The Extended Eye

The photographic art project documented in this photo book was shot by the artist Werner Kiera with an iPhone in the space of more than two years. Working from his home town of Bonn/Germany, he photographed all over the world via webcams using Live Cam apps.
The 150 photos contained in this album were all shot in black and white and mostly at night. They are not the "razor sharp" and somehow "polished" images we have become accustomed to but rather deliberately faded and slightly out-of-focus photos which almost come across as "photographic painting", the charm of which is reminiscent of old-fashioned negative photos shot with high and ultra sensitive "grainy" film, such as Tri-X or TMax, where the grain is a stylistic device.

In doing so, Kiera revived in his work a process dating back to the days of analog photography known as the sandwich technique, where two different negatives are placed on top of each other and exposed.

Transferred over to his project, Kiera takes a photo that he shot via a webcam in Tokyo, for instance, and uses the sandwich technique to combine it digitally with a photo he took in Rio de Janeiro. In a way, it could be said that "universal" images are created using this technique. All of the further processing is then done on the iPhone. This unique art project is the first of its kind anywhere in the world.