Immersion: Video/Photography of Robbie Cooper in New York Times Magazine
I have a vivid childhood memory of watching a friend watch television. The effect on me was powerful and somehow depressing — this unblinking face lit up by the tube, fully enraptured and unemotional. Robbie Cooper captures that face, or rather several of them, in his photos and videos of kids playing video games. The effect is especially powerful because they’re shot straight on, so you can see the kids staring right at the camera, and yet through it.
Cooper’s photos are both beautiful and slightly depressing, but the videos from which the photos are taken (shot using one of Jim Jannard’s Red cameras) take the cake. Cooper was inspired by Errol Morris’s fantastic Interrotron technique. You can’t help but imagine a camera watching you watch this.
(Incidentally, I just noticed how the NYT video player page keeps ancillary portions of the site dim until you mouse over them. I’ve seen this technique used frivolously elsewhere, but here it’s a nice touch, because it really lets you focus on the video and lets the color in the video come forward. Really nice.)
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