Photographer: Diego Lama (Peruvian, b. 1980)

Diego Lama is a video-artist. Two years ago, he decided to do something different and take large-format, glossy wide screen pictures of interior spaces of cultural institutions in Lima. The environments seem reminiscent of movies and exude a surreal quality. Each setting depicts a Baroque-revival space full of details that could be from the most elaborate movie sets featuring Vincent Pryce.

Biblioteca Municipal shows a nude male figure within a carefully arranged dark and heavy Baroque-revival space. The figure breaks the feel of the grand space. The man is stripped of everything, and then we notice he is only wearing shoes.

But Diego takes this idea one step further and places a naked human figure in each setting. Figures we wouldn’t expect. Figures seemingly out of place, imperfect and alone situated in a quiet, dramatic space. He contradicts our assumption of what types of bodies would be in the stylized spaces portrayed. It is a bit arresting at first, and beguiling, and then intriguing. His photographs reveal the fragility of the human compared to the designed spaces that encloses them. It leaves us to create our own narrative.

Casa Goyeneche depicts all the splendor of a Baroque mansion holding a vast collection of 17th and 18th-century paintings and mirrors. Within the ostentatious space with carefully placed furnishings, tapestries and objects of art stands a woman.

BOLD, is the title of the exhibition and currently at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center. These teeny jpegs do not do justice to Lama’s work. Standing in front of the large images in a quiet little museum makes one realize the strangeness of life. For more info see the exhibition -- it is comprised of a series of six panoramic photographs.

Photographer: Irving Penn (1917-2009)

Irving Penn died today. He was 92.

When he was young, he wanted to become a painter and in 1938 graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). He wasn't very good though. However, in the 1930s he began creating personal photographs. And by 1943, he was hired as an assistant photographer at Vogue moving his way up and shooting over 150 covers for the magazine. He became one of the first photographers to marry commercial photography with art. No matter what subject he photographed -- from a model to a cigarette butt -- he isolated it with close-up graphic precision. The result icons, not just images.

Although he was known to mistrust perfect beauty, somehow he created it casting all things he photographed with a beautifully soft, even light. His subjects... casual and fluid and comfortable.

Met Museum

Dynamic yet restrained. Quiet and serene.

Veiled Face (Evelyn Tripp), 1949

He discarded all of the narrative trappings. He created an expressive visual vocabulary so unique. And when we, the viewer, gaze upon his images, they seem all our own.