Born in 1967, Rut Blees Luxemburg is a German photographer usually taking photographs at night, mostly exploring the urban landscape. She uses long exposures to allow the light from the street to illuminate her photographs, for instance from office blocks or street lights. this often leaves her images with warm, urban orange colour, contrasting the dark shadows created but the night. She works as an artist and photographer, concerned for the representation of the city and the phenomenon of the urban.
ANALYSIS OF PHOTOGRAPH
TECHNICAL:
The lighting of this image is generally quite dark due to the shoot being at night time, with the streets being illuminated by fluorescent street lights as well as lines of colour along the road from cars driving. You can see this lighting used is artificial and dimply illuminates the urban area. The image looks generally underexposed, with a high contrast between the shadows of the unlit streets, and basketball courts that are brightly lit.
The aperture of the photograph looks as if is around f/16 as there is a fairly deep depth of field. The shutter speed is obviously quite long in order to create the blur of the car lights going past, so the shutter speed maybe around 1/8. The image also seems to be underexposed and quite focused and sharp.You can see that this image isn’t very grainy not very then not at all, which indicates a moderate iso (trying to maintain underexposed look). This could mean that the is maybe ISO800.
VISUAL:
The colour of the image is primarily shades of green, grey, and yellow with tints of red for the blurred lights of the car. The image shows the stereotypical colours one sees when out at night, of the iconic dim yellow street lights. This creates a mellow mood. There are noticeably no people in the image, with a soul focus on the urban setting.
There are very clear lines in the image, stretching along the edges, lines and barriers of the roads, slightly curving to ease the sharpness of the image. These lines guide your eyes along the photograph,
CONTEXTAL/CONSEPTUAL:
Rut states that her “interest in the urban realm” influences her work, and it is clearly shown through the quiet, magical looking way she portrays city nightlife to look like. Rut executes her images with sensitivity and compassion.
