It started in a bourgeois neighborhood in Paris about seven years ago when larger than life portraits of “thugs” were pasted up on the sides of buildings, on bus stops and billboards. Photo from JR’s website This was JR’s first series, 28 Millimètres: Portraits of a Generation. It was called so because he used a 28 millimetre lens to take the photographs, meaning he was less than a foot away from his subjects. It wasn’t long before this that JR became interested in photography at all. And it started simply because he stumbled upon a camera abandoned on the Metro. Photo: Screenshot from TED video The theme stuck. A “photograffeur” (as he calls himself – a mix of photographer and graffiti artist), JR made a name for himself over the years that followed (those he has chosen to keep his real identity anonymous as it makes it easier for him to travel). He continues taking portrait photographs, blowing them up in large formats and pasting them in public places, often in deprived areas or those in the midst of political crisis. Photo: from the Women Are Heroes series in Kibera Slum (one of the largest in Africa), Kenya, 2009 from JR’s website His goal is to start […]
