-
The “Face Of” Humanity – unveiling our true identity.
What does the average face of humanity look like?
There is one photograph that truly answers that question. There is a difference between the “typical” face of humanity (based on the most populous ethnic group, which today is Chinese) and the “average” face of humanity (which must represent the proper ratios of all the major ethnic groups of the world). Two years ago David Trood created the Face of Humanity based on an accurate ratio of the world´s ethnic/regional groups according to 2009 demographics. He photographed 670 men and women (1/10,000,000th of the global population at that time) who were selected to proportionally represent the demographics of the world population as reported in 2009. He then merged all of the male portraits and all of the female portraits to create respectively the Male Face of Humanity and the Female Face of Humanity. The subsequent merging of these two portraits resulted in the composite Face of Humanity. This is the most reliable portrait of what the averaged composite “Face of Humanity” looks like to date.
In 2007, after over twenty years behind the camera, I stopped photography for two years to write a book about my own creative journey as a photographer and to seek answers to the philosophic question, “From where does creativity arise? That quest resulted in the recent book, At Any Given Moment (www.atanygivenmoment.com).
DOWNLOAD THE EBOOK
Part of that personal journey involved creating the Face of Humanity, a project motivated by the realization that we are all one and that our collective being could be represented photographically. I moderfied a century old technique, developed by Sir Francis Galton by adding a method of photographing people so that their eyes were precisely placed, and the portraits later could be easily merged using photoshop. I call this technique “Eye Spotting”.
The people in the image represent the worlds´ population according to 2009 ethnic demographics.
23% are Chinese
18% are Indian
15% are African ( North, South, East and West Africa respectively)
11% are Middle Eastern
9% are from Latin America
8% are from South East Asia
7% are from Northern Europe
5% are from the USA
4% are from Southern and Eastern Europe
The image is 100% real!
The Female Face of Humanity: This image is the average of 335 women from around the globe and is composed following the 2009 population demographics of the world. By overlapping 335 individual images on top of each other, aligning only the two eyes, this image shows the average of the female.
The Male Face of Humanity: This image is the average of 335 men from around the world and is composed following the 2009 population demographics of earth. By overlapping 335 individual images
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Comments
Almost everyone has an opinion about this image. If you have one, I would gladly love to hear it. Share it here on this blog!
When we begin to realize what the Face of Humanity actually is, it goes from being just a blurry image of an unknown face, to an iconic image and a milestone in the understanding of who we are!
Astonishing – in this era of expanding worldwide spiritual consciousness, synthesis and longing for our origin source it is such a gift you have given us, David; the face of humanity. And who did I think of when seeing it with new eyes after having read your book? One of our word leaders comes very close….
With love & light Pia.
The average face of humanity is an instant visual injection of understanding. That understanding can be different depending on where you are from, but for most people I think it tells a deeper story of who we are as a common identity.
With all the hype on the Internet about average and typical faces, it is wonderful to see an image that is based in real demographics. Thanks for showing us the portrati of the human “family.”
Brothers and sisters I have none but that man there is my fathers son.
An amazing and interesting project,and I imagine a lot of exacting work David. Congratulations.