Eleven Strangers Strip Down for 'La Isla'
Get to know Argentinian photographer, Matu Buiatti in his own words as he introduces you to his new photo book 'La Isla' featuring some of Argentina's most beautiful men.
Before I start photographing or even thinking about a scene, my focus is on the person standing in front of my camera. I want to know their story, their family, their feelings, and discover what we might have in common.
My intention in photography is not to take the best possible photograph, but to build the strongest connection.
In 2024, almost without realizing it, I began the most extensive series of photographs I had ever made. At first, it had no name. I started meeting people and photographing them. By the middle of the year, I had already taken more than a thousand analog photographs, but the number never mattered.
What mattered was what went on between images.
Many of the people who appear in these photographs were strangers. But through long conversations and time shared, real connections began to emerge.
For approximately eighteen months, these encounters continued.
Over time, I began to understand that the most important aspect of this project was not a single image, but the passage of time and the connection to the people I was capturing. Some came and went, others reappeared in different sessions. But time kept moving.
During that creative period, those encounters sustained me — challenged me. As days turned into weeks and months, I began to understand the real work was in telling a story, not merely taking photographs. The stories of the people standing exposed, right in front of me—an invitation for them to be seen and heard through mutual respect and trust.
This realization now defines my process: conversation can be the path toward the image.
The more I got to know someone — even if only for a short time — the more intimate the photograph. Through intimacy and connection, nudity is not sexualized; it is an expression of identity.
What started as casual encounters for a nameless collection evolved into something else entirely.
La Isla.
A physical representation of my years of work, shot across the expansive and beautiful country of Argentina. And although the name might suggest a physical place, La Isla does not refer to a specific territory, but a symbol: the intimate place that appears when two people show up unguarded.
The book brings together eleven people, many of whom had never posed nude, shot on analog cameras, without digital manipulation or elaborate staging.
The process is simple: time, conversation, trust, shoot.
The decision to work with analog photography changed my relationship with time and acceptance. In an era marked by anxiety and perfectionist tendencies, when time seemingly has no rhythm and where days pass unaccounted for, analog photography became my refuge.
It is a medium where waiting is inevitable, and error is unavoidable.
Analog slows things down, puts them into perspective, and makes you rethink how you exist in the world. As the minutes go by and the photo develops and faces emerge, you find peace in the uncertainty of the outcome. In the end, those minor “imperfections” are precisely what make a photograph feel special — what brings life to La Isla.
Through this project, I finally understand that nudity does not equal intimacy.
Trust equals intimacy. Confidence equals intimacy. Connection equals intimacy. When you show up that way, a photograph stops being a representation and becomes something real. Something to share.
For me, nudity does not function as spectacle or provocation, but as a gesture of honesty.
I have learned so much through this work and during my time photographing these eleven incredible people, but most importantly, I’ve learned that photography is a way for me to get to know myself. Through each encounter, each conversation — the moments between images.
This book is a love letter to the strangers I’ve met, the friends I’ve made, and each version of myself I’ve encountered on my journey. I hope you enjoy these images and moments of humanity that only appear when someone is courageous enough to invite someone in.
