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The Leica gallery presents a must-see retrospective of the black-and-white and color work of the Swiss photographer, whose insolence is reflected in his attitude as much as in his images.

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Michael von Graffenried’s new series, Bierfest, can make you happy and sad at the same time. If humanity can sink so low, it can also elevate itself like, for instance, through the pictorial achievement in this series which celebrates all its “characters”.

Michael von Graffenried, Rio in panoramic format

Von Graffenried holds his camera at the level of his navel and shoots blind, unnoticed by the people around him. Because he’s very tall and experienced, his navel is an excellent eye.

Link: Michael Von Graffenried: Inside Cairo | La Lettre de la Photographie

Michael von Graffenried’s works realized in Algeria and Cairo represented a further development in his desire as an artist to get inside these particular societies where photographers were viewed with great suspicion, which itself demanded solutions enabling him to take photographs unnoticed. In order to do this, Graffenried began using a small panoramic Widelux camera, that he could hold discreetly on his chest, operating it without his subjects being aware of his actions. Functioning in this way allowed the artist the great advantage of creating images that totally removed the relation between the photographer and people being photographed.