Sinna Nasseri's
The Many Faces of Birds
A look back on Sinna Nasseri and Birds collaborations, which is A LOT.
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. For the Birds. (2022)
Couple months ago, there are story of a music producer, Randall Poster, doing 'For the Birds', a 242-track of songs and poems inspired by birdsong. Very few press cover this stories. All of them use press-kit photo from original source and the content are all similar. We see Poster's face but not a single birds he talk about.
The Guardian (2022)
SPIN (2022)
The Christian Science Monitor (2022)
Different thing happened in The New York Times's article.
The New York Times's 'A Boxed Set for the Birds Hopes to Save Them, Too' turns the camera and shows us the faces of the birds (with Poster as a binocular guy). The article itself writes deeper about making of 'For the Birds', an idea, process and back-story of person behind 'For the Birds' playlist. At the same time, Photographer Sinna Nasseri explore the bird life and the bird-lovers life, showing us the faces of City-Birds of New York.
Randall Poster with his binocular and the photo of NYC city-birds on The New York Times
Sinna Nasseri is always good with moment capturing but I see deeper reason why he was an ideal photographer for this shoot. Let's throw back to see how birds played a role in his archive.
First with his signature low-angle portrait
His first project in 2018, End of Day, first introduce us to his low-angle portrait shot. He've developed and use occasionally until today.
Sinna Nasseri. End of Day. (2018)
Sinna Nasseri. End of Day. (2018)
It without bird there but see this next one, in 2020, on Sinna Nasseri's personal roadtrip project, Rescue Sketches, where he also shot reportage for publications along the road, the way sky area in his low-angle portrait photos be less empty, with airplane.
Sinna Nasseri (2020)
Sinna Nasseri for TIME. the Q Shaman’s 41-month prison sentence. (2020)
Since 2021, when Sinna Nasseri started shooting portraits for publications, the low-angle portrait now used with celebrities shoot as well, and there are birds in many of them.
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. David Arquette. (2021)
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. Annie Hamilton. (2022)
Sinna Nasseri for Rolling Stone. Omar Apollo. (2022)
I first recognise the repetition of birds and its development from his portraits, but actually, birds have been Sinna Nasseri's dearest animal in many of photographs he took.
On Rescue Sketches where Sinna Nasseri explored America along his road trip in a turbulant year of 2020. In the piles of portraits, landscapes, political campaigns, events, everyday-life, etc, there are birds.
Sinna Nasseri. Rescue Sketches. (2020)
Sinna Nasseri. Rescue Sketches. (2020)
and so bird-people.
Sinna Nasseri. Rescue Sketches. (2020)
Sinna Nasseri. Rescue Sketches. (2020)
Sometimes, birds were guest-staring in a photo foreground on Nasseri's editorial shoot.
Who is Annie Hamilton? (2022) shoot outtake looks like it got photo-bomb by birds, and The Only Living Pay Phone in New York (2022) feature New Yorker Pigeons additional from pay phone photos.
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. Annie Hamilton. (2022)
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. The Only Living Pay Phone in NYC. (2022)
And some birds in photos that arguable if it's intentional or not, but it's still birds.
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. Nicholas Cage. (2022)
Sinna Nasseri. Rescue Sketches. (2020)
As I lay his imagery history collaborating with birds, he seems to love bird as part of his visual storytelling.
My assumption is stamp by Sinna Nasseri himself told in #yellowbooth with Eve Lyons this February (2022) that "Birds fluttered their way into my brain.", and he's "photographed Rachel Bujalski’s wedding last year (2021) in Bodega Bay because she asked me to, and it was held at the chapel where Hitchcock filmed The Birds. Ever since then I’ve had a sort of communion with them." (but we all see and agree that he communion with birds happened before then, right?)
Birds in his photo don't look like photo from a nature trip which, for me, is another form of stuff animal, but the kind of birds that are a part of situation, birds with flesh and blood, living their best live.
Here photo of birds, walking their best life. (and solid proofs that Sinna Nasseri communion with birds was long before 2021)
Sinna Nasseri. (2018)
Sinna Nasseri. (2017)
I think that's the reason why the photo editor,Amanda Webster, several time co-work with Sinna Nasseri, assign him for this article.
In many interview, Randall Poster, the man behind 'For the Birds', said that birds is likes us human, but there are never visual storytelling to tell us how. He also said in The New York Times article that he want to empower young generation to look at birds.
The vision to put the city-birds narrative through the photographs may initiate from that quotes, to let the readers see life in birds, to related birds to us human and to empower us to look at birds around us more. And, as we see, Sinna Nasseri is the one who can play where's-Waldo with birds anywhere and captures that birds in their alive, fun and aspiring look which we, the readers, will love to look at even we have zero knowledge on birds.
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. For the Birds. (2022)
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. For the Birds. (2022)
The results are stunning, when you let someone who expertise in moment capturing and sprinkle his body of work with bird life doing a city-birds photos, you got the supreme version of it.
We got the photo of free-birds in a tree, pet-bird with old lady, dog staring at bird, bird staring (and attacking) people. The people who are bird-lovers, bird composer, and ordinary people. Many situation on New York City birds. I don't know for sure but I think it's Amanda Webster who finding and contacting these bird-people feature in the photos, so this compliment is for her, too.
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. For the Birds. (2022)
Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times. For the Birds. (2022)
The photo sequence by Amanda Webster is another part making these photos of the article so good. Amanda Webster's editing let us see the difference energy of locations, the experiment that Sinna Nasseri done, and the chaotic of the city, all of it mixed up to deliver entertaining rhythm of birds life. Noted that I love how she paired photos with eye lines and gesture, creating perspective that photos interact with each other.
And that's the way many faces of the birds reveal to us, a visual story telling us how birds co-live in city public space, how they are part of our daily in this very New York life, and how they can inspire us. Then, when we drive into Sinna Nasseri's body of works we see how true that statement is, both in New York City and everywhere else. More than ever, Poems and musics in 'For the Birds' seems relatable as it's intend to be.
