Thanks to Facebook and other social networks, the traditional private photo album is now a global business card. The photographer Nicolaus Schmidt selected 250 photographs from the numerous ones posted by his Facebook friends from all over the world in order to present their individual lives. He has created album pages with these images, displaying families, friends, passions, dreams, personal life stories. Personal portraits are the focus, often shots of the entire body. These range from pictures taken by mobile phones to carefully styled presentations of the self. In an analytical essay, Barbara Uppenkamp examines iconographic echoes of pop culture as well as themes taken from Antiquity, portrayed in many of these images.

Biography
1953 born in Arnis/Schlei
1971–1976 studies at Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg
1975 foundation of „Rosa“, one of the first journals of the gay rights movement
1982 action named „Cerro Rico“ in Hamburg with 600.000 empty tins
1984–1988 president of terre des hommes Germany
1992 grant of the „Freie und Hansestadt“ Hamburg – stay in León/Nicaragua
2010 publication „Breakin' the City" Kerber-Verlag
exhibitions in Basel, Berlin, Hamburg, New York and Valencia
lives and works in Berlin