Marco Onofri tackles the topic of internet lust in The Followers (NSFW)

At first glance, The Followers by photographer Marco Onofri are not easy pictures to decipher. The scenes depicted are at once confusing and intriguing. Inspired by the topic of internet lust, the series of 14 images presents Marco’s take on a contemporary scenario that plays out daily on social media. The Followers is a comment on how people share intimate pictures and moments on social media with little idea of who is watching.

Each shot is tightly directed by the Cesena-based photographer. Centre stage in each is a model in a provocative pose and varying states of undress, emerging from the deep shadows at the edge of the frame are the followers – an eclectic crowd of individuals who stare intently at the model. The juxtapositions set up by Marco are jarring and compelling; a breast exposed for titillation shares a frame with one exposed for suckling, a model in the throes of sexual ecstasy is viewed by a still, mute mob drawn from a wide age range.

The project took almost a year to be realized and was shot around Cesena in northern Italy. Every session was 2 hours long and involved people picked up from the internet and one model. Each person who joined the project arrived at an arranged meeting point wearing the same clothes as when they answered to the Facebook post to join the project, and every model kept the same pose as the last picture they posted on their Facebook page.

On closer inspection, the followers are the characters whose presence drive the whole series: each pose and expression prompts the viewer to ask questions about the individual that the image cannot answer. A sense of unease is heightened by the diversity of the individuals that make up each group – young, old, male, female, dressed, undressed. On the website that accompanies the images the models from the scene were asked to comment on the process. “I think it was more difficult for these strangers being in a place unexplored, in front of a naked body of a woman never seen before except perhaps on the web,” says Nina Sever. “I’m used to exposing myself, instead they have always observed a model from a monitor… and there they were, exposed, with their expressions well in sight, perhaps more naked than me.” The series as a whole serves as a metaphor for the way in which so much of our lives are shared online with people we know nothing about,