Adjusting Infinity, a photo exhibition by Belgian cinematographer and master of darkness (dixit Stephan Vanfleteren) Nicolas Karakatsanis opened today at the Alice Gallery in Brussels. Totally stunning prints (on Fujiflex, with that rich, warm tonal range and the discrete metallic glimmer reminding of the old Cibachrome prints). Autumn yellows and chocolate browns and glossy golden shapes sometimes, sometimes merely visible, dark deepsea shades, in next-to-black greys and near jet-blacks you have to actually see to believe. Persons and objects are photographed with very little -if any- depth of field.  Their image becomes a still from a dream, a big blurred archetype, often dark but never gloomy, appealing, but not loud. Detached, intimate, almost solemn, focussed on Infinity. Voilà! Respect!

Now, when Vanfleteren recognized Karakatsanis as a Master of Darkness, Stephan actually meant that Nicolas (who is in fact a very nice guy) is a person who doesn’t need light per sé to bring a photograph to life. Think that is impossible, a paradox? Go see the show and learn, girls and boys, or live to regret you couldn’t get away from  your Facebook page (or your X-Box, for that matter). Your bloody Twitter-account. Whatever.

Till December 12 2012 at the Alice Gallery, 4 Rue du Pays de Liège/Land van Luikstraat in downtown Brussels.

All photographs © NK