Terence Chan Photography

Public Domains/Private Lives


This is a series of photos taken of people in various public spaces. Though the people are in a public place, they are engaged in various private acts: reading, dozing off, contemplating, engaging in private conversations or just generally going about their lives. They all seem to a greater or lesser extent to occupy a kind of bubble made up of their own private worlds. Many of the images have a rather furtive, distant quality reminiscent of the snatched photos taken by a voyeur. The themes I am exploring here are the tension between the public and the private, voyeurism and the role of the photographer as a voyeur, the extent to which people in public places reveal or hide their inner private lives and the extent to which the observer can discern that private world.

(None of the people here have been asked for permission to have their photos taken - the photographs were not "posed", though in some cases they were aware that they were being photographed - and none of the photographs were taken with a telescopic lens.)





Paris 2009
Berlin 2008
Berlin 2008
Berlin 2008
Berlin 2008
Berlin 2008
Hong Kong 2010
Hong Kong 2010
Hong Kong 2010
Paris 2009
Florence 2009
Paris 2008
Madrid 2009
Paris 2008
Paris 2008
Berlin 2003
Ediburgh G8 March 2005
Edinburgh 2002
Madrid 2005
Madrid 2005
Madrid 2005
Madrid 2005
Seville 2003
Paris 2002
Amsterdam 2001
New York 2000
New York 2000
New York 2000
New York 2000
New York 2000
Sydney 2001
Sydney 2004
Sydney 2001
Sydney 1989
Marrakech 2006
Marrakech 2006
Marrakech 2006
Marrakech 2006
Marrakech 2006
Tunis 2007
Tunis 2007
Tunis 2007