[Pics] City Silhouettes: Portraits Made Using Cities, People And Glass

Photographer Jasper James, who usually does advertising and editorial photography, decided to do a personal project he called "City Silhouettes". The concept is very simple - photograph cities through silhouettes of people. Here is what Jasper had to say about his project:

"These photos are part of an ongoing project that I have been shooting for the past few years in various cities around Asia. Sometime in 2008, the number of people living in urban areas outnumbered those living in rural areas for the first time in history. I thought it would be interesting to shoot portraits of these city dwellers combined with the image of a city-scape. The images are made in camera with just a basic adjustment in contrast and colours but no retouching."


Click here to see more images from this set on Jasper's website.

Noam Galai's picture

Noam Galai is a Senior Fstoppers Staff Writer and NYC Celebrity / Entertainment photographer. Noam's work appears on publications such as Time Magazine, New York Times, People Magazine, Vogue and Us Weekly on a daily basis.

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19 Comments

Very cool!

Nice!  Hat's off to 'em!

I love it. Alpha channel stuff is cool in video. Nice to see it in photo form

I'm trying to figure out how he did these. Are the silhouettes formed by the shadows cast by the models? Awesome post, Noam!

Very interesting creative idea

love it!

He said he made these images 'in camera' which to me suggests this is nothing more than two images overlaid, something many of us have been doing for years. You can achieve this simply by using a blend mode on the
Image which is on top of the other, I imagine this to be the portrait image. Sorry, they didn't do anything for me.

in camera = no photoshop layers and effects. it means: he took 1 frame, and this is what you see here.... 

There's a lot you can do in-camera these days...including merging photos :-)

if it's nothing spectacular, then why didn't you think of it first? and why aren't you taking pictures of the same quality and getting famous off them?

Hm, clearly my opinion isn't going down very well...! You'll notice, Grant, from my first comment that this is 'something many of us have been doing for years'. Admittedly this wasn't in camera (even though it was still possible in film cameras) but the same principle producing the same effect. DSLRs today can do it now in-camera.
Not sure of the purpose of your dig at me but I'm not going to spend my time taking a style of pictures that don't inspire me, you haven't seen the quality of my pictures and I've not tried to get famous from them either.
Chill Grant, it was just a comment :-)

Error posting

Sorry, Disqus keeps telling me error posting so I kept trying!

Im impressed. 
I just want to know "how"?

maybe he didn't use windows but just a single glass plate, the model is then placed behind the plate and the photo's were shot at the top of the buildings

Probably double exposure ? First take a picture of the city (don't expose too long and search for darker areas) then shoot a silhouette photo over the first photo (now search for a light background and make sure the side of the face is very dark), then the light background will lighten up the landscape and de black silhouette will cause the shape of the face will be recognizable. Just my thoughts, could be wrong. Apparently Nikon camera's have a double exposure function, but it's possible with every camera not very easy though...

Very cool, very original- I give this maybe 3 months before someone in an advertising agency steals the look for a spec campaign and grabs a few awards.

I'm guessing the photo is taken through glass, and the image of the person is a reflection?

They are so technical and full of creativity