The Soul Of The City by Jasper James

This week began with a silhouette of one of the most iconic landmarks in the world, so it's only fitting that the week should end on a related note. This time, people play a more prominently role, or at least their reflections do, giving character and soul to the city that surrounds them. These are the photographs of Jasper James.

Jasper James is a commercial photographer who's dabbled in just about every photographic discipline, from portraiture to travel photography to advertising. His series City Silhouettes seems to have captured much of all of his work into a single collection.

In his City Silhouettes, James photographs sections of the city from the tallest buildings, only he does so through the reflection cut-aways cast by other onlookers. The effect gives viewers a glimpse of the cityscape through a unique looking glass.

The effect is easy enough to replicate for anyone who's been to any structure with large glass windows or doors; the reflection cuts away light bouncing from within the room, allowing the light from the outside to penetrate inside. What you get is a cut-away portion of the larger view of the cityscape.

In James' case, it seems that a lot of careful planning and feeling went into the making of these photographs. The photographer chose with great care what the resulting view of the city would be through these reflections as viewers are still able to get the experience of the entire cityscape.

To top it off, there's a certain quality to the poses and emotions of the people that make these reflections; pensive, hopeful, reflective, etc. While one can say that these are in effect double portraits of the individuals in these pictures, these are more evocative of the cities themselves.

If cities had faces, these would be their portraits.

To find more of the soul of the city, go to Jasper James' website here. His City Silhouettes series can be found here.