Poretti does not specialise in any one kind of image. The range of his subjects includes portraits, landscapes, Balinese ritual and social activities, and even a huge stone phallus tied with a yellow bow - one of his most recent souvenirs from Thailand, where he has lived since March this year. Indeed, whilst Poretti has founf fame in Bali for his black and white, colour-tinted, postcard images of Bali, many of his best works have not been exhibited here and explore masculine beauty. "

To the surprise of many of my peers, my experience with male subjects is that men are very interested in the concept of male beauty, and in the process of expressing that artistically," comments Poretti. Some of the less provocative Poretti's of boy shots have been included in a collection of short stories published by the Four Seasons Resort for distribution in-house. In one of these, 'Mimpi Manis', the very same Nyoman to adorn the cover of this edition of Bali Echo, is depicted, settled snugly along the branch of an old tree, the contours of his body perfectly complementing that of the tree. He is fast asleep. Another, the Dupain-esque 'Young Surfer at Kuta Beach', depicts a goofy-grinned child supporting his pride and joy which apexes at over a foot taller than him, pricking at the sky.

Not all of Poretti's works are meant to be exhibited, as he believes that art can be appreciated in a variety of ways. "Some of my photos are meant for books, some for brochures, and some meant for hotels or private collectors," explains Poretti, explaining that photography is one of the most flexible forms of art.

Poretti perhaps makes greater use of this flexibility than a great many photographers. For him, the photographic process does not end at the printing stage, but continues on from there as he takes his brush and colour tints and highlights his prints with them. All of the Porettis included in Mimpi Manis: Bedtime Stories from Bali exemplify this technique. In one of them entitled ÔSanggah at JimbaranÕ, Poretti highlights the cloth that adorns the sanggah (shrine) by tinting it yellow, leaving the rest of the photo in its original black and white state. The effect of PorettiÕs hand-tinting technique is to imbue what are ultimately modern subjects with a turn-of-the-century nuance, a sense of the classic.

PARIS, SWITZERLAND, BALI
Pierre Poretti Luigi was born in Lugano, Switzerland, on 21 August, 1950. Poretti, whose career in art photography began at the age of 22, is eager to stress that the world of the paparazzi is of little interest to him.ÒI am not a paparazzi,Ó asserts Poretti. ÒFor me, photography is an artisitic process.Ó He first began studying photography in Switzerland in 1972, and in 1973 he set off on a photographic tour of Europe and the Middle East, travelling to Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Turkey and Afghanistan.

When Pierre Poretti settled again, it was in Paris. His work as a fashion and star photographer drew him into a world of artists, socialites and models - among them Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Jane Birkin, Paloma Picasso and Dewi Sukarno. Not to say that Poretti's Paris period (1975 - 79) was a period of hedonism, a string of endless parties. In many ways, the Paris period was a period of discovery.

top: Dancers at the banjar, 1995

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