Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg was born in 1967, and is a German photographer. Luxemburg mainly focuses on night photography, using long exposures to put light back into the urban landscapes she shoots. Currently Luxemburg is a tutor at the Royal College of Art and feels that the titles she gives to her photos are carefully considered, and help to give meaning to her photos. Luxemburg shoots large format, but admits she is not very technically knowledgeable about photography.

From having met Luxemburg and hearing her talk about her photos, I feel she over conceptualises her photos, but she still recognises that everyone interprets art differently. A lot of her photos have hidden meanings that would not necessarily be seen by others, for to me some of them seem a bit far-fetched.

 

In Deeper (from the series: 'Liebeslied'), 1999

Vertiginous Exhilaration (from the series: 'A Modern Project'), 1995

Black Sunrise (from the series: 'A Modern Project'), 2010

A Girl from Elsewhere (from the series: 'Liebeslied'), 2000

 Cockfosters (from the series: 'Piccadilly's Peccadilloes'), 2007 - A playful approach to photography. I personally like the idea of taking photos of a subjects reflection, for it allows the viewer more time to look deeply into something they may have only looked at briefly before. It also adds something more to the photo, to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

Towering inferno (from the series: 'a modern project'), 1996 - An interesting look into the lives of the flat owners, through their windows, which almost resembles TV screens. Portals into other peoples worlds.

Thomas Shahan

Thomas Shahan uses a Pentax K200D with either a vintage 28mm or 50mm prime lens reversed to the end of extension tubes. Sometimes he uses bellows to achieve further magnification. Shahan mainly seems to take photos of jumping spiders, but also extends his photography to include macros of other arthropods, such as wasps and various flies. Shahan has also produced some 'how to' videos on the subject of macro photography. Click here to view more of his work.

The aperture used gives sufficient separation to the subject from the background, while still giving the viewer a clear insight into the subject's natural environment. Also the angle chosen shows the subject against a contrasting background, allowing the subjects natural colouring to stand out.

The sharpness of detail is exceptional 

at the level of magnification.

Such sharpness of detail has been captured to allow clear viewing of the flies compound eyes.

Jody Melanson

Jody Melanson grew up in a small Northern Town on a large Lake. Melanson says that he was always fascinated by Bugs, Birds and Wildlife, and from growing up in this small town it gave him lots of opportunities to see and interact with nature. In Melanson's words "I was your typical boy with the slingshot hanging out of one back pocket and a Frog in one of my front pockets". Melanson has quite the following, and shoots all types of photography. His website can be viewed here.

As you can see from the above picture, Melanson not only wears camouflage clothing, but also applies camouflage material to his camera and all its accessories. This is to help him blend in as much as possible to his subjects natural environment. By doing this Melanson is able to get very close to his subjects without disturbing them too much, allowing him to get the photos he aims to achieve.

Here is a pick of some of Melanson's macro photos I found to be quite interesting.

What first draws me into this photo is the intense

turquoise blue of the spiders eyes. I am not sure if they were enhanced post-processing, even if they were they still look phenomenal. There is no distracting glare from flash, they are just pin sharp. It's like looking into another dimension. 90% of the subject is in focus, which can be hard to achieve at this level of magnification. So much detail has been captured, which makes it invaluable from a research point of view and ever explorable to the viewers eyes.

I love that Melanson focuses upon just the stinger of this wasp, for again it is invaluable as research, as well as opening the worlds eyes to what it actually is that can potentially cause you very much pain, if you were to ever come in contact with it. This is one of the reasons it interests me so greatly. Technically this is a very sound image, for it is pin sharp, and shows so much detail, that is never normally seen.

Guy Bourdin

Guy Louis Bourdin was born December 2, 1928 in Paris, and died March 29, 1991 in Paris. He was born Guy Louis Banarès, and was a French fashion photographer. Bourdin had a complex relationship towards woman, some say this is due to his mother abandoning him as an infant, and other dark times he had regarding women in his childhood, but does this excuse how he treated women, or did he even need an excuse, you decide.

A lot of his photos stared red headed, pale skinned, heverly made up  models, which were purposefully reminiscent of Bourdin's mother. The scenes he used were carefully manufactured, even them of a nature scenes, for he would manipulate the natural lighting with reflectors and such to create a surreal feeling to his photos, his photos that reflected a life of misery

The models Bourdin used had to have little or no pride to work with him, for he would treat them wickedly, some may say. For example, his studio was refereed to as a dungeon, for it was dark, allowed no contact with the outside world, for lack of a phone, and to get to the dimly lit toilet the models would have to walk down to the cellar, across some planks of wood laid across bare soil, which made the models scared that rats or mice might be around. This apparently amused Bourdin. Reflective of his attitude towards women, I would say so.

Bourdin didn't want his photos to be given a longer life than that of a magazine page, for that is where a lot of his photos were published in the '70s. Bourdin refused book publishers requests and ideas for books staring his photos. He just had a reluctance to preserving his photos.

Bourdin would obsessively pursue perfection, only to have the images destroyed, which was his request to be carried out after his death. Was the end product the photograph, or was it the process that mattered so much to him? Again another question which is up to you to decide.

I found this documentary about Guy Bourdin and his work to be very interesting.

Slight Self Reflection Time...

So I have been neglecting this blog a bit, partially at a fault of my own, but also due to being very busy with many college projects, which really can suck up your time.

Anyway it's time to crank this blog up again, and I will start with a post on the photographer Guy Bourdin.