Obama’s People by Nadav Kander

January 21, 2009 @ 6:11 pm

hillary-clinton-portrait

Have you all seen the photographs of Obama’s cabinet members taken by Nadav Kander? They all look so eerie. Apparently, Nadav placed all of the subjects in a very small, confined space and asked them all to bring something with them to be photographed with. Nadav thinks that the way they compose themselves in front of the camera and interact with the object they brought tell a lot about their characters. I tend to agree with that statement. But honestly, I find the photographs very awkward. It’s almost as if they were CG versions of the real people or robotic versions of the real person. The creepiness is the same sort of feeling described in the “uncanny valley“, where simulated characters look so real that they begin to look bad and disgust us.

Be sure to check out the back story narrative with extra photos from behind-the-scenes of the photoshoot.