When people fall, it can be dealt with in three kinds of ways:
It can be funny.
The dignity of being recorded on film is almost immediately stripped if you fall on camera. What follows is the inevitable posting on You Tube, which surprisingly can be quite entertaining:
Take extra special note of the man with the cake half way through.
Despair
September 11th produced photos with two kinds of results for photojournalists. Whilst one told tales of bravery and heroism by the emergency services, the other displayed solemnity and despair. The “jumpers” as they came to be known were photographed moments from death:
Creative and arty in some kind of bullshit way:
From the early 20th century, the portrayal of movement has been a dominant part of Futurist art, although it wasn’t until recently that people falling figured into depictions of movement.
Jon Haddock is more of an exception than to the bullshit-futurist art rule. He made a clay model of people falling in 2002 which is pretty ‘deep’, if you like that sort of thing. Their lifeless bodies are representative of the “jumpers” from the World Trade Center.
