Fotograf Magazine

“Many thousands people now own a digital camera. Many thousands more sell their personal items over the Internet every day” says a description of ‘Useful Photography #002’, a collection of photos from auction websites edited and published by Erik Kessels in 2002.[ref]‘Useful Photography #002’ was collected and edited by Erik Kessels together with Hans Aarsman, Claudie de Cleen, Julian Germain and Hans Van der Meer and published by Kesselskramer Publishing. [In:] http://www.kesselskramerpublishing.com/[/ref] In Poland a similar concept was developed by Mikołaj Długosz’s in his ‘Real Foto’ series.[ref]‘Real Foto’ was published as a book in 2008 by Korporacja Ha!art[/ref] ‘Real Photo’ is, beyond any doubt, a success in Długosz’s (b. 1975) career. At first glance, this is a surprising success, given the fact that it was built on a collection of amateur photographs found on the Allegro website (a Polish counterpart of eBay) and selected by Długosz. These photographs were uploaded by the website users for purposes completely different than art. What was so fascinating in this collection to the critics and viewers, who had undoubtedly seen pictures of this kind (or perhaps even the same pictures) on numerous occasions?