2012

Leica M Monochrom

Style Life

The Leica M Monochrom is the world’s first digital rangefinder camera to capture images exclusively in black and white. Its sensor records light directly and without colour filters. The result is maximum tonal depth, clarity and aesthetic precision. It takes a radical step back to the essence of the image.

Atmospheric black-and-white image: A person walks across a surface of diagonal bright lines illuminating a huge dark hall, while another person stands next to the lines of light.

The Liberation of Limitation 2017, Alan Schaller

Out of the Shadows

With the M Monochrom, Alan Schaller creates a fascinating interplay of light, space and people. His dramatic contrasts create architectural stages on which individual figures appear – small, yet precisely placed. Monochrome thus becomes a symbol of existential presence.

Melancholic black-and-white portrait: A young man looks directly into the camera through a dirty bus window whose streaks form a pattern.

Arrivals and Departures: Train from Moscow to Beijing 2012, Jacob Aue Sobol

Rough Sensibility

Jacob Aue Sobol explores the margins of life with his Leica M Monochrom, capturing places of coldness, loneliness and unexpected intimacy. His images are characterised by grain and shadows, yet they are imbued with deep humanity. They demonstrate that vulnerability and strength can manifest in the same way.

Black-and-white portrait of Barbara Klemm, wearing a blazer and smiling into the camera with her arms folded.

Black and white is colour enough
– Barbara Klemm

Uncertain Beauty

In the mid-2010s, the traditional concept of beauty comes under increasing scrutiny. Bruce Gilden presents faces that go beyond flawless surfaces, while Marc Erwin Babej portrays surgical perfection as a game of masks, and Rankin varies the theme through hyper-staging, distortion and exaggeration. Indirectly, they all pose the same question: who actually defines beauty?

A woman with dyed blonde hair, pink eye shadow and a cigarette butt in her mouth stares directly into the camera, her face greatly accentuated by the flash.

Chris, worker at the state fair. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 2013, Bruce Gilden

Superreal

Bruce Gilden presents faces: close-up, intense and full of life, bearing the marks of experience. His portraits reveal character rather than a superficial image, challenging us to recognise beauty beyond perfection.

Black-and-white portrait: The head and bare shoulders of a pretty woman who is holding her voluminous black curls delicately with her hands. She looks into the camera with her mouth slightly open. The studio light emphasises surgical markings on her nose, lips and forehead.

Mask of Perfection 2013, Marc Erwin Babej

Masking

Marc Erwin Babej enlists the help of a cosmetic surgeon to “improve” the appearance of people with naturally attractive faces, using markings to simulate the procedures that are most frequently requested. Mask of Perfection shows essentially flawless people full of corrections, thus exposing the absurdity of beauty ideals.

A high-contrast, collage-like, black-and-white image of a woman lying on her side. She looks like a negative image, with her long hair pulled horizontally and one arm stretched out as she leans on her elbows. She is wearing a fashionable dress.

Antithesis, S Magazine 2012, Rankin

Opposites

In Antithesis, Rankin pushes visual conventions to the limit. Faces and bodies appear as if from another world – flawless, distorted and futuristic. His images are both disturbing and fascinating: an exciting exploration of perfection and aesthetics.

Meanwhile, in India

In turbulent times, amid protest and pursuit of perfection, Craig Semetko discovers something initially improbable in bustling India: peace. A quiet breath, slightly closed eyes and poetry of spontaneity – it is this silent communion with the moment that makes these shots so calming. This is an effect that, on closer inspection, seems very likely indeed: when a gaze as calm as Craig Semetko’s meets a country from which meditation and mindfulness teachings originated.

Black-and-white image: A large, rounded boulder leans at an angle on a rocky surface in the open air. In front of it, in its shadow, a relatively small person lies sleeping.

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