“I think if I take a normal portrait, the image is too sharp, it’s too much contrast, too much information,” says German-Czech photographer and director Jakub Gessler.

Sometimes he uses a longer exposure time to achieve his glazed-over aesthetic world, but he also has another box of tricks. “I have often put either Vaseline on my lens, or tights, so you just take tights and wrap them around the lens, and then you shoot through that. It just makes all the highlights glow a little bit.” The outlines become recessive, allowing everything else to be turned up a notch. “If a model smiles or is happy, then the smile is 10-20% too much. It might be even hysteric…. If they [appear] sad, then there’s a melancholy within it.”

Gessler is interested in taking everything slightly beyond reality. Distorting his camera lens is “one way of manipulating the photo and making it into a dream”, he says. Either that or a memory. There’s a strong nostalgic undercurrent in his work, thanks to a clear penchant for period styling but also kitsch poses and careful studio setups that feel more in step with the past rather than today’s nonchalant image culture. Even those hazy outlines reflect the indistinct contours of our memories.