Bulgarian webcam girl longing for Switzland.

(www.hanskostervideo.com)

Pictures for the family album are generally unpretentious and function mainly as social documents. For outsiders these private snapshots are of little importance.

Family pictures gain a different context when they appear in news bulletins. Pictures that seemed to be reserved for an inner circle, are shown on a worldwide scale due to a lack of (relevant) footage, or simply to add a personal dimension to a news event.

The series ‘Exposed’ shows several of these private pictures, that are contaminated with a (trivial or perhaps dramatic) news event. The viewer does not know the represented persons, nor the reason of their appearence in the news. Only on the basis of visual information and the resulting personal, over-simplified associations, can the beginning of a scenario be constructed. Why did these people appear in the news? Are they victims or perpetrators? And how does that show?

‘Exposed’ gives family pictures a third life as a testcase: the viewer is invited to interpret (harmless?) images without any knowledge of the facts and to judge his own judgement concerning persons and situations.

One can never have enough pictures.

(www.hanskoster.com)

Tv-stills of flash photography, showing the symbiotic relationship between stars and paparazzi.