Tobias Faisst and Maximilian Virgili take a photographic “blind date” in Canada

Berlin-based photographers Tobias Faisst and Maximilian Virgili had never met, but had admired each others work online. By sheer coincidence the duo found that they were both in Canada for the same period and on returning to the German capital decided to meet up and compare shots. The resultant project, Visual Dialogue pairs the images from their trip in a compelling and thought provoking series. “The examination of kitsch in contrast to the grotesque was the main concept,” explain the pair. “This way we could show a broader picture of the country and mix our perceptions.” Below, they tell us a little more about the project.

Tobias

I work for a Canadian company in Berlin and in August I traveled to the headquarters for some photoshoots. It was my first trip overseas. Besides my work time I had the chance to discover Vancouver on the weekend. Whilst staying I posted on Facebook that I was in town and would like to meet some online friends there. Maximilian replied quickly as he was in Vancouver too. Maximilian and I only knew each other over the internet. Back again in Berlin, Maximilian asked me if I shot any pictures and if we could meet up to exchange ideas and look at some work. Maximilian has a similar photographic approach and so we decided to work out a visual dialogue pairing our shots to tell a little story on how we both perceived our trip. 

Maximilian

While I was on my trip in Canada, I got notified via Facebook that Tobias was there too. We barely knew each other, I knew his work and had always been a fan. We had a mutual friend, but had never met or worked together before. I realised before traveling to Canada that our style and aesthetics were quite similar, but never really thought about working together. Back in Berlin I was curious about his photographic approach to the country. So I asked him to sit down with a beer and have a look at his shots while talking about the trip. As we flipped through each others pictures we realised more and more similarities in contextual sense, graphical structure, colours within our pictures. So we decided to take turns pairing them intuitively.