Photographer Seb Agnew crafts intricate miniature sets and features allegorical characters and scenes within them to skillfully spin visual narratives.

Drawing from different periods in history and highlighting humanity’s repetitive nature and mistakes, Agnew aims to prompt fevered narratives whilst spotlighting themes such as “interconnectedness” all intending to spark conversation and introspection in viewers.

“So, after finishing “‘Cubes I’”, I quickly found my inspiration for “‘Cubes II‘” in the many global crises we’re currently facing. ‘Historic recurrence’ – the repetition of similar events in history – has become the main idea of these nine images. Every image is based around another historic era, incorporating and reinterpreting events from the past. And again, all sceneries are connected to one another, by a crack running through the walls of the rooms, indicating how fragile our world has become – and that we need to take action to shape a sustainable future,” Agnew says, speaking to PetaPixel.

Based in Hamburg, Germany, and with a background and affinity for cinema and computer-generated imagery, Agnew credits both disciplines for their influence and the wellspring for his current passion and photographic style.

“My images are very narrative and I love to create a cinematic and often dreamlike atmosphere, spending a lot of time creating my sets and carefully lighting them,” Agnew explains. “My background in computer graphics certainly helped me a lot with my current series “Cubes” in which I constructed all sets as miniature sets, using modern technology like 3D printing.”

Starting the series back in 2018 with Cubes I, Agnew choose to feature nine images as a means to help illustrate stories of ‘disconnectedness’,

“It became a series that raises questions about solitude and simultaneous interconnectedness (if you look closely, you can see that all nine rooms are somehow connected).”

Continuing the emerging revelation on practical connectivity and starting a new chapter now centered on “interconnectedness,” Agnew began the conceptualization process for Cubes II with general brainstorming and rigorous research into the era’s he wanted to replicate.

“…Once I have a vague idea of how the set might look, I first build the scene in a 3D program. Every room from “Cubes II” measures 6 x 6 x 5 meters (the actual miniature set is around 50 x 50 x 40 centimteres), which is rather small when you want to create the feeling of, for instance, a Gothic church, so testing my ideas as a 3D sketch is crucial. Then, I start building elements for the diorama,” Agnew says.

With an attentive eye for the architecture, Agnew often crafts pieces by hand or by 3D prints (which he also models).

“After painting all parts (again, either by hand or using an airbrush), I light the scenery and position my camera. Building the set normally takes about 40 days, and shooting the set only takes an hour or two. Finally, I shoot my models in the studio and complete the image in post-production,” he says.

The results are an striking optical illusion that invites viewers to bask in the sheer atmospheric grandeur that each of Agnew’s images creates.

The skillful world-building that viewers experienced and observe in Agnew’s final product isn’t without its unique challenges as he explains,

“Working with miniature sets is bliss and sometimes a beautiful nightmare: You have all the creative possibilities in the world, but some of these ideas might lead to enormous challenges when building the diorama. ‘Gothic Cube’ as well as ‘Baroque Cube,’ for example, certainly created many challenges along the way because of the fine details in their architecture,” Agnew continues.

“I see myself as a photographer who makes use of creative tools and modern technology to make his visions come true (and not a miniature artist who photographs what he builds), so very often this means learning how to use these tools efficiently. My process can be frustrating sometimes, but once I see the final results and look back at the many weeks spent on such an image, it’s more than worth it. All in all, it’s just amazing what you can do nowadays as an artist once you learn to embrace technology.”

As for equipment, Agnew uses a Fujifilm GFX 100S with a 30mm lens, favoring how it interprets and captures sharpness and the details in his work. He also utilizes a variety of other trusted tools to help accomplish his vision.

“Apart from my camera, I use a lot of different tools for building my miniature sets, like 3D printers and laser cutters, but also classical tools like good old knives and glue. Since lighting is an important visual part of my sceneries, I have loads of strobes (for my “life-sized” sets) as well as LED lights (for my miniature sets). Finally, I make use of different software for creating my images, like 3D software for pre-visualizing my ideas and creating models for my 3D prints.”

The research that Agnew conducted to create Cubes II in particular has greatly expanded his prior conceptions of classical architecture and human history, an experience that still kindles an intrigue and enlightenment,

“I researched a lot about each historic era, about the many wonderful and also horrible things mankind came up with. I’m still far from calling myself a historian now, but my work on Cubes II certainly helped me to get a bigger picture of human history and to discover similarities between current and past events.”

The artful storytelling that permeates throughout Cubes II can induce a rush of appreciation towards the aesthetically pleasing architecture, lighting, cinematic characters, and overall conceptualization displayed in each of his “rooms.” An intentional trademark of Agnew’s work and an ambition to encourage feeling.

“Even though I highly appreciate the aesthetics of a beautiful picture, I always look for the emotions an image creates and the story it tells. The same picture can tell a hundred different stories, and I think this makes photography so exciting,” Agnew shares.

Even with the Agnew going into detail about the creation process and risking diminishing the impact, feedback to this latest iteration of Cubes II has proved to be positive.

“I did not want to demystify the work, and I certainly did not want to put the attention too much on the process – I still wanted the focus to be on the final images, their narratives, and the conceptual ideas behind them. But once I published first behind-the-scenes material, I realized that there is a certain kind of fascination for the process that does not necessarily compete in any way with the images themselves,” Agnew adds.

“My images are meant to be viewed as fine art prints, and it’s always a wonderful experience to share more about the process behind each image once a person gets interested in the image. Most people love to hear about the crafting process and appreciate how much work is spent on each image.”

For more from Seb Agnew, make sure to visit the photographer’s website and Instagram.

Image credits: Seb Agnew

Many people think that if someone has low vision, they can’t be a photographer. But that couldn’t be any further from the truth – just ask photographer Tammy Ruggles. “I didn’t realize that I was drawn to (Ansel Adams’) style and contrast because of a vision problem I was born with, Retinitis Pigmentosa, aka RP,” says Tammy to us in an interview. “High contrast is what I see best, especially black and white.” In fact, with the help of her Sony cameras, Tammy has been able to create several beautiful photographs that have been widely featured on the web.

Alpha Vision is presented in partnership with Sony. Sony has made several strides towards helping visually impaired creators with packages like the Retinal Projection Camera Kit. Other cameras, like the Sony a7r V, have extra accessibility features that help someone navigate the menu system and use the camera much easier. This story is part of an initiative to bring the voices and artwork of these photographers to the front. Our Editor in Chief is legally blind, so these stories bring a unique understanding to the type of images these photographers produce.

All images used with permission from Tammy Ruggles.

Tammy Ruggles and Photography

Tammy started out falling in love with photography at a very young age. “Professionally, I got into photography with my first Sony camera, a Sony DSCH 300.” she explains to us. She used this camera to get the kind of pictures she envisioned in her head. “I could even get shots of the moon’s craters if the camera was on a tripod. It was a way to realize my childhood photography dream, express my creativity, my love of nature, and keep connected to the visual world that I couldn’t see with my eyes alone.” In fact, Tammy keeps it all pretty simple.

She eventually moved on to the lighter Sony RX100. “…it could fit in my hand while shooting as a passenger in a car or walking down the street, snapping away at landscapes, hoping I’d caught some good ones,” Tammy says. “But I wouldn’t know which ones until I could upload them on my 47-inch computer monitor, where I could then zoom in even closer.” After this, she does a bit of post-production in Silver Efex to get the contrast she needs.

“This is how I got into professional photography, something I’d always wanted to do but felt I couldn’t due to my poor eyesight.”

How She Does It

Retinitis Pigmentosa is different for everyone, as Tammy explains. For her, everything is extremely blurry. On top of that, it’s also like looking through fog. “I don’t see details, just basic shapes and colors,” she tells us. “The closer I am to something, like a few inches away, the better I can see. That’s why zooming in is so helpful to my photography.” The Sony RX100 series cameras help make zooming in on the details pretty simple with their 1″ sensor and the useful zoom lens.

The question that always goes through my mind is, how does this look to the viewer? It looks blurry to me, but how does it look to others? I’m sure I’ve made a lot of mistakes with my pictures. People tell me there are power lines in some of them. Well, I can’t see those, so there probably are, and when I do notice them, I just try to turn them into an interesting part of the picture.

Tammy started sketching at 12 years old and admits that it was tough growing up as an artist and going to school for it. But as time went on, she became more and more blind until she reached legal blindness — a state where even with corrective lenses, one still cannot see 20/20. In many cases, you can’t even drive anymore. For Tammy, she couldn’t even sketch anymore.

Everyone that’s visually impaired experiences it completely differently. So how does she do it with such limited vision? Part of it is the ease of use. With the Sony DSCH 300, she was able to figure it out with muscle memory. She attributes built-in settings, the internal 55MB storage, and 20MP photos to be a key part of it. On top of all this, there’s a 70x optical zoom. “This means I could zoom in for a close-up on a cardinal perched in a tree without losing quality,” she explains. “These black and white presets eliminate the step of post-producing an image, and the autofocus, lighting presets, and filters make adjustments I can’t see to do on my own. It also has low-light capability and takes great nighttime pictures.” She continues to state that things like the dedicated knobs made her figure out and feel her way around the camera thanks to their tactile nature.

A few other settings that help Tammy make her photos:

• Night Portrait
• Landscape
• Soft Skin
• Snow
• Fireworks
• Gourmet
• Pets
• Panorama settings
• Built-in auto flash settings
• The 175 minute battery life

Of course, we can’t forget about the buddy system “Occasionally, a helper points out an interesting subject to capture, and the large 3-inch screen of the DSCH 300 enables my helper to frame it up for me before I hit the shutter button,” Tammy explains to us. Essentially, the camera ends up seeing for Tammy.

That’s part of the reason why the new Sony Retinal Projection Camera Kit excites her. She looks forward to trying it after reading our impressions of it. For Tammy, the idea of being able to see things like signs, labels, books, and people is invigorating because she hasn’t seen them in years. 

“I know this technology could extend the career of a visually impaired photographer like me who continually loses vision over time.”

“I had a brief window of time to sketch with a Sharpie, then a brief window of time to paint with my fingertips, and when those were no longer possible, I turned to my first Sony camera,” she explains. “It helped me remain an artist for several years now.” Tammy continued to say that because she can’t see what the camera is doing well enough, she can’t always create her images without post-production. That’s where her big screen comes in.

When she’s working in post-production, Tammy can zoom in on the details. Calling herself a “wanna-be Ansel Adams,” she can then edit the RAW files from her little camera as needed. She crops, converts to black and white, enhances the contrast, etc., to get the photos she wants. These decisive moments then end up being the bulk of her portfolio — which is incredibly unique.

Thoughts on AI

While most photographers are scared of AI, Tammy thinks that it can be a very useful tool for her as a visually impaired photographer. In fact, she loves it as it helps her add another dimension to her artwork — especially if she’s transparently showing the original photo alongside. “Earlier this year, I made an AI image called ‘White Roses’ from one of my favorite photos, ‘Grazing,’ and the two images were exhibited side by side in an art show for the Arts for All Kentucky organization.”

Fourth time was the charm for Mr Andy Chew, who considered Monday night’s attempt – his fourth in four years – his “most successful”. The 51-year-old’s previous plans had been foiled by bad weather. 

“Today, people probably thought, ‘Nah, it’s another year of disappointment.’ But I took the gamble. I’ve failed so many times, but I wanted to try and try and try. Better than nothing,” said Mr Chew, who arrived with his camera and tripod at 6.30pm.

“If you shoot the moon itself, it’s just like any other moon,” he added, explaining why he chose Marina Barrage’s backdrop.

Hoping to simply capture the moon rising just above the ships in the distance, Mr Chew in the end scored a shot of a plane flying across the moon.

Already funded with indecent speed on Kickstarter, the Ondu Eikan is a modular camera built especially for large format photography.

Ondu Cameras has made a solid reputation for itself over recent years selling an expanding range of pinhole cameras from its base in the Slovenian Alps. It launched its first Kickstarter for a pinhole camera in 2013, and is now following that up a decade later with its most ambitious project to date.

Ondu already manufactures a wide range of wooden pinhole cameras

The Ondu Eikan is the brainchild of company founder, Elvis Halilović, and reflects his passion for large format photography. Made from a mixture of solid, locally sourced walnut wood and CNC-machined aluminium, it is not only a thing of quite considerable beauty but also what he reckons is the first modular folding field camera.

There’s plenty of info about the camera on the Ondu Eikan Kickstarter page, which is already fully funded by over 200% with 24 days still to go. But here’s a quick rundown.

There are three models available, starting at $700, which is an earlybird Kickstarter price – the typical onsale staring point will be $999 or thereabouts. And all ship without a lens, so you are going to have to think carefully about matching one to the camera as large format has definite considerations that need to be accommodated (again, check the Kickstarter page for more info).

Ondu Eikan 4×5″ Standard ($700)

The lightest version of the camera with a rigid back and movable front standard. It has a bellows range of 32cm and features a rear and front zeroing mechanism ensuring a quick initial setup. 

Halilović reckons that this camera is the easiest entry for those starting their large format photography journey or for those looking for a lightweight setup for their outdoor adventures, partly as it weighs just 1500g and is a breeze to setup. “This camera will fit most photographers large format needs,” he says

Ondu Eikan 4X5″ Range ($950)

The fully extended Ondu Eikan Range

Shares almost all of the same features as the Standard but adds a longer bellows and a rear sliding rail that enables the camera an extra 10cm or rear extension. This means that the total extension reaches all the way up to 420mm. Perfect for macro photography or longer focal length lenses. It weighs 1600g. 

The switch between the Standard to the Range takes about 10-15 minutes and a hex key, though it’s not recommended that it be done too often. Think of it as an upgrade path rather than being able to swap between them.

Ondu Eikan 4×10″ Panoramikku ($1400)

 Elvis Halilović with the Panoramikku model

Shares the same rear extension of the Range module with the addition of a new rear standard as well as a completely new bellows to fit the panoramic format. Weight of the camera is bumped up to 1970g. 

Here, the Range converts to Panoramikku or vice versa a lot more simply by changing the magnetically attached bellows and repositioning the whole rear assembly including the bottom rails. Halilović reckons this is done in a matter of minutes by removing the two rear tightening knobs, meaning that users can swap between the formats pretty regularly.

The Kickstarter is live at time of writing and runs until 27 July. Delivery of the finished units is expected between November this year and February 2024.

Posted: 3rd July, 2023 by The Editor

I think it’s safe to say that an anniversary tour many Thrice fans were hoping for would be for The Artist in the Ambulance, their third full-length album. When the album turned 10 in 2013, the post-hardcore band was on hiatus. A couple of years after that, the band returned and announced a couple of shows, which would basically take place in their hometown: House of Blues Anaheim (the old one before it got torn down) and The Glasshouse in Pomona. I don’t know how I managed to get tickets to both shows, but I am so glad I did. It was NUTS. Knowing they were back, I was amped up for whatever music they would go on to release.

Since then, we’ve been treated to 4 full-length albums, including The Artist in the Ambulance (Re-visited) and a 10th anniversary show for Beggars, a 15th anniversary tour for Vheissu, and 4 20th anniversary shows for The Illusion of Safety last December.

When Thrice announced the 20th anniversary tour for The Artist in the Ambulance, I was more than ready. This album was my introduction to the band as I was getting ready to start high school when the album was released. However, I didn’t learn about the band or album right away. I learned about Thrice halfway through my freshman year and eventually got my hands on my own copy of The Artist in the Ambulance. What an album. While I didn’t get to see Thrice live until I got to college, they’re a band that I’ve listened to ever since. After finally seeing them, they’ve been a band that I’ve seen on every tour or whenever they play a hometown show, so I knew this tour was not one to miss. When I made my way to the House of Blues in Anaheim for the last date of the tour, I was ready to rock.

Along for the 20-year celebration of The Artist in the Ambulance, Thrice brought rock band, HOLY FAWN, along for the ride. They were not new to Thrice fans for those that caught the Vheissu anniversary tour as they opened up for the band then. HOLY FAWN brought it as they delivered a 7-song set. Fans that already knew the band did not hold back as they played some of their more popular songs such as “Candy,” “Dark Stone,” and “Death Is a Relief.” The crowd was more than ready for Thrice once HOLY FAWN wrapped up their set.

As soon as Thrice stepped onto the stage and started playing “Cold Cash And Colder Hearts,” that was the queue. The crowd went straight to work as the singing and moshing kicked off. With just one song in, people had to be extra careful as the crowdsurfing commenced early. Thrice did not hesitate as they continued on with “Under The Killing Moon,” which is actually the first song I ever heard from them. Whether you were in the pit or on the sidelines, you felt the energy was in full force from the band and the fans. Whether it was songs that would be considered more radio friendly such as “All That’s Left” or “Stare At The Sun” or songs that leaned heavier such as “Silhouette,” “Paper Tigers,” “Hoods On Peregrine,” or “Blood Clots And Black Holes,” everyone was fully invested.

I have to say that when the tour was announced, I immediately thought about how they’d play “The Melting Point Of Wax” live. I don’t have any knowledge of them ever playing that song live prior to this tour, but I was ready to lose my voice while singing along to my favorite Thrice song. I eventually lost my voice once they played “The Artist In The Ambulance,” “The Abolition of Man,” and “Don’t Tell and We Won’t Ask.”

After the band played The Artist in the Ambulance, they continued on to play a variety of songs from the rest of their discography such as “Motion Isn’t Meaning” off If We Could Only See Us Now, “Summer Set Fire to the Rain” off Horizons/East, “Black Honey” off To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere, “Where Idols Once Stood” and “Deadbolt” off The Illusion of Safety, “The Weight” off Beggars, “Yellow Belly” off Major/Minor, and “The Earth Will Shake” off Vheissu. While we thought this would be the end, Thrice came back for an encore and covered “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by The Beatles and finally, “The Long Defeat” off To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere.

Throughout the night, if someone fell in the pit, someone would help them up. Each fan in attendance sang along with over 1500 other fans. For one night, Thrice played an album that is dear and close to a lot of us. While they transported us back to a time period in our lives (with each of our journeys being different), in the present moment as we get older, we are able to appreciate The Artist in the Ambulance and the rest of their discography even more. Thank you Thrice.

Photos by Jazmin Lemus

The Alternative is ad-free and 100% supported by our readers. If you’d like to help us produce more content and promote more great new music, please consider donating to our Patreon page, which also allows you to receive sweet perks like free albums and The Alternative merch.

A lot of landscape photography tends to be maximal, using intricate collections of elements in the frame to create lush balances that convey the grandeur of scenes at least partially through their sheer overwhelming nature. Of course, that is not the only way to approach the craft, however. Embracing negative space can help provide more balance in your images. This great video tutorial features an experienced landscape photographer discussing negative space and how to apply it to photos.

Coming to you from Alister Benn of Expressive Photography, this insightful video tutorial discusses the use of negative space in landscape photography. I am a big fan of the use of negative space. We often think very additively in landscape photography, and this can lead to very complex photos. However, aiming for simpler, more direct images can often give your subject more impact, and one of the most straightforward ways to do this is to focus on creating negative space around your subject that gives it a little space to breathe. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Benn.

And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out “Photographing The World 1: Landscape Photography and Post-Processing with Elia Locardi.” 

In the world of photography, developing a unique and captivating style is a key goal for many photographers. One of the fundamental steps toward achieving this is through self-reflection. By exploring your visual preferences and inspirations, you can uncover the elements, moods and themes that truly resonate with you. This leads to the development of a distinct photographic style. In this blog post, we will delve into the importance of self-reflection and provide practical exercises to help you discover your creative vision.

In case you missed it: A guide to finding your photography style: Part one

Explore your visual preferences

To begin your journey toward finding your photographic style, take the time to analyze your visual preferences. Start by collecting a diverse range of photographs that captivate you. These can be from renowned photographers, art exhibitions, or even images you stumble upon online. As you gather these images, ask yourself the following questions:

• What attracts you to these photographs? Is it the subject matter, composition, lighting, colors, or emotions they evoke?
• Are there any recurring themes or elements that consistently appeal to you?
• How do these images make you feel? Do they inspire a sense of wonder, tranquillity, curiosity, or intensity?

By reflecting on these questions, you will also gain insights into the visual elements that resonate with you on a deeper level. This can serve as a foundation for developing your own unique style.

Identify your inspirations

In addition to exploring your visual preferences, it is important to identify the photographers, artists, or other creative individuals who inspire you. Look beyond the world of photography and explore other art forms such as painting, cinema, literature, and music. Seek inspiration from diverse sources and ask yourself:

• Whose work resonates with you the most? What is it about their creations that captivate you?
• Are there specific artists or photographers whose style you admire? What can you learn from their approach and techniques?
• What themes or concepts from other art forms intrigue you and could be translated into your photography?

By broadening your sources of inspiration, you can infuse different influences into your work and develop a style that is truly unique to you.

Create a mood board

A mood board is a powerful tool for visual exploration and self-reflection. Start by collecting images, textures, colors and any visual elements that evoke emotions and align with your creative vision. Arrange them on a physical or digital board, allowing them to interact with one another.

As you curate your mood board, pay attention to the connections and patterns that emerge. Notice the recurring themes, color palettes, and moods that you are drawn to. This visual representation will provide a visual road map to guide you in developing your photographic style. It can be as simple as starting with some color.

Experiment and repeat

Finding your photographic style is an ongoing process that requires experimentation and iteration, repeating and modifying. Use your newfound insights from self-reflection as a guide to explore different techniques, compositions, and editing styles. Embrace the freedom to try new approaches, even if they feel unfamiliar at first.

As you experiment, pay attention to how each new technique or style aligns with your visual preferences and inspirations. Reflect on the results and identify elements that resonate with you and contribute to your unique style. Remember, this process takes time and patience, so allow yourself to grow and evolve as a photographer.

Final thoughts

Self-reflection is a vital step in finding your photographic style. By exploring your visual preferences, identifying your inspirations, creating mood boards and embracing experimentation, you will gradually uncover your creative vision and develop a style that is truly your own.

Remember, the journey to finding your style is a personal and unique one. Embrace the process, trust your instincts, and let your photography reflect the essence of who you are as an artist. As with any new process, there is always a learning curve with ups and downs. Likewise, finding your own unique style doesn’t just end once you have identified it. Your style will probably evolve over time.

Happy self-reflecting and capturing your unique vision!

A few tips

• I really like scrolling through Instagram and then saving images in a folder that grab my attention
• Try creating a Finding Style Mood Board on Pinterest
• Don’t forget art books and Photography magazines. Many online libraries like Cloud Library have digital copies that can be looked at too.

Organising a photography exhibition around the topic of love leaves a lot of room to roam; the list of artists, locations and periods to choose from is practically infinite. And yet, somehow, the International Center of Photography’s Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy manages to suggest that it’s a cramped, confining rubric. Even though the show ranges across continents, styles, sensibilities and sexualities, it winds up drawing the eye to a handful of tired tropes. Comely nudes, rumpled beds, pouting glances, preening poses, sleeping partners, mirrors, kisses, embraces — all this visual debris floats on the surface of the deepest human experiences.

That’s not a hazard of the medium. Alfred Stieglitz photographed Georgia O’Keeffe, Harry Callahan immortalised his Eleanor, Emmet Gowin set down his elemental feelings for his wife Edith, all of them preserving a molten emotion that never dries, never dies. “My life as an artist follows so closely my meeting Edith and my love for her that I can think of no way of seeing these two separately,” Gowin said.

Those sentimental epics don’t make an appearance at the ICP, but a similar combination of loyalty, gratitude and clear-eyed scrutiny does, in the work of Sally Mann. The collodion portraits she made of her husband’s nude body are paragons of empathy. She had known Larry’s body for 40 years when he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and, in the series, she confronts his wasting flesh with a combination of tenderness and detachment. Mann protects him from the camera’s brutal lens, using the streaked and blistered surface of her prints as metaphors for damage wrought by illness and time.

In “Hephaestus”, an intricate crackling runs across Larry’s torso from throat to groin, like an X-ray view of exquisite decay. Mann has described her set of unerotic nudes as “one big caress”, but a voyeuristic frisson also ripples through these odes to mortality, which stun, sadden and seduce.

The high point begins and ends with Mann. Otherwise, curator Sara Raza has devoted two floors and a half-dozen rooms to a distracted meander through the landscape of sex, relationships and . . . other stuff. The pictures range from the rapturous to the ridiculous, selected according to criteria that escape me.

What, for instance, justifies the inclusions of Aikaterini Gegisian’s mediocre collages, which feature clippings from magazines rearranged into a garbled feminist statement? Or Sheree Hovsepian’s mixed-media works casting her sister’s girlish body into hollow, semi-abstract arrangements of wood and string? Hovsepian writes that her sister is a “stand-in for myself”, which is a tantalising revelation, since many intense relationships rest on a vein of vanity. But if this is the self-love portion of the exhibition, then surely Raza could have recruited a more virtuosic crew of narcissists.

Or at least a more varied set of physiques. Mann is the only artist here who dares to examine an older body. The photographers and models are straight, gay, white, black and Asian, but all are thin and almost none is over 40. You’d think love was like gymnastics: only for the lithe and wrinkle-free.

René Groebli, a photojournalist and war correspondent, married his young wife Rita between assignments in 1951. The couple honeymooned in a Paris hotel so enchantingly shabby that it could practically have been a movie set, with cherry-blossom wallpaper, a brass bedstead and lace curtains. Rita lounges among tumbled sheets, lacy negligees and silk stockings, then appears, perfectly coiffed, at a café table, a rose at her collar, a cigarette in its holder, a landscape of empty tables and glowing sconces receding into the mirror behind her.

Groebli’s series was published in 1954 as Das Auge der Liebe (The Eye of Love), an irresistibly risqué concoction of nudity, languor and furtiveness. And yet the pictures had an old-fashioned quality even then, like a polite remake of Brassaï’s gritty bordellos from the 1930s. Groebli made a real relationship look like a period piece.

Hervé Guibert belonged to a different time and a different sexual subculture, but his black and white portraits of Thierry Jouno share the same old delight in the faultlessness of youth. We see Thierry bathing in a tub or bathed in sunlight, shirtless and stretching in Palermo, Rome, Siena, Munich and Amsterdam. Pretty people in pretty places yield pretty pictures, a truism that launched a trillion Instagram posts, but at the ICP the context draws attention to how little we know about Guibert and Jouno’s relationship, how it evolved (or failed to) or how they envisioned a future together. There’s a tragic dimension to the erotic charge: both men died of Aids before they had a chance to age together.

The possibility of early death lurks in every love story, and Nobuyoshi Araki made the connection explicit. He grouped together the honeymoon nudes he took of his wife Yoko in 1971 with the chronicle of her death from ovarian cancer, 20 years later. Here, too, the elisions are stunning, and not just because we see nothing of what takes place between first delight and final grief. Araki built a career on images of women bound, spread out, dangling, submissive, slurping and supine — a panoply of aggressive “love” that needs to be seen in counterpoint with his meditation on Yoko.

An insightful exhibition about intimacy, like a wise therapist, would distinguish between passion and self-indulgence. At the ICP, they mix in a puerile swirl, largely because so few works get beyond early bursts of infatuation. RongRong, visiting Japan from China, met inri and found that the only language they shared was photography. Their long-distance courtship involved exchanging sexy pictures, which they captioned in Chinese characters and sometimes in gushing broken English: “I want in die!! make love everyday with you!! only you!! only you!!”

At least they are real lovers, which is more than you can say for the characters in Karla Hiraldo Voleau’s “Another Love Story”. When Hiraldo Voleau discovered that she was sharing her lover, codenamed “X”, with another woman, she exacted revenge in the form of art. Pages from the transcript of a phone conversation with her rival alternate with snapshots of an ignorantly blissful idyll of sunsets and beaches. The words may or may not accurately represent an interaction that may or may not have taken place with a person who may or may not exist — but one thing is certain: the handsome man in the photos isn’t X, but an actor hired to re-enact the photographer’s memories. The whole thing is a fake representation of a faker’s deceptions.

Sophie Calle has done this kind of thing with an enigmatic touch, mixing diary, observation, fiction and documentation in work of sublime untrustworthiness. Hiraldo Voleau has a cruder technique and blunter message, one that unites many artists in the show: “Look who I got to sleep with for a while!”

To September 11, icp.org