Michal Dzierza
- Sep 6, 2011
- 3 min read

Adde Adesokan’s Triptychs of Strangers

Image © Adde Adesokan, used with author’s permission

Every now and then comes a photographer who does something new and unique. And every now and then I feature some of them on this blog.

Today I’d like to introduce you all to a Hamburg-based photographer, Adde Adesokan, whose stunning Triptychs of Strangers have recently attarcted a lot of attention on sites like Google+ and Flickr.

Adde takes street portraits of strangers. But instead of traditional portraits, he creates triptychs, where in one image he combines three close-ups of his subject’s face, hips (or general midriff area) and feet. I couldn’t resist asking Adde a few questions and I started by asking how he came up with the idea for Triptychs of Strangers:

I came up with the idea while looking at normal triptych artworks around an exhibition. I tried and posted the first stranger without a description but with time I developed a writing style too to make those strangers even more unique and to stress what I tried to reveal about their personality in the pictures.

How difficult do you find it to convince people to participate?

Not that difficult. It really depends on your idea, yourself and experience. People are really excited about the idea itself or when I show them a few examples. I end up talking to my strangers for about 20 minutes, sometimes up to two hours. Most of them are flattered if you ask them about how they get along and stuff.

Then comes your experience – don’t push to much. Don’t talk to people in groups (individuals seek group-approval), don’t ask for 10 minutes of their time if it’s raining heavily – and offer to delete the photos in case they don’t like them.

A lot of your images – including this project – are street images. Why street photography?

I would say 99% is street. I love people in the streets – whether you get in touch with your subjects or not. I enjoy these moments in life and photography is a good thing to record them.

How long have you been doing photography?

One year. I was in London a year ago visiting my cousin and the city. Unfortunately his time was rather short, so I had to kill some time. This is how things started.

Image © Adde Adesokan, used with author’s permission

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