Peter Funch
Peter Funch is a Danish photographer and director living in Paris.
When he immerses himself in a project, he goes full throttle. Funch has produced an impressive body of work, a broad mix of art and commerce. He has published seven books and has worked for clients such as Ikea, SAS and Volvo. Watch his Colgate commercial here — the chaos and drama tell you a lot about his sense of humor and lust for life.
From 2007 to 2016, Peter spent an hour during the morning commute in the early summer months at the corner of 42nd and Vanderbilt capturing New Yorkers in their daily routines. In the book, we see the same commuters at roughly the same time, with repetitions of gestures, expressions, and emotions. What he found is uncanny.
Babel Tales is another multi-year project, also shot in New York. From 2006 to 2011, Funch observed, categorized, and composited street scenes that look at once magical and quotidian. He shows us a world where everyone is carrying a manila envelope, one where everyone is looking up, and another where everyone is yawning. The leather goods brand Valextra later commissioned him for a campaign revolving around this idea.
It’s not surprising that there is such rigor in Peter Funch’s approach: he studied journalism in Denmark. Researching, finding stories and connections and bringing them to the fore in unique ways clearly speaks to him.
The image seen here is from the project The Imperfect Atlas. Hiking through Washington State with old postcards in hand, Funch retraced locations that had been documented some 100 years earlier. Pinpointing their perspectives, Funch then photographed three images while manually holding up three different-colored filters. Using the technique of RGB separation, which was invented around the time CO2 emissions began their course of climate intervention, Funch captures slight mismatches in the imagery. For example, a ripple in the water, or movement from a car, or an animal, or a person. Without a trace of the didactic, this beautiful body of work visualizes the omnipresent human imprint within the natural world.