One of the great things about producing this blog is that it keeps me searching for new and intriguing photographs, and, of course, searching is learning.  Yesterday I found a fascinating portfolio by photographer Tim Mantoani entitled “Behind the Photographs.”  The concept is to create a portrait of a great photographer holding his or her greatest or best known work. These images were taken with a gigantic 20” x 24” Polaroid view camera – a major undertaking in and of itself.  But more significantly, the format enables both the photographer and the picture within the picture to be sharply captured.

These are beautiful images and they truly bring to life the faces behind the pictures.  Many of the images, are of the kind, to bring back memories and perhaps a shiver – Nick Ut’s image of June 8, 1972 showing nine year old Kim Phuc screaming in agony her clothes burned off by a napalm attack or Bill Eppridge’s June 5, 1968 image of Robert Kennedy lying dying on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.  The images have served to define the events of our lives, and Mantoani’s project sheds them stunningly in a new light.

Perhaps, it is all defined by the photograph on Mantoani’s “About the Photographer” page.  It is a self-portrait where the artist stands obscured in front of the great view camera.  Only his legs are visible.  But then there is the giant inverted portrait of himself on the view glass. It truly tests the meaning of reality and also truly takes photography back to its roots, when it was described as capturing the otherwise fleeting image in the camera obscura.

The word “obscura” has always struck me as a bit odd.  Is the photograph meant to reveal or to obscure?  What does it reveal and obscure about the subject?  And at the same time, what does it reveal and obscure about the artist?