Roman Pyatkovka – Untitled (2017)

I’m not 100% on board with this composition–the way the woman is looking back over her shoulder seems like a failed effort to counterbalance the prominence of the binoculars in the frame.

On the one hand, I think this strategy does focus attention to the reflection in the open casement window behind her–which is straight out of Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. On the other hand, however, the woman’s eyes don’t match the rest of her expression and this diminishes the degree to which any attention is practically diverted to the reflection behind her. (Instead, there’s a focus on the extreme shadows surrounding her.

To me: what is most intriguing about this is the way it seems almost like a hyper realistic drawing–something that’s seems to be big right now. (Several people I know aren’t into art have posted Buzzfeed-esque human interest stories on folks from Africa and the African diaspora making these completely batshit photo-realistic pencil drawings. (The only one I could find was this Colossal featurette on Arinze Stanley–there are at least two others making similar work, including one kid who is in his early teens, unfortunately I’m not having any luck finding the things I saw on them again.)

Additionally, I like the way this looks like the frame out of a brooding graphic novel. It makes me want to actually clear out a block of time to start working on this idea I have of figuring out how to replicate the high contrast, intricately detailed panels of a Moebius’ comics into an analog, in-camera ‘preset’ that can produce photos that can be printed to look like B&W comic book illustrations.