. And this is what photography, and art more broadly, should do: engage the viewer, coax the gaze to linger and the mind to turn on questions of meaning and significance.

For me, a dark, moody scene, perhaps of a mist shrouded tree or an atmospheric landscape, suggests a feeling of the mysterious or wistful and the state of being alone at the edge of the unknown, of possibilities. More so than shots of people, these are the kinds of moments that I love capturing. But when my camera does find a person in its cross hairs, it’s usually a lone soul, furtively captured as he or she recedes from my hiding place. Most of the time I never see their face, and they certainly never see mine. They stay a distant, anonymous figure, all the more open to interpretation and projection. In what follows, I have put together a selection of such images taken while on my travels – my own homage to the lonesome beauty of isolation.

The lone figure

Seaside | Hvar, Croatia
Into the mist | Skógafoss, Skógar, Iceland
A swirling vista | Half Moon Bay, California, USA
Silhouetted sunset | Punta Mita, Nayarit, Mexico
A boy and his net | Aoshima, Miyazaki, Japan
Singularly sunny | Tybee Island Pier and Pavilion, Georgia, USA
The peach parasol | Bois de Boulogne, Paris, France
Cycling the Seine | Paris
Painterly views | Olana, Hudson, New York, USA
Slicing through dusk | La Conner, Washington, USA
Infinity horizon | Long Beach, Washington
With the statues | Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California
On the steps of the Great Sept |Girona, Spain
Revelations | Sacré-Cœur Basilica, Paris
A figure appears | Dane John Gardens, Canterbury, England
A solo swan song | Parc de l’Orangerie, Strasbourg, France
Buddy as statue | Grant, Alabama, USA
Goose topper | Regent’s Park, London, England
Stealth mode | Dubrovnik, Croatia
Herd of one | Höfn, Iceland
Sentinel | El Badi Palace, Marrakech, Morocco

The feeling of solitude

Against the storm | Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Leaf strewn | Les Invalides, Paris
Golden hour | Paris
In the land of giants | Muir Woods, Mill Valley, California
Sick day | St John’s Wood, London
To the foothills | San Jose, California
Dock to nowhere | Chimney Rock Boathouse, Point Reyes, California
This side of the tracks | Chicago, Illinois, USA
Footfalls | Reynisfjara Beach, Vik, Iceland
Sleeping waters | Seto Inland Sea, off the coast of Matsuyama, Japan
Blue & lonesome | The Highlands, Scotland
The growth | Westgate Gardens, Canterbury
The forgotten | St Mildred’s Church, Canterbury
Frozen memories | Dane John Gardens, Canterbury
A strange circle | Stonehenge, Salisbury, England
Monolith | Opus 40, Saugerties, New York
The beacon | Dyrhólaey Lighthouse, Vik
Windswept | West Point Lighthouse, Seattle, Washington

Published by Olivia

Hello, Olivia here. I'm a writer and consultant with a love for experiencing new places, spaces, and tastes, and a penchant for documenting them through writing and photography. I have a BA in International Studies and spent the first three years of my post-undergrad life working in New York City (the dream). I also lived abroad in London and Paris while pursuing a graduate degree and working as an au pair for a French family (despite my horrible French). I'm currently based in the Portland, Oregon, area where I live with my partner and our two cats, Odin and Freya, and our tripawd border collie mix, Fenrir.

2 thoughts on “The Feeling of Solitude: 40 Photos that Evoke a Sense of Isolation”

  1. Brenda Klaproth says:

    Enjoyed the trip!

  2. Jennifer Edwards says:

    Wonderful!!

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