This is real life on the streets of London
...beguiling, moving, engaging and sometimes tragic
...nothing like this has ever been done before!
Click on pictures to open and see more...
The Peoples Art
Only Human
Londoners Give Performance of their Lives
‘Only Human’ is about capturing London citizens on film and canvas as they stage the flesh & bone street theater performances of their lives. This is not scripted drama, its real-life soap opera, featuring real people and real lives, universally connected by our complex social interplay with human thought, action and emotions.
Capturing & Painting One Perfect Frame of Life
When I look through my camera lens, my focus is to find one perfect frame of life, just one singular picture that conveys the raw and naked emotion of the human story. Once I find that frame, that precious life
moment, it's immortalized forever in a synthesis of
film, music, paint, charcoal, pastel and wooden-board.
Life is composed of moments and emotions
The entirety of our lives consists of a series of moments and each moment offers a recital of our conscious and subconscious thoughts, feelings and tangled emotions.
I don't know my street muses, I've never met them, but I know their emotional journey only too well. I suppose it's only natural that with each film and painting I produce, I fathom more about the person, their life, their drama and their emotion states. I can honestly say I have come to love each and everyone of my muses and above all else, they have taught me to appreciate, realize and acknowledge that we are all... only human.
This is the Peoples ART & YOU are my Muses
Nine Portraits: Nine Films: Nine Life Moments.
Just like the great artist Caravaggio, all my muses are from the streets, they are just ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, existing to breath, live and survive. My art is intensely focused upon capturing the darkness and light of human emotions, also our connect with love, joy, isolation, pain and mental anguish. Just like the oddment shapes of a jigsaw, each emotional piece of the puzzle creates a seismic chain of events, each contributing towards the compelling story of our lives. We are like a tragic Shakespearean play, our lives forever composed of these moments. SeanO
Who do you think you are? Are we really all that different?
No matter what your social standing, breeding or lineage, we are all without exception held hostage to our emotions, our relationships, our jobs, our business, our peers, our politics, our religion, even our aspirations, hopes and dreams. It is also said, that we are perhaps captives of our very own bodies and personalities.
"Sometimes the worst place you can be at is in your own head." Unknown
You are all my muses ... flesh & bone performers of the street soap opera called
'LIFE'
Real Life Soap Opera
YOU... are my Street Muses
YOU are my street muses, filmed live in captivity upon the noisy,
bustling, over-crowded streets of the greatest metropolis in the world.
‘Only Human’ to the observer is like a real life soap opera but with a twist,
I like to call it the 'street theater of earthly flesh and bone.' It's also largely reminiscent to a big open air stage where emotional citizens present daily recitals of the most surreal and inspiring performances of human life.
My canvas is the city of London, an eclectic mix of old Dickensian and Victorian streets, now all but submerged by the elegance and ugliness of tall steel, glass-fronted 21st century architecture.
"London is the great theater of the world" Charles Dickens
Portraits are not just about capturing a likeness, it's also about
capturing the essence of the moment, an attempt to uncover a persons tangled mind and our raw naked emotional reactions. Looking at art with this kind of prospective makes the human story and portrait so much more interesting.
"All the world is a stage... and in one life a person plays many parts" William Shakespeare
Painting one frame from a moment in our lives
The Muses Don't Know
Street muses don't know they are being filmed
99.9% of the time the street muse is oblivious they are being filmed.
I use a big camera zoom lens, usually filming some 1000 feet or more away Every street muse is filmed in a completely natural state of grace.
Life in Slow-Motion
Magnifying our Every Thought and Emotion
As a filmmaker, I truly appreciate the immense power of slow-motion photography. It magnifies and vocalises our every action, thought and emotion. We humans can experience up to 27 separate emotions and
here, I have interpreted one person experiencing upward of six different emotions in one filming session. As i watched frame-by-frame this person's feelings quite literally traveled from calm to anxiety, confusion to sadness and horror to pain. It was quite mind blowing to witness.
I“Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications.” Oscar Wilde
London Supporting Cast
Millions of people pass through our lives
Every theater, film and television production ever made has been supported by a cast of walk-on extras. In real life or a persons lifetime, one might meet and greet hundreds of thousands of people and many millions more will pass almost unnoticed right before your eyes. Some will stop and chat with you, others not, some might divert your attention and some will captivate you. Do we underestimate the phychology of people who drift through our lives?
Worth noting, that some humans even believe that people (known and unknown) will cross our paths for very good spiritual reason.
Are you one of my walk-on extras?
Each 'Street Muse' film incorporates a transient cast of thousands. When my lens is focused upon the muse, London provides legions of film extras, a multinational supporting cast of business people, white collar workers, day trippers, tourists, fashionistas and ephemeral street characters.
Watch a film, are you a bit-part player or maybe even part of the crowd.
The Music
Music that thoughtfully compliments the storytelling
The music chosen for each film adds to the depth of each emotional moment.
Each piece of music seemed at times to magically sync with
every smile, frown, muscle twitch, pout and even random gesturing of the eyes.
Film music enhances both the mood and atmosphere of the moment and truly mirrors the mood of what the audience is visually witnessing.
I like to think the music I have chosen thoughtfully compliments the
storytelling process, offering meaning to a character’s actions,
whilst creating a positive connect towards the muses thoughts and feelings. Most of all, I hope it creates the right level of
emotional empathy with every human consciousness.
Are you one of the supporting
cast?
These are in production



