Title: Strangers in the Light
Description: One summer night Catherine Balet was inspired by the sight of a young couple standing in the sea bathed in moonlight, shooting a self-portrait with a mobile phone. Balet was touched by the beauty of the scene, the two white bodies revealed by the lightning of the electric flash, and was struck that this was the point where technology met romanticism, where the future met the past, and the blue light of the new world met the golden light of classical painting. Connecting the ephemeral, vacuous, anonymous nature of an out of control digital world with long-lived cultural references, Balet questions how yesterday links into tomorrow. This book explores the dominance of media screens in contemporary life, from surgical simulators to interactive sex, from a connected family gathering to the violence of video games. Her images also refer to the narcissistic self-awareness expressed on social networks and the new approach to quick, light mobile photography that affects our visual culture.
Subjects: Photography, artistic, Technology and the arts, Portrait photography, lighting, Portrait photography, Artistic Photography