Last Updated on 01/03/2019 by Mark Beckenbach
All images by Bence Bakonyi. Used with Creative Commons permission.
Solitude has been at the core of many concepts, making it one of the most widely explored ideas for creative projects. More than just showing lone subjects in somber settings, Budapest-based photographer Bence Bakonyi, in collaboration with graphic designer Kira Koroknai, thought of probing deeper into the other possible meanings of solitude. Read on if you’re looking for something to inspire your next conceptual photography projects.
The collaboration, simply titled Floating, features a collection of photos showing lone subjects set in various intricate locations. However, instead of being stationary and looking like they’re lost in their solitary reverie, they’re interacting rather dramatically with the setting, floating precariously over various elements in the scene. This according to Bakonyi and Koroknai, is the heart of the series.
While scenes of humans in a man-made environment offer a number of possible associations (“man versus building, small versus large, temporary versus permanent, living versus lifeless”), the message lies in the human interaction itself.
“The figures depicted in the photographs are physically detached from every single corner of the given building serving as backgrounds as if freeing themselves from barriers of communal existence. Their relaxed posture, however, tells about their loneliness being a more deliberate and calm introversion, a kind of self-imposed temporary solitude rather than hopeless and aggressive isolation. They seem to be floating in a surreal freedom of their own making.”
The photos (cleverly done composites) make for some unsettling visual stories, and that’s one of the strengths of this body of work. It’s also interesting how the entire Floating series has a clean and airy look; something unexpected for the rather somber theme it explores.
Visit Bence Bakonyi’s website and Behance portfolio to see more of his work.
