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Matinee: 'Through The Looking Glass'
17 October 2020
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 366th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Through The Looking Glass.
This 4:26 video presents a captivating slide show of the monochrome street photography of Gerri McLaughlin.
Originally from Scotland, McLaughlin explains, "Since 2014 I've been passionately shooting the streets of any major urban area I find myself to be wandering in and that journey has led me to move permanently to Tokyo which I believe to be one of the great cities of the genre."
The slide show features images shot through shop windows in Tokyo, hence the title of the video.
"As I look through the windows of cafes and other emporiums and see the people there doing whatever it is they're doing in their own space I sometimes wonder, 'Am I invading or am I creating a millisecond of intimacy and contact among the vastness of the city?'" he asks.
These are mostly solitary figures sitting behind a window with some nourishment at hand. But not exclusively. There are diners enjoying a meal together, groups navigating a sidewalk and other scenes of urban life, mostly at night when it would be impossible for the subject of the photograph to see the photographer on the other side of the glass.
And, yes, they are from a different age. A time when one could congregate in public, even if sitting alone at a cafe.
Now that the coronavirus has put us all "behind the glass looking out," as McLaughlin puts it, we've learned "now more than ever that connection is one the most vital elements of all human life."