landscapes

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Photography

Mirrors on Easels Create the Illusion of Desert Landscape Paintings in California’s Joshua Tree National Park

Photographer Daniel Kukla who has a background in both biology and anthropology has a new series of work called The Edge Effect where he photographed square mirrors propped on easels in locations around Joshua Tree National Park to catch the reflection of the horizon behind him. The resulting images create the bizarre effect of looking at a paintings sitting in the middle of the desert. Of the work Kukla says:

In March of 2012, I was awarded an artist’s residency by the United States National Park Service in southern California’s Joshua Tree National Park. While staying in the Park, I spent much of my time visiting the borderlands of the park and the areas where the low Sonoran desert meets the high Mojave desert. While hiking and driving, I caught glimpses of the border space created by the meeting of distinct ecosystems in juxtaposition, referred to as the Edge Effect in the ecological sciences. To document this unique confluence of terrains, I hiked out a large mirror and painter’s easel into the wilderness and captured opposing elements within the environment. Using a single visual plane, this series of images unifies the play of temporal phenomena, contrasts of color and texture, and natural interactions of the environment itself.

You can see his website for several more photos and Kukla tells me limited edition prints are available by getting in touch with him. (via junk culture and triangulation)

Photography

Aerial Photographs of Volcanic Iceland by Andre Ermolaev

At first glance these photos by Andre Ermolaev look like twisting abstract paintings, but in reality are aerial photos of rivers flowing through Iceland’s endless beds of volcanic ash. Given its name and stereotypical depiction it’s somewhat surprising to learn that the small country named after ice is home to no less than 30 active volcanic systems. You’ll remember the eruption of the massive Grímsvötn volcano just last year that spewed some 120 million tons of ash in the first 48 hours and snarled air traffic for days. Of his photographs Ermolaev says:

Iceland is a wonderful country; I would even say that it is a true paradise for all the photo shooting-lovers. But what has become a real discovery for me is the bird’s eye view of the rivers flowing along the black volcanic sand. It is an inexpressible combination of colors, lines, and patterns. The photo represents the mouth of the river falling into the ocean. […] A little bit upstream there is a yellow-colored brook flowing into the river, but yellow currents fail to mix with the main water flow. One can estimate the scale judging by the car tracks that are clearly seen on the black sand. This is just a river, just a volcano, just our planet.

You can see much more of his work over on 500px. (via my modern met)

Photography

Idyllic Photographs of the Tuscan and Moravian Landscapes by Marcin Sobas

Poland-based photographer Marcin Sobas captures mesmerizing images of agricultural fields and hills of Tuscany, Italy and the Czech Republic (first photo). Sobas approach is unique in that instead of capturing the entirety of the landscape he instead uses a telephoto zoom lens allowing him to take tightly cropped shots that appear both immense in scale but extremely specific in scope. You can read more about his process in an interview over on 500x, and click through any of the images above to see them full size.

Photography

Dreamlike Photographs of Indonesia by Hengki Koentjoro

Photographer Hengki Koentjoro (previously) was born in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia in 1963 and later graduated the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California where he studied video production and minored in fine art photography. He now lives and works in Jakarta where he takes these breathless, surreal photographs of the Southeast Asian landscape in locations like Java and Banten. Via his artist statement:

Photography is not just a way of expressing his most inner soul but also creating a window to the world where through his pictures the unseen and the unspoken can be grasped. Driven by the desire to explore the mystical beauty of nature, he develops his sense and sensibility through the elements of fine art photography. His freedom of expression is more reflected in the elaboration and exploration of black and white.

When looking at Koentjoro’s images and processing technique I find myself unable to believe such profoundly beautiful places exist in reality. You can see much more of his work on Flickr and Behance. Prints are available by request.

Photography

Illuminated Landscapes by Benoit Paillé

Montreal-based photographer Benoit Paillé has been working on a fascinating series of landscapes using a bizarre lighting method involving a suspended glowing square. The images above are not photoshopped, the 1×1 meter light is instead hung in the center of each photograph and the resulting image shows the unique form of illumination that creeps into the surrounding area. Paillé says his goal is to redefine what a landscape photograph is by questioning its reality, creating a kind of poetic moment in space and time. You can see many more of his Alternative Landscapes on Flickr.

Photography

Stunning Photographs of the New Zealand and Australian Coast

In the course of normal blogging I probably encounter hundreds of landscape photographs in a week, maybe even in a day. Many of them are truly wonderful technical achievements or perhaps they capture a unique moment in time, but it’s rare that I am suddenly gripped with the urge to sell my house, quit my job, and buy a plane ticket to live in the photograph I’m staring at. That would precisely explain my feelings when I encountered these idyllic landscapes shot on the shores around Auckland, New Zealand and Australia by photographer Andrew Smith of Cuba Gallery. To be fair the images have been color corrected a bit and Smith runs a blog called Before & After where he details his process for using Adobe Lightroom to achieve the results. See much more over on Flickr.

Update: This post originally suggested that all images above by Smith were taken in New Zealand. In fact, the 5th image of the rocky boulders is a natural formation known as the Twelve Apostles in Victoria, Australia. Thanks everyone.