Introduction

With his infrared photography, Paolo Pettigiani transforms famous locations into surreal landscapes. Central Park’s greenery beams in reddish hues, its sky and water in shades of turquoise. With this technique, he also shows us another side of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and reveals the monumental beauty of Italy’s Dolomite mountains.

Pettigiani gives us an entirely new view of the world. The enhanced contrast give the photographs in his Infrared series an intense, unreal appearance that is positively mesmerizing!

Popular in the 1960s thanks to is psychedelic appearance, infrared photography is making a comeback in the art world. Richard Mosse, winner of the 2014 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize for his images of war in the Congo, is perhaps the most famous proponent of the technique. The disassociation created by what is known as “false color film” produces a powerful effect, in particular when used for landscape photography. This is because the green pigment found in plants, chlorophyll, appears transparent in infrared and therefore reflects the light. The specific filter Pettigiani uses makes the foliage appear reddish.

Daniela Kummle

Bio

Italian photographer Paolo Pettigiani studied Design at the Polytechnic University of Turin. His works has appeared in publications like Vogue and Wired as well as exhibitions from Milan to New York to Paris. Pettigiani lives and works in Turin.