VICTOR EINRICH- Photography manipulator

Architectural Photography- ISCTE- Erasmus 2014/2015 Lelia Tatu 70491

Victor Enrich- Photography manipulator

Each part of the city acts as a catalyst of feelings, ideas and digressions that,
once after its empowered soul emerges, becomes alive, unrestricted from norms, ready
to fly into new, yet unexplored shapes. Victor Einrich

Background- the inspiration key

When he was a kid he was spending most of the time playing at home, making
races with his scale model cars. With the years he found out that this was his first step
into understanding the space from a different perspective, not as a simple user but
maybe as a designer.

When he was around 8 he discovered technical drawing, thanks to his

grandfather, who worked all his life in construction. So, he got rid of his scale cars and
he moved into scale plans. At the beginning, he was playing with some bizarre housing

designs, but with time he started to design cities. As time went by, he discovered
perspective, as a two dimensional technique to represent three dimensional scenarios.
Totally gone crazy with this part, because he started to make perspective drawings of
his own cities.
The passion for cities, together with the chance to design everything in 3D using
CAD (on his fathers computer) kept him busy until the entrance to the University, at the
architecture department in 1994.
During the third year of college he started to work as a freelance for several
architects making 3D Renderings, which made him realizing that his computer skills
were quite above the average, fact that got him rapidly overloaded with projects.

For several years he kept on studying and working, but then he decided to drop
the studies because he hadnt enough time to manage his own company, which in
2006, reached the top of its size, with about 20 employees, in Barcelona and in Brazil.
His company, however, never had been his dream. Somehow working hard
dragged him to even work more and more. With time, he lost passion for it, and in 2007,
he stepped out of his own company, starting a trip that lasted several years and that
brought him to countries such as Latvia, Israel or Germany, in each he lived several
years.

It has been during these long years when giving more space to the artistic side of
him, was actually possible, a process only able to be understood as an attempt to
reconnect himself with the free, open-minded child that he used to be.
The focus point of his work is the city and its manifestations. He choose this
subject because for him a city doesnt represents only the spaces that are created for
peoples activities, but more than that for him the city is a world full of complex desires
and dreams, a place where each point of it represents a quantum of passions of
different persons.
Keeping in mind that first he studied architecture, but then he lost his passion for
that, we can assume the fact that his continuous search for something new, unique that
exists in each building represents in fact the search of his real passion- the discovery of
the real soul of the city.

In the last period of time, the city space is created by replicating the existing
buildings. His aim in his projects is the discovery of the changes. He is trying to
understand the new process, being not only just a witness, but also a creator by
showing to people how the new experiments can change the perception of the space
and of the buildings, making from the simple ones some intriguing ones.
However ,buildings have always been very important elements in an intellectual
context. Maybe, more than buildings, even geography, and specifically, the urban form,

cities and their infrastructures what have always caught the general attention, basically
through maps. Maps were always the key to all kind of mental trips to faraway land.
The whole work of Victor Enrich is based on experimentation and exploration of
the cities even in the unpopular areas. The results are the really interesting because
they involve real photos and after that a hard work of post-production.
For that purpose, imagination appears to be essential, actually it is essential in
every creative process, however the part of imagination was only related to spaces,
figures, objects and situations in a parallel world.
When a person is not experimented, its difficult to rationalize their behavior and
understand the pros and the cons of these and other characteristics. It is really
important to realize that imagination is very powerful.

At the beginning of his career, when he started to work in renderings he learned

a lot of things that helped him to develop his esthetic perceptions. For many years he
was in a continuous fight for good 3d architectural renderings, in terms of color balance,
contrast, composition, lighting, shading etc...but generally these are concepts that
customers dont take in consideration, so his work was in vain. Still, his abilities of
perceiving even the small differences between different types of light and colors were
,ore developed comparing to the others, being his strongest asset in what he is doing.
The difference between his previous works- just computer renderings is that then
he had professional customers, but now when his target is normal people, all that he is
doing is based only on his imagination, not on some specific plans that he has to follow.
The results of his imagination now have to be good enough to penetrate peoples
emotions and feelings. He is making a strong connection between his world and the
others world, like a bridge between different universes.
For him, the biggest project that he had started is exactly the career of an artist,
implying many risks, considering the fact that he didnt know what to expect as a result,
what reactions will the others have. Being an artist puts him in some special conditions
where knowing himself and investigating his own psychological limits are the basics.
Lots of questions appear every day, lots of options and decisions with uncertain
answers, and also doubts come their way, many doubts.

Before starting a new project, he really has to make sure about it, to do a lot of
research, because is the usual time that he spends on a project is at least 3 weeks of
continuous work on a building, or an area.
Also, another important aspect is inspiration that comes when it comes, and that
he needs a lot of exploration, in different place so he can constantly change his way of
thinking and perceiving the world around us. We can say that his project is a project of
life- about life and for life.
We cant say in an artist life which project is better. Each person sees in a
different way a work of art, so if a project is good for someone, another one can
consider a different project as being the best one. We can say in the same time that the
last project is better than the previous one because his techniques are improved from
project to project, he is one more step closer to what his world looks like.

The manipulation process is based on these complex principles- creating a 3D

virtual environment from a 2D photography. The process involves capturing the
perspective, then the geometry, the materials and also the lighting. This technique can
be called camera matching or perspective matching. There are different software that
can do this thing, but usually if it has a lot details implies a lot of handmade work.
Victor Enrich has manipulated his own architectural photography to create
impossible and fantastical structures, starting with his project called City Portraits. One
of the buildings is a tower block that splits into two as though being unzipped.

One shot provocatively shows a skyscraper in Israel taking the form of a gun,
pointing towards the countrys enemies in the east.

Medusa Tel Aviv 2011 - the Orchid Hotel. Each balcony tries to get a better view
towards the sea as the building is placed 90 degrees to it.

The reason why he started to change the appearance is that all hotels in Tel Aviv
have their main entrance from behind, few meters up from the sea level, the entrance is
also the back of the building with the emergency staircase, which was a little bit
intriguing.

Another interesting project of Einrich is the manipulation of a hotel in Munich.

That building was twisted, distorted, exploded, he changed its appearance is 88
different ways. Each of the images makes us think that we can do everything that we
want in the city if we use our imagination. There can be different types of manifestation,
exploring each building possibilities.
I presented this project as being my favorite one. I prefer this one because it
explores almost all the possibilities of a building, even if at the first sight it doesnt look
like it has a lot of potential. Our imagination can be a powerful source of creating
beautiful images, starting from architectural photography of a not so great city image.

Some images show parts of the building turned on their sides, while others show
sections of it duplicated or sliced away. Some shots show it curving into different
shapes and some show it pulled it apart.

Other images in the series include one where the top of the building is
transformed into a floating orb.There's also one where the tower features zigzagging
walls, and another where the base of the building is missing and the tower is raised up
on pilotis.

The decision of mixing 3d imagery with an instrument such as a piano comes

mainly from the fact that the artist feels very nostalgic of that instrument just because he
used to play it when he was younger; but due to other life choices he had to give it up.

In the other hand, setting a precise number of images to do would offer this
project the chance to experiment some limits, something quite important when its time
to be clear and specific, and not fall into vagueness.

Limits are an easy to understand concept in reality, but in virtuality they just
simply disappear, so it's important to be aware of that. The building has been chosen for
its outstanding scale in relation to its surroundings, for its central position and for its total
irrelevancy in the history of architecture.
I have to admit that I choose this photographer because his work is combining
what I like to do the most- Photography and 3D renderings. I consider Victor Einrich an
artist that made me, and also other people to look more carefully to the environment
that is surrounding us, he lets us to discover that even a simple building or a common
neighborhood can have special qualities, with a little bit of effort becoming a great work
of art.