©Felix Nadar- Eugene Pelletan
According to Balzac’s theory, all physical bodies are made up entirely of layers of ghostlike images, an infinite number of leaflike skins laid on top of one another. Since Balzac believed man was incapable of making something material from an apparition—that is, creating something from nothing—he concluded that every time someone had his photograph taken, one of the spectral layers was removed from the body and transferred to the photograph. Repeated exposures entailed the unavoidable loss of subsequent ghostly layers, that is, the very essence of life.
– Nadar
©Jeancarlo Gutierrez- Giancarlo Blandino
For almost three years I had known Gian over the ethereal platform that is the internet. Gaming buddies who grow close over the abstraction of a voice service is not rare nowadays, so we never gave it much attention. Fast forward to the moment he came to visit me and my family in New York and there was no way I was passing the opportunity to “capture” this dear friend.
As for the portrait, it is time to have done with the reproach that the photographer cannot convey so well as the painter the intimate and artistic feeling of his sitter. The photograph takes the law into its own hands. Psychological insight is not reserved for painters alone and they know it. (1856) – Nadar
Walking in the footsteps of Nadar 