Photography

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Art Photography

Macro Photography Reveals the Dazzling Scales and Multi-Colored Hairs That Cover Butterfly Wings

Chris Perani uses macro photography to capture the microscopic details found on butterflies’ wings, such as multi-colored hairs and iridescent scales. To photograph with such precision, the photographer uses a 10x microscope objective attached to a 200mm lens, which presents an almost non-existent depth of field. “The lens must be moved no more than 3 microns per photo to achieve focus across the thickness of the subject which can be up to 8 millimeters,” Perani explains to Colossal. “This yields 350 exposures, each with a sliver in focus, that must be composited together.” In total this accounts for 2,100 separate exposures combined into a single image. For more detailed observations of butterfly wings, visit Perani’s website. (via Colossal Submissions)

Art Photography

Suspended Groups of Umbrellas, Lollipops, and Plates Swarm the Isle of Man in New Photographs by Thomas Jackson

Thomas Jackson (previously) uses man-made objects to imitate the self-organizing behavior of large groups of birds, fish, or insects in his ongoing series “Emergent Behavior.” For this project, the San Fransisco-based artist clusters brightly colored umbrellas, plates, or streamers together with the help of imperceptible filament, which makes the objects appear as if they are floating through the landscape on their own.After each installation he makes sure to recycle and dispose of all items responsibly, with no damage occurring to the environment during installation or take down.

Recently he was invited to the Isle of Man to build several new works inspired by the island’s coastline, groves, and moors. The group of images will be exhibited later this year at Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta. You can see more examples of the artist’s photography on his website and Instagram.

Photography

A Rare Tropical Glacier Captured at Night in Drone-Illuminated Photographs by Reuben Wu

In the ever-widening world of drone photography, Reuben Wu (previously) has made a name for himself with his unique images that combine lighted drone patterns with stark observations of natural land formations. Two months ago, Wu travelled to Peru to continue his body of work called Lux Noctis. Peru’s Pastoruri Glacier is a rare remaining tropical glacier, sited at 17,000 feet above sea level in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range.

The trip was part of the filming for a Great Big Story (previously) video series titled “Made From Mountains,” and involved research, scouting, and treacherous travel to safely reach the glacier. In addition to the logistical challenges and the frigid, remote location, Wu shares with Colossal, “I photographed the glacier with conflicting feelings. I wanted to show evidence of its alarming retreat, yet I was drawn to the epic scale of the ice which remained. In the end I leaned towards the latter, but each photograph represents a bleak reality, a fading memory of what once stood.”

You can see more of the artist’s illuminated photography on Instagram and Facebook. Wu’s artist book of his Lux Noctis series is available for pre-order and is already almost sold out. Reuben Wu’s “Coors Light: Made from Mountains” episode is featured on greatbigstory.com. (via PetaPixel)

Photography

Rural Iceland Transformed Into A Rouge-Tinted World by Photographer Al Mefer

Al Mefer transforms rural Iceland into a rouge-tinted world, producing images that make the area’s shrubbery look like candy floss, and moss-covered landscapes appear like red velvet cake. Mefer photographs a mixture of Icelandic topography, from iconic waterfalls to fields full of pink sheep. His photographs reveal the elements of the natural world that are often blurred into the background, such as the clustered patterns moss makes when growing on boulders, or how water froths was it spills over a waterfall.

Mefer’s project Dreamscapes of Iceland started while Mefer was traveling around the country with friends, and began to use a reflex camera to capture the country’s beautiful scenes. While exploring the Golden Circle, in the South of the country, Mefer photographed locations that would imprint an indelible memory upon him: Skógafoss’s waterfalls, cliffs and coastline, and Jökulsárlón’s glacial lake. “Iceland has been photographed a million times,” says Mefer, “I wanted to picture it in a way that it’d feel new yet as oneiric in the images as it is to see it live.”

The red and pink colors in Mefer’s photographs resemble the reddish hues inside the human body; the tones magnify the differences in texture and form between the living and non-living whilst having an emotional impact on the viewer. “Color affects us emotionally and I often focus my attention on it as a tool to rewrite reality,” he explains. Although some of Mefer’s photographs include people, a stillness is still captured in each photograph. “There’s a common trait among my projects to feel that the landscapes are mysterious and unexplored,” Mefer says. “They’re lonely even if populated.”

To view more of Mefer’s work visit his website and Instagram.

Photography

Spools of Colorful Tape and Piles of Painted Canvases Transform Subjects into Living Works of Art

French creative studio Akatre was recently asked by Centre Pompidou to create a series of visuals that would further engage the Paris-based institution’s audience. For the project, Akatre knew they wanted to humanize the museum’s visitor communication materials, while also speaking to the act of creation. The studio shot a series of seven portraits that covered their subjects’ heads with arts and craft materials such as spools of colorful tape, dozens of paintbrushes, and drips of neon paint. The works will be incorporated into Centre Pompidou’s visitor publications, with three of the images printed on upcoming membership cards. You can see more projects by Akatre, including these slime-covered portraits, on their Instagram and Behance.

Photography

Black and White Analog Photographs Explore the Serenity of Long Meandering Roads

Swedish photographer Håkan Strand works with old analog cameras and black and white film to capture landscapes that exude the serenity of a time past. The photographs often center around rural roads and explore the stillness that exists when one reaches the fringes of civilization. His recently published book Silent Moments will soon be available to purchase on his website, where you can find further studies of back roads and long desert highways in landscapes in the US, UK, and throughout Scandinavia. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

Art Photography

A New Three-Dimensional Installation by Chris Engman Invites the Viewer to Step Inside a Photograph

Artist Chris Engman transports natural landscapes such as waterfalls, caves, and vast deserts to domestic interiors by securing large-scale photographs to the room’s walls, ceilings, and floors. “I believe photography derives its power precisely from the fact it can’t be entered, however much we may want to,” Engman tells Colossal. “When I make photographs I try to be mindful of this, even to exploit it.”

His most recent work, Containment, is his first installation which allows visitors to step inside. The work features a rushing stream surrounded on two sides by dense forest, and on the top by a branch-covered sky. Engman thinks of the work as a singular photograph, even though it consists of more than three hundred individual prints applied to the surface of the installation’s temporary walls. Although the piece can be entered, unlike his other works, there is still a hesitation on the part of the viewer. Engman explains that once one enters the work its believability as a singular landscape becomes penetrated. Each step deeper inside the work makes the photographed landscape appear  increasingly warped and unreal.

“Even so,” says Engman, “compared to a singular framed photograph the experience of this installation for the viewer is much more physical and immersive. The structure is a room, not an image of a room. The photograph is an object, in addition to being an illusion. It has weight, and volume, and changes as you walk around it. Making this installation has been a  thrilling process, and this new way of working seems to afford many new possibilities.”

The work is curated by Carissa Barnard of FotoFocus and is exhibited alongside several of his photographs at the Cincinnati Arts Association’s Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio through November 18. The exhibition is a part of the 2018 FotoFocus Biennial, a photography and lens-based presentation of over 400 artists at art spaces across Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Northern Kentucky. You can visit exhibitions and attend programming for the biennial through January 2019. Engman will have his third solo exhibition with Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in February 2019.