So what were you thinking?

The human face - center of attention not only for all verbal communication, but much non-verbal communication as well. The things are everywhere you look (everyone has one, and apparently some people have two), and while we may never give a moment's thought to what might be going on behind most of the faces we see, or even our own judgements about people made solely on the basis of their faces, a pair of self-promotional sites may well have you thinking twice about not thinking at all. The Thought Project and Stereotypes each deal with a different side of what goes on when we look at a face.

The more recent of the two sites (launched in January), the Thought Project is simplicity itself - both in mission and execution. Wondering what the average pedestrian might be pondering as they commuted from point A to B, Danish photographer Simon Hoegsberg simply went up to strangers on the streets of New York and Copenhagen and asked them what they were thinking about the moment before he stopped them. He then recorded the responses and took photographs of 150 willing participants (of which 55 are currently featured online).

With his raw material harvested, Hoegsberg placed the results onto an equally straightforward website. The Flash-based presentation opens with little more than a title and an 11x5 grid of participants' snapshots - dimmed almost to black until you rollover each face. (The only other interactive spots on the page load About and Contact information, and link to the studio that designed the site.) Choose a likely looking portrait -or simply start at the top left to view the production in sequence- and the Project replaces the grid with a subject-specific page.

To the left of the screen, subject pages offer a larger version of the portrait from the home page grid. (Which, at full size, reveal themselves to not only be closely cropped images of the thinkers' faces, but ones of exceptionally shallow depth of field - so much so that while the eyes are always in sharp focus, the eyebrows are soft and the tip of the nose a blur.) On the left are unedited transcripts of each person's response to Hoegsberg's question.

Presumably, the 55 people recorded on this site were the most cerebrally active, because there seems to have been a great deal of thinking going on - though not necessarily about matters vital to...well, even the person thinking them. ("I was thinking about if I should walk straight ahead or if I should turn right." "I was thinking about cardboard.")

Of course, you can't fairly judge a thought by its opening line, and many of the responses actually flesh out rather nicely, covering themes from relationships to religion to work to corporate corruption to, "Why do intermediate-range ballistic missiles cost as much as an allotment shed?"

And who among us hasn't pondered that one from time to time? (I couldn't help but wonder, though, as I explored the replies, just how many "Nothing."s Hoegsberg encountered before collecting his 150 keepers - and if anyone responded with, "I was wondering what you were thinking just now.")

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