Related Stories, when our flats become our whole world
We can safely say that in these last months the pandemic has changed every aspect of our lives. It has changed relationships, free time, the way we work, study and it has also changed our homes. What used to be, for many people, a stage among the thousand commitments of the day or a place to feel good, has now become much more like a prison, a place that we can’t wait to leave, a place that has begun to be close to us. However, we cannot always focus on the negative sides of situations, we must find the strength to see the positive even during a world pandemic. This is exactly what the creatives of JPAG, a Lebanese studio, did with the project “Related Stories“.
“With the apartments turned into city, the people residing in them have turned into professionals. I am a chef, a psychiatrist, an extrovert, a sport addict…”
“Related Stories” is a story made up of 5 episodes and set in the streets of a post-lockdown Beirut, where everything is shrouded in a dark, sad, lifeless atmosphere. Walking through the streets, the gaze is captured by the lights of the houses on, lighthouses in the dark night.
And then you see something else.
“The first thought of being enclosed between four walls is overwhelming, though. But in hindsight, the experience could also be considered life-changing”.
Since houses are now not just houses but have become professional kitchens, gyms, observatories from which to look at the world, JPAG’s creatives have added flashy neon signs next to the windows, transforming the flats into all those places that are now closed and where we can’t wait to return.
Below you can find the first episode of “Related Stories“, to enjoy all the others go to the JPAG website.
The NSFW (not safe for work) photographic projects, despite the acronym we use to define them, do not just tell nude stories. They are articles about fragile and delicate relationships, they are transparent, extremely sincere and vulnerable projects.
You can find here the 10 articles most read during the last year, but if you don’t have enough of them, we have a whole archive just for you. Good reading again.
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly / Into the light of the dark black night, sang the Beatles more than fifty years ago, and it is this song, and its message of freedom, that inspired Jamie Johnson in the choice of what is now her stage name, Birdee. Today her analogue photographs analyze the themes of femininity, strength and grace. Her subjects are carefree, decisive and tenacious bodies always in contact with water.
Sensual and passionate, as beautiful as the girls they portray and in black and white, are the shots of Leonardo Glauso collected in his latest book “Erotic Photography“. This publication is a collection of black and white nude photographs that simultaneously reveal and hide subjects like marble sculptures. No disturbing elements, no-frills, no distraction from the sensual, pure and intimate beauty of the bodies.
Lucas Cerri born as a musician but with time, besides expressing emotions, thoughts and feelings, notes and melodies, he started to do it also through images. His photographs are intimate and delicate, their main subject is the human body and they express a particular sense of freedom.
They could be film frames or photographs from a personal diary from the 1980s. Tamara Lichtenstein’s analogue shots encapsulate a timeless beauty that never tires. At the center of her artistic research is the female universe and its facets: faces and bodies without filters and natural beauty, her shots have a unique style that is impossible to forget.
Guen Fiore’s female portraits tell and show the beauty of women at 360°. In her photographs, her personal cut and her vision of beauty are always the undisputed protagonists. Her subjects are mainly young women captured in their most intimate moments: they are natural, without veils and without limits. The proud, happy, melancholic and thoughtful looks, the delicate and suspended gestures make each shot more beautiful than the previous one, a manifesto of unique and universal beauty.
After looking at Eva Milkonskaya’s photographs everything around us becomes superfluous. Her shots manage to give shape to emotions: they are extremely minimal, complex and deep images. Her photographs are able to communicate the depth of the human soul, they are images out of reality, snapshots without place, still in time.
BODY, the last project by Lotte van Raalte, is a real ode to the female body and a spasmodic search for reality and true beauty. This project tells us the truth and presents the woman’s body in a new way: they are photographs of real women with all those details and signs that distinguish one body from the other and make the difference.
Sensual and ethereal, Arianna Genghini’s photographs are not only beautiful, they are the manifesto of a way of perceiving a woman’s body far from clichés and preconceptions. Her photographs stand out for the attention to detail, the light, the styling but above all for the message they carry. In her photographs nudity expresses the woman’s freedom, it is the demonstration that one can be the master of one’s own body, even if one clashes with the restrictions of society.
Every imperfection, every scar, every crease, every little defect becomes an added value in Berber Theunissen’s photographs. In a society where everything must appear perfect, to the limit of the impossible, his shots take us back to normality, show us another side of femininity through normal bodies, with all their beautiful defects. Her Skin project opens the door to moments of intimacy, where the skin is the only dress of the bodies photographed, but the more we flip through the photos, the more we understand that the focus is not on the skin, but on what lies beneath it.
Hypnotic glances, gentle handshakes, thoughtful hugs and gestures of comfort: Anna Försterling’s photographs are vivid and intense. Her shots connect body and soul, connect art and life and are an explosion of purity and humanity. When you look at her photographs you can feel the vivid sensation of a caress on the skin, the hardness of contracted muscles and the intensity of deep breaths.
Telling people’s stories and doing it through a lens is what Niko Neithardt does with his camera. Although apparently, it may seem simple, his artistic work requires a lot of listening and attention, it is a complex emotional process that requires empathy, sensitivity and a bit of poetry.
With warm and bright tones and radiant natural light, his photographic portraits capture the attention of every viewer. Niko extrapolates the beauty of the simplicity of his subjects, capturing every moment as if it were forever and making it special and unforgettable.
Niko Neithardt is able to perceive the emotions of others and understand them, but he also manages to characterize each shot with his personal style. He has a lot of methods, techniques and an intense sense of art. Each of his photographs has an extraordinary analogue look.
Together with Daniel Oechsler and Andreia Guedes, Niko founded DNA Collective, a collective of photographers and videomakers based in Heidelberg, Germany. Their clients include Google, Ginstr, Vapiano, Big FM and Adam Stacks.
Watch here a selection of his work, follow him on Instagram and on the DNA Collective website.
Do you ever wonder what reality would be like if we all lived in a Rococo painting? The photographs of Langston Bowen can spark our imagination and take us into the elegant and dreamy atmospheres of that period.
Watching his shots is like entering another world where you live in contact with nature, where you respect its laws and investigate its myths, secrets and wonders.
His subjects are especially women portrayed in natural landscapes as celestial gods. Each of his photographs is a work of art and each place tells a different story. Langston revealing the most intimate details of his subjects, his work is a photographic fresco, an idyll of the female figure.
With a warm and bright color palette and soft and delicate lighting, the photographs of Langston Bowen seem to be inspired by Jean-Honore Fragonard’s paintings and his intimate, graceful worlds. His artistic work is pure emotive storytelling.
Strolling a little romantically through the streets of Paris, Benoit Lapray had the brilliant idea of replacing the city’s monuments with the heroes of pop culture.
Superheroes, famous protagonists of science fiction movies and even cartoons clamorously take the place of the statues that adorn the French capital.
It is not the first time that the French photographer does such work, long ago he had imagined them far away from the chaotic metropolis, wandering alone between mountains and hills, see here.
“It’s a way to emphasize that these science fiction heroes are now part of the world’s cultural heritage,” says Lapray.
The project was created in collaboration with creative studio 95 Magenta. A long and complex work, initially made on film, not using any digital camera.
Subsequently, the negatives were digitized and retouched, and then we added our superheroes, which we hold so dear. Below, we leave you all the photos of Paris, which were captivated by all the heroes of Benoit Lapray.
