Inspired by the late, great cartoonist William Steig and his classic book, The Lonely Ones (which pairs Steig's line-drawn characters with simple one-liners of dialogue-to-self), photographer Gus Powell (born 1974) made his own "lonely ones"--quiet but evocative color photographs of interiors and landscapes, inhabited by people, animals and inanimate characters. Every photograph is paired with a suggestive text, functioning here as the opposite of a caption--each of the 40 color photographs in The Lonely Ones is hidden by a gate-fold, on which is printed the single phrase. Every photograph is revealed individually behind its gate-fold. "Which way to the symposium?" paired with a photograph of a butterfly in midair. "Let's not ruin it by talking." "Mistakes were made." "This might hurt." "Another small victory." "I am the host of this misadventure."
Published by J&L Books. Edited by Leanne Shapton, Jason Fulford.
Inspired by Frank O’Hara’s 1964 book Lunch Poems, photographer Gus Powell, who worked for four years as picture editor at the New Yorker, would spend his own lunch hours wandering midtown Manhattan making poetry. The resulting book of street photography, featuring photographs from his series Lunch Pictures, feels both romantic/nostalgic, and strikingly contemporary. Powell’s attention to the choreography of pedestrians is remarkable, as is his rendering of midtown light, refracted by office buildings and glass.
Gus Powell: The Company of Strangers