I've been thinking a lot of headlines about this whole set of photos. Something Like, still in the street, or something like, alive still life or stills of life, let me state that I produce still life photographs, taken from everyday urban life, made of simple everyday things. As part of street photography influenced by Daido Moriyama or Johanna Neurath.

Later on I realized that what makes me take each photo is that these objects have a new ontology and something new to say, beyond their initial use and timing, and the impact it has on them.

​So I have the potential to give them a second chance to relive these photos again. Creating something almost new from something is used again.

The consecutive multiple readings of a photograph: “The trap, the slam and the doubt!”

“A photographer is an impatient investigator. She cannot afford in-depth reading or studying the human issues. She gets quickly overwhelmed by the phenomenological variety and the difficulty of explaining the world; and so she does what represents a closure, an instant truce with these demons. She triggers the shutter. The photograph is no more a window opening to a new experience. It is a door slammed into the viewer's face, into society's burden. And I am perfectly fine with that. Aren't you?”

Extract from Chapter 1, the Anti Manual of Street Photography (www.moscholios.com)

The luring
Impressionist colours, a diaphanous female portrait and the viewer is seduced and trapped in the frame.

The slamming
It’s not what you are thinking stupid! It’s this and all the rest. It’s a dream and a nightmare. It’s what you see and more importantly is what you don’t see. I am slamming this perfect world of yours in your face. 

There is destruction, floods, suffering and drama! How blind can you be?

The truce
We make peace with the provocation of the artist. How dared she? How did she do it? Why all this uneasiness? What was the message and how deep did it hit in our subconscious?

​Too many questions? Excellent! Take them with you and may the doubt be with you for the rest of your days!

​__________
Photo of the month by Amalia Tsakiri, December 2019, Instagram account of BULB (curated by Marius Petrescu, Panagiotis Kalkavouras and the undersigned Michail).