Unveiling Energy | Silhouette Stories

By Edge of Humanity Magazine, February 13, 2020

Photographers Sherrie Nickol and David Katzenstein are the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributors of this portrait photography. From the ‘Black on White’ series. To see Sherrie’s and David’s body of work, click on any image.

The Black on White series of silhouettes grew out of husband and wife team Sherrie Nickol and David Katzenstein’s larger collaboration, The Citizen Project, in which they photographed 2500 people in their NOHO studio over a three-year period.

These photographs serve as an exploration into shape and form. Backlighting the subjects accentuates their gestures and movements, simultaneously simplifying and magnifying the sense of motion and energy. Viewed as a collection, the images take on a cohesiveness, drawing attention away from the individual emotion of each subject and instead highlighting their interconnectedness. By ‘flattening’ the subjects against a white background, the photographs allow the viewer to focus on the design of the human person, the lines and shape of each subject. This large, dynamic, collection captures the movement and energy which informs our lives but which often goes unnoticed.