All photographs by Nicholas Goodden. Used with permission.
While most street photographers are sticking by their straightforward captures of urban life and bustle, London based urban photographer Nicholas Goodden, inspired by visual artist Kelly Goeller and his nostalgic love for video games, offers an unusual and quirky take on street photography with his ongoing Pixilated People series.
Known for his powerful street and urban landscape images, Nicholas explains how the project came about:
“The Pixelated People project in an ongoing urban photography project which came to life after I recalled a brilliant piece of NYC street art entitled Pixel Pour by Kelly Goeller. This was essentially a water pipe pouring out pixelated water made of blue tiles. Being a video game obsessed teenager in the eighties has had an influence as well I guess.”
In this cool, albeit short, series, Nicholas turns people into pixels as they go about their day in the city streets, which by contrast looks completely normal and un-video game like. Flanked by urban art, a recurrent subject in his work, in shabby spots in the city, the people in Pixilated People quite literally – at least in the photographs – transform into 80s video game characters.
Why, exactly? If you’re scratching your head on this one, don’t worry – it’s what Nicholas set out to do:
“I wanted to make sure the viewer ended up a bit confused and with unanswered questions after seeing my photos. It features people who feel slightly out of place in our gritty, street art / graffiti covered cities… something quite common actually.”
It’s probably not something today’s youth can understand without looking it up on Google, but the images in Pixelated People will most likely conjure familiarity and sentimental longing for those of us who have lived the 80s.
Itching to take out and dust off that old Atari sitting in your closet, yet?
To see more of Nicholas Goodden’s work, visit his website or follow him on Twitter for updates.
