A Parallel Planets piece by Unknown
Parallel Planets presents Martin Vlach
in Monochrome Melancholia
Story by Joy Celine Asto
Mentioned: surreal landscapes, solitary subjects, and melancholia in monochrome
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Black and white photography is one tricky beast. For some, the absence of color makes something drab and lifeless. Others are intimidated by how it strips a scene bare of the distractions of color, leaving it open for critical viewers to decide if it's poorly exposed or well-composed. Some swear by its simplicity and straight-forwardness -- your photo is either good or bad.
Still, there are photographers who seem to effortlessly push the craft into its boundaries, reducing their subjects even further to the barest of visuals and emotions, and making their monochromatic images even more minimalistic. After poring over his works on Tumblr and Flickr, I'm convinced that Czech photographer Martin Vlach is one of them.
In his series of conceptual snaps, Martin sets his subjects -- often solitary, sometimes in repeating multiplicity -- against simple misty landscapes, and they either blend against their surroundings or seem to get engulfed by their vastness. I assume that I share the same experience with other viewers: one immediately feels either the fear of being alone or the pang of loneliness, but it's not just because of the lone figures or the eerie repeating likenesses. It's also in the air of mystery feel created by the absence of color, and the ghostly fog that clouds over the other details of the landscapes.
However, some also believe that while the figures are solitary, they are not lonely. What they are doing or feeling is often left to our imagination as creative rather than critical viewers. Such is the case with a handful of extra surreal snaps, wherein whales appear to be languidly floating about in the mist, the figures observing them from a distance. The other lone figures, we are free to assume, are simply lost in their thoughts instead of wallowing in their bleak fortune or surroundings. As for the ones free-falling -- well, you'd just have to make your imagination work a little bit harder.
In any case, I find Martin's impressive work simply mesmerizing in melancholic monochrome, and I can't seem to picture them in any other way.
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