Massimo Vitali: Natural Habitats

Best known for his large-scale color photographs that provide a topographical view of the rites and rituals of modern leisure, Italian photographer Massimo Vitali lends an air of drama to banal scenes of people at the beach, the disco, ski resorts and swimming pools across the globe. Vitali first worked as a photojournalist in the 1970s, and later as a camera operator, before he turned to the photography for which he is most known. Landscape with Figure 2 is an overview of Vitali's work from the past decade. The 70 non-chronologically-arranged images featured here occupy a territory somewhere between documentary realism and the surreal, the result of shooting from a custom-made perch 20 to 30 feet in the air, allowing for a macro- or micro-view of his subjects. Any one of these images allows for the perusal of hundreds of candid portraits of people caught unaware. "The way people behave fascinates me," Vitali writes, "but I don't try to understand what it's all about. My part is neutral--all I do is take note of what comes to me."