Peter Funch's series "Babel Tales," addresses "human interaction (or lack thereof)." Funch compiles hundreds of photos taken over a long period of time into one image that the viewer assumes is one location. The images are strangely funny simply because the frames are so full of people who don't "notice" each other. But the result, from such an overt representation of the concept, is that the viewer feels the most ostracized. The way we are used to people in street photography or candid shots reacting to the presence of a camera is completely missing, which feels strange based on how close the people are to the camera's lens. (It feels like the way people would be behaving if the camera was very far away and unnoticeable, like in Gursky's prints.)
Most of Funch's photographs use dramatic lighting or very contrasty/vivid colors, but the effect is still due to realistic, rather than expressive use of color. It seems that most of the color control in his photos are based on what color clothing the people in his image will be wearing, but the backgrounds feel unaltered; he doesn't remove seemingly extraneous text (street signs, pesky ads, etc.). The result, especially in this image, seems to be to trick the viewer into believing, if only for the shortest second, that everything was the result of a quick shot; the garish American flag bus doesn't seem like something included in a decisive moment. Even though the image feels very crowded and chaotic, the colors do relate: the shades of blue on the bus match the people wearing blue and the view people wearing yellow relates to the umbrella and text on the bus. The orange-wearing people and lone woman wearing green create an allied spectrum. The strongest aspect of the photo might be the clash between enormous chaos, but at the same time a complete order.
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