Daniel Stier captures the opposing contrasts that line our streets
Due to the pandemic, with the hustle and bustle on the streets, it has often felt like getting to know the physical spaces in which we live again. If we really stop and look, an image of extremes emerges, and that is exactly what the photographer Daniel Stier tried to capture in his latest book A Tale of One City. The project shows the “simultaneity of extreme prosperity and poverty, excess and deprivation”, the “accumulation of capital and good” and the visual chaos within these concrete boundaries.
Stier started the project unintentionally while working on an advertising campaign where he needed to find a specific piece of architecture in order to photograph from a precise angle. The process involved a lot of walking and while walking in London, Taurus suddenly saw the city as a gigantic construction site. “Just chaos everywhere. I've always been fascinated by the visual chaos of big cities, but suddenly it felt like something more sinister. Everything I saw was all about buying and selling, ”explains Stier. "I had the feeling that I had to portray the city differently than a collection of things that are driven by economic forces."
All pictures: A story of a city by Daniel Stier
The images in the book were taken across London, but you won't find classic landmarks or tourist snapshots, instead Taurus has tried to capture a more ubiquitous landscape. "It's not supposed to be a book about London. Hopefully there is something universal about life in big cities," he says. "I was fascinated by construction sites and the random accumulation of things on the street, whether cheap consumer goods or high-quality luxury accessories. Everything felt the same things that should be sold so that the people in the city can survive. "
The book's title is loosely based on Charles Dickens' novel of the same name, and the project is a portrait of a city without people. Luxury goods on plinths are offset by candy-colored plastics and artful flower displays that are undercut by crumbling brick walls and cardboard shelters. It's Stier's way of showing us that, for him, our overconsumption is what gives our life meaning.
“The whole project is about the city as a kind of metabolic system. The city wants our labor value and gives us almost nothing in return, ”he says. “The current pandemic has only highlighted one fact that has been there all along. Sometimes it feels like we can just sit and watch; Witness to constant construction and destruction. "
At first, Stier found it difficult to come up with an idea that wasn't entirely tangible, so he just paced back and forth with his camera. "It's really important to try new things. Although I was trained as a documentary photographer, I hadn't walked the streets with a small camera for a long time," says Stier. "It was a very liberating and beautiful experience."
The process of turning the series into a book allowed Stier to reflect in more detail on the work he had created, and he worked on the design with Berlin-based studio Double Standards. The high-contrast photos are deliberately bold in focus, with the accompanying thick black text supporting this. “Taking pictures is one thing, merging it into a cohesive book is another thing entirely. It's very complex, but everyone knows that, ”he says. "It's a nice thing to give yourself time to study the pictures while you work through the sequence of the book."
Authors David Campany and Marvin Heiferman contributed two essays to the book that Stier believes add another layer to the project. "Hopefully people will see the environment in which they live from a different perspective," says Stier. "We created the economic system that shaped cities as they are, but it makes our lives more and more precarious." Ultimately, even though the city's infrastructure is physically and socially overloaded, Taurus still sees plenty of room for change.
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