A major series by Swiss photographer Lukas Hoffmann, Strassenbilder takes the opposite approach to street photography. Working with a view camera, Hoffmann gets as close as possible to his subjects, capturing them spontaneously, without precise framing, capturing fleeting postures, body fragments and gestures, sometimes dazzled by direct, brittle light, precisely highlighting the textures of skin, hair and clothing, which extend beyond the frame. The complex composition of the image questions the intrinsic temporality of the photographic medium. This large-format book presents a sharp selection of images, among a corpus of over 500, published here for the first time.

The album format – echoing the large-format negative of the camera – underlines the vertiginous feeling that grips the viewer as the series unfolds. The book is accompanied by an essay by art historian Anne Bertrand, revealing the different prisms of Lukas Hoffmann's work and contextualizing it within the history of contemporary photography.