The Sentinel

Photographer

Richard Bernardin

Category

Black & White Photography - Fine Art

Company

Richard Bernardin Photography

Submission Group

Professional

Year

2026

Country / Region:

Canada

I was in Rio to shoot a fashion campaign but as an ardent lover of architecture and film, I knew I also had to make something personal at Oscar Niemeyer’s Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói. Barbara, my muse and the most incredible collaborator, secured a few archival futuristic Gaultier pieces, did her own makeup, and at the crack of dawn we went alone to create this lo-fi sci-fi fine art series. Against a structure that felt like a just-landed spaceship, somewhere between Blade Runner and The Man Who Fell to Earth, she became an otherworldly sentinel — part woman, part apparition, quietly arriving on the shores of Niterói. It remains, to this day, one of my favourite series of my career.