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PHOTOBOOK: ART FORMS IN NATURE – KARL BLOSSFELDT

RESEARCHING THE PHOTOBOOK:

Using innovative techniques, photographer Blossfeldt produced arresting images of seed pods, buds, stems, and other botanical items. This spectacular collection features scores of his remarkable photographs of plant life, offering artists and craftspeople a treasury of royalty-free pictures and design inspirations.

Blossfeldt became fascinated with nature and nature object. He became interested in the structure behind beautiful forms, this led to his ground breaking collection of thousands of photographs of natural forms, which then he created the book ‘Art forms in Nature‘.

‘Art forms in Nature’ can be described as nature writing. Since Blossfeldt’s photography consists of some 6,000 photographs of plants and segments it shows that his intention and main aspect in the book is about nature. Through his nature photography he is able to document natures structures, and create abstract art. The aesthetics of Blossfeld’s photos, lies between New Objectivity and Surrealism, especially while reviewing over their historical context.

NEW OBJECTIVITY –

was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism.

SURREALISM –

1. aims to revolutionise human experience. It balances a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams. The movement’s artists find magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional.

2. is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas.

IMAGES INCLUDED IN THE BOOK:

HOW DID BLOSSFELDT MAKE HIS IMAGES:

Blossfeldt chose to depict natural objects in extreme close ups. Using his homemade camera he could zoom in so close to a plant’s leaves and stem that, unlike any photographs of natural objects seen before, they became new beings entirely. Blossfeldt developed a series of home-made camera lenses that allowed him to magnify his plant subjects by thirty times, producing unprecedented detail.

Blossfeldt was one of the first photographers to manufacture his own unique camera. His camera was made of wood and had one metre long bellows. In the 1930s the photographs he produced with it were just as unique as the homemade contraption itself. Blossfeldt chose to depict natural objects in extreme close ups

Photos Souvenirs- Carolle Bénitah

Photos Souvenirs is an exploration of Bénitah’s memories from her childhood in Morocco and was worked on between 2009 and 2014. This series is made up of old family achieves, which she manipulates by threading beads and embroidering designs relating to her feelings towards each photographic memories. She calls the photos she finds “excavations”, and she starts by transposing them onto new paper. She mostly uses red thread and beads, but some of her pieces also include gold and black coloured material. They add a shine to her photos, and each design holds significance. She sometimes even manipulates the photos in a more destructive way, cutting out individuals and placing them elsewhere.

Growing up in a traditional Moroccan household, Bénitah was expected to do many typically- feminine tasks. The embroidery she adds to the achieves hold a lot of significance, portraying how she was taught to sew as a girl, and was expected to continue the activity for her entire life. She uses this to portray her distaste of being a good girl, a good wife and a loving mother. Embroidery in itself is a calm activity, however, Bénitah uses it to show her anger and other strong emotions. I think she made it to deal with her past but also to show others how not every picture is truthful.

The Design

The book is around the size of an A4 (21cm x 24cm), with thick coloured paper. The start and end pages of the book are yellow black and red, however the rest of the pages are white, the only colour being the pictures. The outside of the book is a hardcover and shows a snapshot of Benitah’s past with red glitter appearing to slide down the page. It has 112 pages and 53 photos featured inside. The title is quite literal and relevant to her project, Photos Souvenirs indicating quite literally what the photos inside feature. The is one photo per page, in different positions around the two pages, some being directly printed across both pages. There is not much writing in the book except at the end, the photos telling the entire story of her life. The photos are all in chronological order, from when she was very young to her and her family as adults/ elders. Most of the pictures are embroidered with red, gold or black thread (some also including other media), the designs adding a new meaning to each photograph. The photos don’t have captions, however a glossary at the back provides the viewer with the name of each photo both in English and French. A short statement, written by Benitah in English and French, is on one of the last pages of the photobook, printed in white on a black page. It gives a short insight on the production of the book, and her thoughts behind it. There are 250 copies of the special edition that includes 6 embroidered prints.

Task

1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

• Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper.
• Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both.
• Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages.
• Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello
• Cover: linen/ card. graphic/ printed image. embossed/ debossed. letterpress/ silkscreen/hot-stamping.
• Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing.
• Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told?
• Structure and architecture: how design/ repeating motifs/ or specific features develops a concept or construct a narrative.
• Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts.
• Editing and sequencing: selection of images/ juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process.
• Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others.  Use of captions (if any.)

On this site

On this site is a photobook which references historical events in America, showing us what they look like now as well as a small information panel beside it, telling us what precisely happened. I would describe the genre of this photobook as more landscape photography as Sternfeld’s images are all of locations, excluding any people.

The book feels smooth, with the inside of the cover having a cardboard texture, while some of the images have a rougher texture to them. The writing within the book is all done in black while the cover is all done in white. Majority of the images within are kept in colour, allowing the viewer to see more details that could otherwise be missed. The binding is a dust jacket, showcasing a sage almost army green making it link to important events.

The title ‘on this site’ is more literal than poetic due to the entire photobook being about different sites/ locations where tragedies occurred. In my opinion, the text size is purposefully kept small as to not draw too much attention away from the photograph, similarly, I think this is the same reason that Sternfeld decided to keep the text to the bottom of a blank page.

I think that the images were not edited and if they were it would only be to increase the contrast to make them more dramatic. The images are most definitely linked to the text as the text is more so information about the images themselves.

Mitch Epstein

Bio

Mitchell Epstein (born 1952) is an American photographer. His books include Vietnam: A Book of Changes (1997); Family Business (2003), which won the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award; Recreation: American Photographs 1973–1988 (2005); Mitch Epstein: Work (2006); American Power (2009); Berlin (2011); New York Arbor (2013); Rocks and Clouds (2018); Sunshine Hotel (2019); In India (2021); and Property Rights (2021). By the mid-1970s, Epstein had abandoned his academic studies and begun to travel, embarking on a photographic exploration of the United States. Ten of the photographs he made during this period were in a 1977 group exhibition at Light Gallery in New York. In 1999, Epstein returned to his hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts, to record the demise of his father’s two businesses—a retail furniture store and a low-rent real estate empire. The resulting project assembled large-format photographs, video, archival materials, interviews and writing by Epstein, the book, Family Business, combined all of these elements.

His Work

As I can’t go over all of his projects, I will go through my personal favourites:

1. Family Business

In the summer of 1999 a couple of bored teenagers set fire to a disused building in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Epstein’s father was the owner and was ruined in the ensuing law suits. Mitch has recreated his father’s universe before it was destroyed in a series of images, both electronic and book-based.

I will be using this book as my main form of inspiration, Epstein discusses his father’s family business and what he does, using stills from interviews, archival material and more. I would like to involve all of these things but if not all then most as I myself am talking about a family business.

2. The City

Having lived and travelled beyond the United States for over a decade, Epstein began to spend more time in New York City. His 1999 series The City investigated the relationship between public and private life in New York. 

I am not planning to use this project during my personal study but I like how he explores and photographs normal people in their everyday lives.

This is my first photoshoot for the ‘Nostalgia’ project. My plan for this photoshoot was to document my grandparents’ home in Madeira. This was mostly pictures of objects around the house, landscapes inside the house and views from the balcony, as well as a couple portraits of my nana.

SELECTION PROCESS

RATING CODE:

RED – Bad quality images

YELLOW – Average images

GREEN – Good images

BLUE – Best outcomes which I can use for the photobook

EDITING PROCESS

These are some screen grabs of my editing process in Lightroom. It shows the before vs. after of some images from the photoshoot.

PHOTOSHOOT OUTCOMES