Oliver Curtis - Volta-face: Photographing the Ordinary Behind the Extra-Ordinary

Oliver Curtis is a photographer that goes to the main sights of the world and literally 'turns his back' from them in order to see the context around them. Instead of the big statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio, we photographs the landscape of mountains and water as well as the cleaners waiting for the crowd to clear for them to start their work. In his words: On visiting the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo in 2012, Oliver Curtis turned and looked back in the direction he had come from. What he saw fascinated him so much that he has since made a point of turning his back on some of world's most photographed monuments and historic sites, looking at their counter-views and forgotten faces.
This captures artistically a main concern for ethnographers: an appreciation for the context and ecology of social processes and an interest for the ordinary aspects of reality (within the extraordinary).
http://wantedonline.co.za/art-design/2016-08-31-sites-unseen-oliver-curtiss-volte-face/