dark and light

Anke Merzbach's photography is dark, elegant, and moody.

Her work is a glorious combination of antiquated fashion and photo techniques, desaturated color, dirty contrast, and models of non-traditional beauty, strength, and grace.



She uses, sometimes to the point of flamboyant excess, a lot of digital photo processing and manipulation, but despite the modern tools, the photos have an air of antique-ness, but of a past world that never really existed at all.



You can find her work on her website, or on her Flickr Stream.

Nature is Ancient

Last week I stumbled upon the work of photographer Maleonn.



He works in a variety of styles, blending nature and open spaces with human strangeness and kitch. Some of his photos are black and white, and some are black and white with meticulous hand-coloring with watercolors.


Nothing is left un-damaged by his aging techniques, which leaves the viewer, after seeing his body of work as a whole, with feelings of another world...an expanse, a non-knowing of what is around him. It's all very moody stuff, I recommend it highly.

haunted

Check out the photography of Lauren Simonutti. On her Flickr page, she asserts that her photographs are all done without the aid of digital effects - all manipulation is done in camera, or in the darkroom. Certainly refreshing these days.

timeless

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison create fantastic, beautiful, surreal, and impossible photo collage works.


Subject matter ranges from desolate, isolated spaces, wounds, anachronistic men in period suits attending to various tasks, and colorful butterflies gathering in natural and man-made arrays. Their works are photographic collages, seamless combinations of images that tell a story. This Wikipedia entry has a lot of great information.

While many of their works are cleaner, lighter, and more colorful, these pieces from the exhibition "The Architect's Brother" (of which there is also a book) are dark and timeless, with pollution and open space, and labor.

pigment-free Friday

mm.northwoods has an amazing Flickr set of albino Whitetail Deer that roam around their land. It's amazing how, with no pigment to let us immediately know what kind of deer they are, they appear to be some exotic, alien species....some rare and icy breed of snowy northern ungulate. Check out the other sets too, for lovely and interesting snaps of nature.

there in spirit

The late part of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th saw the fervent, some would say faddish, rise of Spiritualism. Out of that movement, some truly wonderful photography was born, with a definite artistry, and a type of mystery and off-kilter sensibility that modern "spiritual" images often lack.






These images and more can be found in the book "The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult", which can be previewed here.

glass eye

It's not often you hear of photographers that construct their own cameras, let alone cameras that are made from skulls or contain infant human hearts or HIV positive blood. Wayne Martin Belger happens to do all of the above. It would be a gross misinterpretation to take his usage of controversial materials as shock art. Each pinhole camera is masterfully created with precision, purpose and profound respectful meaning.
Not only are the cameras themselves amazing works of art, but the photographs that are taken with them are stunning and haunting.
Each camera has a brief description of the meaning behind the concept as well as the materials used.

tiny legions

"Bulla's photograph of hundreds of children wearing gas masks was not meant to be ghoulish, a commentary on war or lost innocence, but rather exemplified a reason for pride--the country was blessed with well-trained, well-equipped and obviously courageous young fighters. "

-- excerpt from Propaganda and Dreams

bugger

Igor Siwanowicz has amassed a staggeringly large portfolio of otherworldly creatures that live right under our feet. Capturing images of insects (among other critters) through a macro lens, Igor manages to show the real beauty of nature in all of it's chromatic and detailed glory.

What strikes me most about this collection is just how many variations of mantids there are in the world, all of which look like they should be carrying a laser-gun. Pew pew

a little bit noir

Spanish photographer Eugenio Recuenco creates dark, moody worlds inhabited by stoic, doll-like people.

His work shows up in fashion magazines, advertising campaigns, exhibitions, and even musicians get in on the action (see the Rammstein photo shoot on his website).

I love the tableau-style work that mimics old paintings and photos; the color is eye-squintingly dark and undefined, it's completely unapologetic in that regard, it's great. I find the "15th hour" series to be disturbingly humorous in a "what will she do next?" sort of way, and there is a wry smirk of kitsch in the voyeuristic/fetishism-tinged photos as well.

just dirty enough

Some really nice photos can be found on the Flickr page of a photographer who goes by the name Soozika. The "Old and Antique" set is really nice, excellently close macro shots with textures of old books, paper, printing, and other objects. Occasionally there is some jarring and unnecessary Photoshoppery, but for the most part the photos are well-composed and the colors look wonderful.

fish eyed lens

Kim Keever shoots amazing photographs of epic landscapes...


...all of which are created in a water tank in his studio.


As impressed as I am by the aesthetic of most of the photos, this might be a case for me where the process is more interesting than the final result,
even though the final result is no less than awe inspiring.