Silver Medal in the category « Street Photography »

Phantom Frames explores how seeing, recording, and being seen come together in contemporary urban space. The series focuses on convex traffic mirrors, motorcycle mirrors, and safety mirrors—everyday devices designed to manage risk rather than to be looked at.

These mirrors sometimes capture unintended reflections: fragments of passersby, buildings, or brief moments of city life. I photograph only these chance images, separating them from their surroundings. What we see is already mediated—reversed and framed by the mirror—before being reframed by the camera. Each photograph thus becomes an “image of an image,” gently questioning the idea that photography offers a transparent record of reality.

Formally, the reflected image is optically isolated against a deep black background. This removes immediate narrative cues and slows the act of looking.

Rather than directly critiquing surveillance, the work draws attention to fleeting visual traces—images not meant to be seen, yet quietly recorded—opening a space to reconsider photography as a mediated and unstable form of vision.