While compiling this series for the past 88 days, my appreciation for black-and-white photography increased immensely—particularly people. Belgian Fouquier shoots little else. “I am a firm believer”, he says, “in the Ted Grant quote: ‘When you photograph people in color you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!'” Mr. Grant is a renown Canadian photojournalist, living in Victoria, British Columbia.
Fouquier’s photostream is filled with screaming B&W street photography that demands close attention. Today’s selection, self-titled “High Hats & Goggles”, shot on July 27, 2012, is fine example. He provides some context in a blog post two days later:
Sometimes I wonder what people from outside of Europe think when they visit my photostream—draft horses, elves, goth girls, and now this. This weekend I was walking around at the Krabbenfoor (see how close the Dutch and English words match; Krab is Dutch for Crab and foor for fair) at Bergen-op-Zoom (near Breda) when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, appeared these two gentlemen. They were so close when I took this shot that they almost overran me, and without any further notice they disappeared again in the crowd. The weird thing, however, was that hardly anyone paid any attention to these guys. I’m glad I took the shot to prove that I wasn’t hallucinating.
Camera information isn’t available in the metadata for the Flickr-posted pic. But Fouquier used the Canon EOS 5D Mark II for other 2012 photos. He is from Berendrecht, Belgium, but shot today’s selection in Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands. You can also find him on Facebook, 500px, and Twitter. He joined Flickr in April 2010.
Photo Credit: Fouquier
Editor’s Note: The posted photo is from Fouquier’s blog post, because resolution is higher than the one on Flickr. They otherwise are the same.