Everything started with twitter, and rapidly went on Facebook and Google+. I thought I was done with social sites, sharing and posting outside CO-mag site. But following Gonzalo Bénard suggestion, a couple of weeks ago I created a new tumbler channel too, where I started posting a photo and a teaser from the new post or the archive.

After a handful of posts only, I’ve been contacted by tumblr staff to put CO-mag channel under spotlight. This is a great opportunity to give a lot of visibility to all the articles published on the webzine, as well as the demonstration that all the hard work we are doing for CO-mag is appreciated as it deserves.

Anyway, here we are, CO-mag is listed in the top photography blog on tumblr and we have new followers every second!

Don’t wait anymore, join CO-mag on tumblr and enjoy our eclectic selection of great contemporary photography!

Another step in the social evolution of CO-mag: we have a Google Plus and Facebook fan page now.

Concerning the content, I think I’ll write short photographic post on both FB and G+ whenever they are too long for Twitter. I also publish an excerpt of each new article on FB, but not on G+ because this function is still not supported. In this way the CO-mag pages on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus will all have a different content.

Once that said, I’m still open to your suggestions. Do you prefer to have all the FB updates on Twitter, or to republish all the tweets on FB? Or a completely different content for each social network?

The new layout for CO-mag and it’s finally online, please make sure to visit CO-mag to discover all the great new features!

When I created CO-mag I used a gray layout available as a free wordpress theme. One year later I recoded everything creating a minimalist and faster layout, but the visual differences compared to the previous theme where relatively small. The current site layout is a kind of revolution for CO-mag. Here you have an introduction of all the new features:

Improved visual experience. The site is more elegant and professional. Each article has clickeable thumbnails on the homepage, the sidebar, the search pages and any archive. The white background and bigger font make easy to read long articles.

Better navigation. Each post can be classified by category, tag, date, photographer described in the article and post author. You can navigate the site by each of these taxonomies¹. The links are at the beginning and at the end of each article. You’ll also find previous/next and page navigation links on top and bottom of each page.

Easily find interesting content. If you like what you are reading, there are a lot of chances that you’ll enjoy the related articles you can find at the end of each post. Furthermore, in the sidebar available you can find 3 handy lists with the most popular (highest visits), most commented and most recent posts.

Share and socialize. Do you want to share an article? You can find social sharing bottom on each page. As well a more usable subscribe and follow mechanism.

Improved discussion. You post a comment and want to know what other users have to say? You can receive all the future comments in your mail box or subscribe to a single article comments feed. Additionally, CO-mag now supports threaded comments, so it’s much easier to follow a conservation.

And tons of other small improvements, full language localization, bugs correction and so on. Hope you’ll love it!

So, what do you think of the new CO-mag layout? Your feedback is highly welcome, I’m really interested in your opinion! Is there any additional feature you would like me to implement? Please let me know, and I’ll do my best to further improve the new CO-layout.

Enjoy!

1. This still needs some tweaks, mainly because of wpml plugin problems. Hopefully all the bugs will be fixed soon.

Camera Obscura is finally on Twitter! The new site layout will feature several friendly social and follow icons, so I’m not going to modify the current theme. But sure, you can already follow CO-mag on Twitter!

CO-mag twitter channel is much more than a simple RSS feed. First of all, I will post frequently links to great photographer portfolio and interesting photography related topics. What makes CO-mag special is that it features mainly long and in-depth articles. Sometimes I just would like to share a link with a short description, but I don’t do it on CO-mag because of its editorial line. Well, Twitter is just perfect for this kind of short post.

Secondly, I like Twitter because you can interact directly with site curators and have a more human perception of what is behind a website. As a consequence I’ll tweet some behind the scenes concerning CO-mag development and related activities. And sure, you can interact and socialise!

Furthermore, I always asked myself how can I make the archives more accessible. Co-mag visitors tends to read mainly the last few articles via rss feed and the most popular ones via search engines, without browsing the archive that much. This is a common trend for any blog out there, but it still a shame, because there are tons of great articles in the archive waiting for you. So, following us on twitter you’ll regularly get retweet (tweet start with nostalgia) of randomly picked from all the articles older than one year.

Finally, you’ll never miss any new article (tweet start with new post) and post updates (tweet start with post edited).

So, do not hesitate, follow CO-mag on Twitter!

Camera Obscura is five years old today!

My idea was to lunch the new site layout and domain today, to make it the biggest news of this fifth year of Camera Obscura. Sadly I need to do some some additional coding and testing, followed by the translation of the whole theme in five languages. Actually, the multilanguage feature of Camera Obscura makes everything much more difficult. The theme is much more complex, not all the plugins works fine, and translate everything is really time consuming. Anyway, I hope the new template will be online soon!

Globally Camera Obscura is doing well, the number of visits and feed readers is still increasing. Thank you to all the readers for your interest in photography and art!

Do you want to know wich was the article in english who get the maximum number of visits during the last twelve months? Here you have: Ars Moriendi, by Joel-Peter Witkin.

Concerning the future, besides the iminent new layout, I would like to increase the number of contributors and regular editors (if you want to became a CO editor just contact me) and go social, sharing Camera Obscura content at least on twitter, facebook and Google+. And you, what would you like to see on Camera Obscura during the next year? Write a comment with your wish list, and I’ll try to make your dreams true.

So, stay tuned for a new year full of great contemporary photography!

I’m working very hard on a new layout for Camera Obscura, and I would like to launch it with a new domain name too. A new domain name for Camera Obscura only, beacause now it’s a subdomain of busdraghi.net. Can you please help to choose the right domain?

Sadly www.cameraobscura.com or www.camera-obscura.com and its equivalents like .net are already used. I was thinking to something like www.camera-obscura-magazine.com or www.cameraobscuramagazine.com or maybe www.co-magazine.com or even a brand new name?

So, my question is: what is your favourite domain name for Camera Obscura? Can you please add a comment with your point of view and suggestions?

When I finally buy a new domain name, I’ll use random.org to extract a winner from all the comments of this posts (and its translations). The prize is an original signed and numbered print by myself. So, do not wait any more, tell us what is your dream domain name for Camera Obscura!

During the next week I will expose some photos from demons, blow-up and places of the soul series during the 3rd edition of Parallax Art Fair.

P(AF)3 will be held at Chelsea Town Hall, King’s Road, London from 16 to 18 February 2012. Entry is free.

What a nice occasion to appreciate paintings, sculptures and photos from all around the world, to attend some lectures of the interesting program and eventually buy some artwork with full prices going to the artists. Yes, P(AF) takes no commission at all!

If you happen to be in London next week I would be happy to meet you at MH17&MH18 space in the main hall. Otherwise, here you have a virtual visit to Fabiano Busdraghi exposition in Parallax Art fair.

Fabiano Busdraghi virtual exposition at Parallax Art Fair
Please visit Exposing at P(AF)3: Parallax Art Fair in London for the full size image.

As I did for 2009 and 2010, it’s time to write a list of my favorite contributed articles published on Camera Obscura during 2011.

The list is based on my personal taste, the quality of the writing being fundamental, almost independently of the attached photos. Camera Obscura is above all a text-based platform for artists to express their point of view and share their experience; so -even if the photographic work is certainly important, I try to give more weight to the text itself. As usual, I prefer the everyday life, the anecdotes and the personal stories much more than theory and philosophy.

© Kalliope Amorphous
Please visit Top 10 contributed articles published in 2011 for the full size image.

The choice was really difficult, a lot of articles not included here are stunning, but I had to end up with a top list. Anywhere, here we are with the list of the best articles published during 2011 (favorite on top):

1. Female drug addiction in Afghanistan, by Rafaela Persson
2. The Language Of Skin: Thoughts On Self Portraiture & Poetry, by Kalliope Amorphous
3. Leaving Comfort Behind, by Scott McIntyre
4. No Strings Attached (NSA), by Helen Flanagan
5. Frozen in time, by Urban Travel
6. By the Lake, by Birgit Püve
7. Sea Change, by Michael Marten
8. The things we did while you were gone, by Bryan Thomas
9. Myth and Landscape, by David Parker
10. Between In and Out, by Chen Xiaomei (陈小枚)

As usual, I suggest all the CO followers to reread these articles, they are all great essays about photography!

© Scott McIntyre
Please visit Top 10 contributed articles published in 2011 for the full size image.

In a couple of weeks I will expose a selection of my photos from Antarctica in Fotogalerie im Blauen Haus, a gallery dedicated to photography that is located in Munich. Germany.

You can visit the exposition from February 18th to March 26th 2011 (Tuesday-Friday: 3pm to 7pm and Saturday 11am to 4pm). If you want to talk a bit about Antarctica heard some of the anecdotes from my trips, or just meet me, I’ll be present for the opening on February 18th 2011 starting from 7pm.

Poster of Antarctica exposition
© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Antarctica by Fabiano Busdraghi in Fotogalerie im Blauen Haus, Munich for the full size image.

This is the address and contact informations of the gallery:

Fotogalerie im Blauen Haus
Schellingstraße 143
Ecke Schleißheimer Straße
80798 München | Maxvorstadt
Phone: 089 – 700 969 44
[email protected]
www.fotogalerie-im-blauen-haus.de

I’ll expose a total of 26 photographs from my trips to Antarctica, for the biggest part they are among the most abstract and minimalistic pictures I shoot on the white continent. For more informations about my travel to Antarctica and this series of photographs you can have a look to the article I wrote some months ago: Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica.

Maps and photo locations in Antarctica
© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Antarctica by Fabiano Busdraghi in Fotogalerie im Blauen Haus, Munich for the full size image.

I prepared a poster with several maps of my trips to help visitors locate my pictures. The version displayed on this page is quite small, but if you are interested you can download a bigger file (0.8Mb): Antarctic Map.

Concerning the prints, I’ll expose eleven 30x45cm edition of 15, eleven small 8x12cm edition of 15, two 50x75cm edition of 9 and one panoramic 23x82cm edition of 15. All the photos have 5cm of white paper all around the image, signature and edition number is on the back lower white margin. The photos are museum archival inkjet prints on a really beautiful paper: Photo Rag Baryta by Hahnemühle. It looks like the semi-lucid fiber paper traditional baryte paper used in the darkroom (actually it really contains a layer of baryte).

If you like my work in Antarctica please tell your friends about the exposition. Feel free to reuse all the images on this page. Thank you very much and hope to see you soon in Munich.

Virtual exposition of Antarctic photos
© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Antarctica by Fabiano Busdraghi in Fotogalerie im Blauen Haus, Munich for the full size image.

As I did the last year with my list of top 5 contributed articles published during 2009, it’s time to select the best articles that have been written during the last year. The choice have been done following the same criteria used the last year.

Here you have the complete list (favorite on top):

1. White Sea Black Sea – travels on the Border, by Jens Olof Lasthein
2. Innocent X, by David Paul Lyon
3. A parallel reality, by Alexandra Demenkova
4. A dedication: to Urghyen and Ladakh, by Sankar Sridhar
5. “Zapatistas”, heroes from the last century, by Jon Bertelli
6. Life Lessons: The Journey Within, by Izabella Demavlys
7. Terre des Oublis, by Steven Greaves
8. General Butt Naked, by Ryan Lobo
9. Camila, by Veronika Marquez
10. Ein nichtort or the fairy tail about the galoshes of fortune – an insightview, by Evi Lemberger

I suggest to all Camera Obscura followers to read (or re-read) all these articles because they are wonderful essays about great contemporary visual artist works. Thank you to all these photographers for their article, and thank you also to all the others artists that have contributed to Camera Obscura.

During 2010 I also publish an assay about my own work in the style of contributed article. Sure, I can’t have the presumption to insert it in the top ten list, but if you are interested you can find it here: Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica.

© David Paul Lyon
Please visit Top 10 contributed articles published in 2010 for the full size image.

Some time ago I was invited by Paul O’Sullivan -the Ed Kashi studio’s Social Media Editor- to join the Impact online exhibit: a virtual exhibition of articles and photographs. Here is my contribution, please find at the end of the article a more in depth description of Impact and the links to navigate through the various Impact articles.

Two trips to Antarctica

During my PhD¹ in physical oceanography, I had the opportunity to join two major scientific expeditions in Antarctica. The first one, on board of the German icebreaker Polarstern, was dedicated to the in situ measurement of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport in the Drake Passage. The second one, on board of the Argentine army icebreaker Almirante Irizar, was much longer and reached the extreme southern limit of the Weddell Sea. Principal scientific objective: a study of the Weddell Sea thermal structure changes, possibly explaining the massive destruction of the Larsen ice shelf.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

On an oceanographic ship, and even more on board of a military icebreaker, the atmosphere is completely different from that of tourist ships traveling to Antarctica. Not to mention that for logistic and security reasons, cruise ships usually are limited to the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, while on the Irizar we did go in the southern part of the Weddell Sea. So I was lucky enough to navigate in a virtually inaccessible place and step on the Antarctic continent itself, an experience way more intense than visiting the already beautiful sub-antarctic islands.

I came back with unforgettable memories. A book/diary that is only waiting to find a publisher to be released. Thousands of pictures, many of which are probably among the best photos I’ve ever shot. Lots of anecdotes and stories, emotions and thoughts that have changed my life forever.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

Weddell Sea, February 2, 2007

It’s midnight. The Sun dwells upon the horizon. It paints the clouds with the vivid colors of a twilight, but the sunset will not come. The white ice gently turns into pink and orange. The view is simply gorgeous.

Peaceful. That’s the way I feel. And while I admire this light show, while I am in front of the white dunes grazed by the warm glare of dusk, facing the silence of this glorious landscape, everything seems clear, almost obvious.  It is this harmony, simply designed by nature and by its interactions, that makes me understand. It is thanks to the natural flow of everything that I re-discover my role. I re-discover my place out in the world and inside of myself.

I do believe this is the most precious gift of Antarctica. To forget the joys and the fears, the needs, the problems we have to face and the roles we have to play everyday of our lives. To escape the prejudices of our cultural background, the pointless structures accumulating for centuries and influencing our social manners and our thinking. To get rid of the schemes that tell us what is beautiful and what is not, what is important and what is meaningless. And finally to free ourselves from our aspirations, our hopes, our desires.

Antarctica brings you back to the primordial dimension of existence. It’s the only place where you feel completely clean, blank, new. That’s why, here, you can appreciate the most elementary sensations Nothing matters anymore but the present, the exact moment you are experiencing. And this is why I do think real life is here, in this endless ice-covered world.

Because here there is nothing except the perfect interaction between the outside world and the one inside yourself. And because I think that humans beings are made exactly for this kind of interaction. And everything else is meaningless.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

Do not get me wrong. These lines are not an invitation to become an hermit, but an attempt to describe the “Antarctica experience”, to analyze it. The emptiness of the great outdoors spaces brings back life to its primal and pure form. A quasi-animal existence, which there appears more authentic and Dionysiac than the everyday one.

Physical Oceanography

The sea around Antarctica is called Southern Ocean. One of the reasons why it has a prominent place in modern oceanographic research is that it is the only ocean in the world that connects the Atlantic, the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Furthermore, the Southern Ocean has a fundamental impact on the global climate, understand how it behave is therefore a key element in climate change research.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

My master degrees in applied physics at the University of Pisa has been devoted to the study of low frequency and large-scale variability of mixed layer depth in the Southern Ocean… wait, wait! What on earth physics got to do with photography? And what the hell is the mixed layer? Here’s a short introduction, interested readers may consult my thesis (pdf, 5Mb), while those allergic to mathematics may go straight to the next chapter.

The ocean can be summarized as two superposed layers, with very different water characteristics. The first layer near the surface is called mixed layer, because the interactions with the atmosphere almost continuously produce turbulence which mixes the water. Numerous and complex thermodynamical or mechanical phenomena influence the depth of the mixed layer. Generally all the processes that generate turbulence² tend to deepen the mixed layer, while the processes that lead to stratification³ of the water column tend to reduce its depth.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

The depth of the mixed layer is characterized by a high space and time variability. In the Mediterranean Sea, in summer, the mixed layer measures only one meter or so in depth, but in the Southern Ocean, the winter mixed layer depth may reach a few hundred meters. Seasonal variability of the mixed layer depth is fairly well understood, but little is known of its inter-annual variability, especially in the Southern Ocean, where in-situ measurements are particularly scarce.

Mixed layer depth is extremely important because it determines and influences virtually all ocean-atmosphere interactions. This means that the long-term variability of the mixed layer depth has a fundamental impact on the global climate, both on small and large space scale, and on time scales ranging from few months to even several hundred years.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

The variety of experience

A large fraction of contemporary art photography is purely conceptual and sometimes the artistic statement is even more important than the image itself. Some artists start by thinking about the concept and shoot the images only at a later time. On the other hand, others follow an aspiration, a feeling, sometimes just a vague idea, mixing it with their instinct and intuition. Only later, once the pictures have been taken, they write the statement to give back artistic unity and coherence to a series of images. Certainly I belong to this second category of photographers.

The photographs I took during two trips to Antarctica represents a photo-diary. They are a pure hymn to the beauty of nature, a nature in which the photographer is simply a spectator. They witness the astonishing and unforgettable beauty in front of which one can only remain silent and amazed. But at the same time these photos can be read on several different and complementary levels. All these different interpretations were more or less implicitly present at the time of shooting and are still there in the finished prints.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

On one hand these photos are the document of a fragile system in danger. The views of almost completely melted icebergs -icebergs that only a few years ago were Larsen, one of the largest glaciers on earth- are a clear evidence of what man is doing to the Earth. These pictures represents a proof of the too often overlooked fragility of the climatic system. They are a warning for the people that stares at them: They can have a direct look at the beauty of the world we live in and realize that it can rapidly change in a drastic way. This can ultimately help to bring a greater respect for nature. It can persuade people to have a more environmentally responsible behavior. And if not, at least these photos are a document to show how was the polar climate at a certain time, tell the children of our children what it was before it eventually disappeared.

On the other hand these photographs are the visual culmination of several years of study and research in physics and oceanography. Photography is often very distant from scientific research, and the scientific world usually looks at the arts (and vice versa) with suspicion and sometimes even contempt. Nevertheless I do think it would be better to try to follow something similar to the Da Vinci’s model: I think it is important to cross the boundaries between various disciplines, to be able to be at the same time an engineer and a painter or an anatomist and an inventor. Without necessarily trying to have an encyclopedic knowledge about everything, I believe we should be more open to build connections and to have contaminations between different fields of human knowledge.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

Finally my pictures of Antarctica are also a direct reflection of my feelings. The same feeling of emptiness and primordial purity which permeates all the pages of my diary. It is curious, because at that time I had not yet read Zhuangzi and did not know much about Taoist philosophy. I only had some seasoned notions of mysticism, stuff comparable to what you can read in some alternative esoteric textbooks, things in retrospective I totally despise. The conceptions that were in my head back then, were the opposite of what I now consider to be the true meaning of Chinese Taoist philosophy. Yet in the pages I wrote in Antarctica -and reflected in the pictures I took- I can clearly find the presence of Taoist philosophy. This reminds me of a sentence, I can not remember if it is from Jean François Billeter, Jean Levi or Romain Graziani, but it goes more or less like this:

You understand what Zhaungzi means only if you have understood it already by yourself before reading it.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

A few years after my trips to Antarctica, reading with great pleasure this wonderful book, I thought, a little presumptuously, that I’ve figured out the sense of many pages of Zhuangzi before reading them. And this was only thank to the ice of the white desert, to its purity and beauty. Thank to Antarctica.

So, who am I? Who is Fabiano Busdraghi? A physicist who studies the impact of mixing layer depth on climate change? A poet, dazzled by the glare of the ice? An adventurer on an Argentinian naval vessel? A sinologist who is interested in ancient Chinese philosophical Taoism? A photographer searching for beautiful images? A person unable to choose what to do in his life?

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

I do not like to use the word “art” when I speak about my photographs, because it is a vague and abused term. But when it comes to a pure act of creation, call it art if you want, I think it should be a little bit like life itself. At least concerning my own life. I always want to do everything, I want to try the countless experiences that life can offer. Just one life is not enough, I always find myself chasing all possible existences out there. So to be sincere and consistent in the end concerning what I create -and in particular concerning my photographs- they must contain a little bit of all of this: physics, emotion, adventure, poetry, philosophy, travel, encounters, thermodynamics, relations…

I do not know if at the end it is more or less evident, but in any case my photographs in Antarctica are the product of all this.

© Fabiano Busdraghi
Please visit Physics, adventure, poetry and photography in Antarctica, by Fabiano Busdraghi for the full size image.

More picture from Antarctica are available on my antarctic portfolio page.

Thank you very much to Matteo Cantiello for his useful suggestions and kind help provided during this article revision and translation.

Impact online exhibition

Welcome to the new Impact online exhibition, a project exploring the internet as a venue for insightful photographic work. In an effort to remind viewers of the important role photographers play around the world, we invited an array of imagemakers to share galleries on their blogs (like this one) that comprise 12 images representing an experience when they had an impact on or were impacted. By clicking on the links below the Impact logo, you can move through the exhibition, viewing other galleries by different photographers. You can also click the Impact logo to be taken to a post on the liveBooks Resolve Blog where you can see an index of all participating photographers. We hope that by linking different photographic visions of our first topic, “Outside Looking In,” we can provide a multifaceted view of the topic as well as the Impact individuals can have on the world around us.

1. At Locean (University Paris 6 and SZN (University Federico II of Naples).
2. Such as wind friction, waves breaking, surface cooling, eddies, ice formation salt rejection, Langmuir cells, currents shear…
3. Like surface heating, horizontal, intrusions, Ekman pumping…

The 2009 year has just finished and it is the moment to summarize the best contributed articles have appeared in Camera Obscura during the year.

The choice of the five best articles is purely personal, but it is based on the following criteria. First, the quality of the writing itself, whether or not the article is fascinating, it teaches something, it makes you think and leaves a mark. I mean, an article that has “literary” value beyond the author’s photographs. Second point, in a certain sense related to the first, the correspondence with the editorial line that I would like to give to Camera Obscura. The winners have been able to choose a topic and develop it, write a real article about a specific subject and not simply a general and inevitably superficial introduction of their work. Finally, the quality of the images that accompany the text.

© Tim Gallo
Please visit Top 5 contributed articles in 2009 for the full size image.

My absolute favorite article, among those published during 2009, is Postman’s letter by Maleonn. A must read. Beautiful article made of memories, dreams and fantasy just as the stunning photographs by Maleonn. A good example of how writing about a particular topic can bring out the overall vision of things of an artists. The demonstration that behind a big names of photography as Maleonn is, there are great minds.

For the second place I choose Absolute Cure for Loneliness, by Tim Gallo, at least for the courage to honestly describe the torrid relationship between a nude photographer and his model. An almost completely taboo subject, because most photographers deny (or pretend to deny) any mental or physical involvement that may compromise their “professionality”.

© Charlie Simokaitis
Please visit Top 5 contributed articles in 2009 for the full size image.

The third of my favorite articles is Fade to White by Charlie Simokaitis. Moving testimony of the blind people world, an universe that closely affects the author, whose girl is becoming progressively blind.

A fourth place for Misleading Moment, by Aaron Hobson for the somehow rebellious irony of the author.

Since I can not decide for the fifth and last place here is a list (in random order) of articles that all worth a read: Mark Brautigam, Paul Turounet, Kendrick Brinson, Kevin Bauman, Jeremy Kohm, Alejandro Cartagena.

Finally, thanks for all the other authors who have written an article for Camera Obscura and have not been mentioned here.

© Aaron Hobson
Please visit Top 5 contributed articles in 2009 for the full size image.

Since I read Does size matter? Yes it does, I started to tell me that maybe it worths to modernize the layout of Camera Obscura. Now the thumbnails of the photos accompanying the articles are much larger than before, occupying the entire width of the text column. I ask the readers: do you prefer the previous layout with small thumbnails, or the new one with larger ones?

The mannequins are not the reality of our society, but only a reflection of its surface.

Fashion, how to dress, image care, are all superficial aspects of Western consumer society, but still reflect its essence. The mannequins are a reflection of this reflection. The street is the surface of the city, a reflection of the life inside houses and buildings. Photography itself is a superficial representation of reality, only a reflection of what is deep under the surface.

The series Deep Surfaces Reflections is a visual exploration bouncing between these different layers of surfaces and reflections.

All photographs are taken in the streets, a no man’s land where everything is possible. The aim is to represent the surface of the cities where we live, what we are now, what we have in front of our eyes every day. There is no staging or intervention about the positions of the bodies, light or decorative elements.

As well as being a reflection of the city landscape, the mannequins are icons of the god of beauty, a silent and distant god. Ideal, unattainable, young, sexy, mysterious bodies. Never a smile that breaks the cold glacial on their faces. Confronted with this god we are all mannequins. All dressed in the same way, same pose, attitudes, same thoughts. Then are we ourselves, as mannequins are, icons of this deity? Perhaps are the mannequins looking at us while we believe the opposite? Mannequins became a mirror able to change the reflection of whoever casts his image on it. Therefore whoever has the control of mannequins can control what society looks like… is society indeed in control of itself? Or is society turning itself into a slave of mannequins?

In many photographs of Deep Surfaces Reflections, faces seem almost alive. The boundary between human being and mannequin become more and more indefinite. Thus the mannequins are also a reflection of ourselves. In their superficiality they can touch deep layers of existence. In their silence they seem to live emotions, feelings, hopes. They seem to share the feelings that make us human beings, they seem to wish to escape from their immobility.

Where does reality begin and reflection end? Who are they?

And who are we?

Deep Surface Reflections

Everything works fine, but for reasons that I’m still not able to understand, Google Reader considers as new each old article on which I do the smallest correction. The thing is pretty boring, and for sometime I’m looking for a solution. I apologize in advance if in the next few days you will notice something strange in Google Reader.

The problem however seems to be Google, because in Feedburner everything works properly. I do not know how behave other FeedReader, does some Camera Obscura readers use a service or program other than Google Reader? Have you noticed anomalies?

If the duplicate post in Google Reader is particularly annoying for you, a possible solution is to subscribe to the feed via email. In this case you will receive in your inbox only the new articles and you will not get the corrections of the old ones. In any case I hope I will quickly find a solution that works with Google Reader too.