Mishka Henner - documentary photographer

Mishka Henner has been shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for his series of images using Google Street View to document the presence of roadside sex workers in Spain and Italy.

Although he trained as a documentary photographer, Mishka Henner has moved farther and farther away from the idea of 'taking’ a picture. The project for which he has been nominated for this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, titled No Man’s Land, is a survey of prostitution sites in Spain and Italy made using images found on Google Street View.

Cami del Caminas, Nules, Spain, 2012.

Carretera de Rubi, Terrassa, Spain, 2012.

Henner, 36, has been described as a modern-day Duchamp, which he finds flattering and apt. 'Duchamp was about changing the way we think of art, and in consequence how we look at the world,’ he says. 'Using pictures taken by robots may make other photographers think of me as a joke, but Duchamp faced that all his life – it makes me think I am doing something right.’

No Man’s Land has its roots in a project investigating street prostitution that Henner’s partner, Liz Lock, also a photographer, had undertaken alongside sociologists in their hometown of Manchester. Discussing locations where these women plied their trade, Henner hit on the idea of using Street View as a mapping tool, and, sure enough, some of the women were visible on the pictures. The story took a darker turn when his searches led to internet forums for men using Street View as a means of finding girls. 'I’d stumbled across the perfect means of representing the issue,’ Henner says. 'I loved it because it didn’t pretend it was trying to understand the experience of the women. It’s about us looking, being witnesses to a whole world with which we cannot empathise.’

Carretera de Olot, Crespià, Spain, 2011.

Henner does nothing to alter the images – each glitch and blur (Google had to develop a face-concealing algorithm for data protection) is reproduced, emphasising the manufactured nature of these world views. He is particularly fond of the landscape backgrounds. 'People tend to focus on the women, but the figures are tiny. At one time these places must have been lush greenery and rolling hills. Now they’re littered with trash, with these poor women standing by the road to make a living. The project became about the fall of Arcadia.’

Carretera de Fortuna, Murcia, Spain, 2012 

The series was published as a print-on-demand book in 2011. Henner has since produced a second volume, and intends to expand further: as Street View moves around the world, so online forums for men in search of prostitutes spring up. At the Photographers’ Gallery show of those shortlisted for the prize, animated screenshots will mimic a car moving forward, a head turning to look, its soundtrack amateur recordings of birdsong in the regions where the women work. Inadvertently, the work has taken on an archival role. 'Street View is updated every two or three years,’ he says. 'I revisit locations online and the women are no longer there, the landscape has changed. Most of these images will disappear without ever being looked at.’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/9984841/Deutsche-Borse-Photography-Prize-Mishka-Henner.html