The Body as Surface
Black-and-white conceptual work built around a single recurring model. Every image asks the same question from a different angle: who gets to write on a body — the censor, the city, the architecture, the war.
A constant to work against
Ira Salamanca is the recurring model of this work. She appears in every series because a fixed subject is what makes the variables visible — the light, the object, the intrusion, the frame.
Ira Salamanca is an AI-generated persona. She does not exist as a person, has no life outside this work, and every image here is constructed.
She is a model, in the oldest sense of the word: the constant a studio works against. The work stays within that: portraiture, series, and studies of the body.
How the images are made
Generation
Images are generated, then rebuilt. The generator produces a draft; the decisions that matter — framing, tonal hierarchy, what stays out — happen afterwards.
Upscaling
All output passes through a purpose-built upscaler using direct convolutional networks. No diffusion, no invented detail. Analogue grain and ink lines survive to print resolution instead of dissolving into plastic skin.
Black and white
Colour is used only when colour is the subject. Everything else is monochrome, because the work is about form, weight and light falling across a surface.
"The most interesting question is not what the image shows. It is who is allowed to look at it."
Channels
Available for
- Book and album cover licensing
- Editorial commissions and photobook projects
- Series work for independent publishers
- Fine art prints, limited runs
Generated, then selected
This is generated work and it says so. The pipeline is built and maintained by the author: generation, then a purpose-built upscaler, then selection. What is not automated is the part that matters — deciding which forty images out of four hundred are the work.
Principles
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The framing carries the meaning. Anatomy is form, and it is lit and composed as form.
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References are earned. Michelangelo, Corbijn and the Bauhaus are cited because the work argues with them.
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Some pieces stay in the archive. Where a reference is too close to something that shouldn't be traded on, the image stays there.
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These are constructed images.
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The output is generated; the selection is not.
The output is generated; the selection is not.
Note
I come from software. I spent too many years solving what other people needed instead of what I wanted. This costs me nothing and it makes me happy. When I'm not writing code for someone else, I do this. It's the only place where I'm not a technician, but someone looking at a body and deciding what to do with it.
I always work with the same figure. Her name is Ira Salamanca. She does not exist: she is generated, and every image here is constructed. That is exactly why it works. A fixed subject makes everything else visible — the light, the intent, the hand that intervenes. AI is the medium: it lets me keep one constant body and study what changes around it.
What interests me is the body and who has authority over it. The censor who covers it. The one who draws on it. The one who crops it for a billboard. The one who decides what is shown and what is hidden. I'm not trying to prove anything. I just want to follow that line and see how far it goes.
The Studio