Swiss-Italian photographer Christian Tagliavini combines theater with the language of portrait photography to create curious and open narratives. For his series “Carte,” Tagliavini built wooden clothing and frames around his human subjects to devise life-sized playing cards. This technique creates tension between the two-dimensional quality of the playing cards and the life-like attributes of his distinctive characters, such as their protruding collarbones and rosy cheeks. Some of the eleven photographs further complicate the viewer’s sense of perspective with subtle gestures. In “La Matta Nera,” the stoic, smoky-eyed woman folds her black painted fingernails over the cutout frame, shaking the viewer’s belief in the image’s flatness. In this way, Tagliavini’s playing cards invite a sense of playful interaction. Their perspectival ambiguity and hints at mythological symbols serve as reminders to be more tactful and observant, especially when playing games of chance.
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French photographer 
In the 2005 series “Teenage Stories,” 