Antonie d'Agata

I came across this photographer a few days ago and felt compelled to mention him. His work. . . raw, unadultered, and hard. There is a body of his work at Magnumphotos but you need to be a member to view them, so I've included one here for your enjoyment. There is some of his work here although not much Agencevu.com

I personally am rarely awed or inspired by nudes or the human form in photgraphy, however I was dumbstruck by some of d'Agata's work. His images reflect the unglorified reality of human existance. No airbrush, soft lens, perfect abs and scrawny beauties here. Just survival and the undeniably animalistic nature of humans in it's rawness. In many cases I was amazed how he could make the human form appear lifeless and cadaver like - even in the many highly graphic sexual images of men and women having intercourse.

Aside from the incredible technical rawness of his images (heavy grain, high contrast, blurr etc.,) his work portrays "us" as we are. Not the sanitized unhuman objects we hold ourselves up to be. I like that - I have no heros and no illusions of life and tend to be existential. I will be doing more investigating into the why of d'Agata's work as time moves along.