Welcome to MON JARDIN !

Hi!

My name is Aliocha Merker.

I am a swiss photographer living in Rome, Italy.

I also go by the name of BaBa.

I have always been fascinated by the work of Carlo Mollino as a photographer and always had in mind that I wanted to work on a project that would in some way pay homage to his fantasy while keeping my own vision. A collection of beautiful girls in a timeless, raw setting, shot with an old Landcamera on Polaroid film. I have always loved instant film. It was my medium of choice when I started taking pictures as a travel and portrait photographer after graduating from ICP in the mid 90's. The love of my life was the Polaroid 665 which gave a very contrasty positive print and also an even, high quality transparent negative for future re-prints. When Polaroid discontinued their products my world crumbled. I switched to digital, forgot about my beloved project and my passion became work. I started a family and had to pay the bills with a profession that was becoming more and more difficult and competitive to continue. I lost passion and motivation in what I was doing which affected all of my personal life. I had to find my true self again. That I am still looking for but what I did find was that Fuji was still producing instant film, of a beautiful and very versatile kind: the FP-3000B. With its 3200 ISO speed, its dense contrast and its vast tonal range it can be used in virtually any light situation with amazing results and the possibility of keeping a negative print of every picture taken! I suddenly started to feel alive and myself again. I began taking pictures of girlfriends and the positive feedback was instantaneous like the film I was using. Girls were actually contacting me to have their picture taken, which I still find incredible... After a while I discovered the world of nude models and started resorting to them with ever better results. On the contrary to what happened with Mollino's work, which was discovered in a drawer in his house at his death, I decided I wanted the world to see my pictures.

This blog is the public face of my project which I hope one day can turn into an exhibit and a book. It also gives me the possibility of showing more images from every single shoot which is often not the case with a show and much less with a book. We'll see what happens. In the meantime I'll keep shooting these heavenly creatures and sharing these fantasies with you.

I hope you enjoy them like i do!

PS: The pictures have no name, just numbers because they represent fantasies and not real people and it makes the whole thing artsy too. A lot of times the face of the model is hard to see, for the same reason. Sometimes nudity will be patched, that is to protect the model's privacy.

It's still just a blog, anyway...

Lust for life!

BaBa

all images on this blog are protected by copyright laws.
Sharing is caring but reproducing is mischevious so please
don't use the images in any way without asking for permission.

all images © Aliocha Merker unless otherwise noted.