Prater

Photographer Helfried Valenta takes his camera into Vienna's Prater amusement park well after the last visitors have trickled home. There he finds a fantastical realm, both surreal and frightening, filled with bizarre characters and discomfiting objects. In photographing the dormant entertainment landscape, Valenta presents absurd, unfathomable and often mysterious views. The atmospheric effect is further amplified by later manipulation of the images, shifting colours toward unnatural tones and into a vibrant, artificial palette that is as unsettling as it is radiantly beautiful.