Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) took more than 6000 photos of buds, twigs, leaves and flowers using a wooden camera he made himself. Part microscope, it was made of wood and magnified its subjects up to thirty times against the stark backgrounds he preferred as best displaying their symmetry and forms.
Blossfeldt was an instructor of sculpture, and his photographic technique makes his soft subjects seem forged of steel. When published in 1928 as Urformen der Kunst (Art Forms in Nature), they were an overnight sensation. His work is considered to be at the historical interface of photography as science and photography as art.
The entire collection is available online, and first edition photogravures for purchase, at soulcatcherstudio.
Angela Drury's contemporary floral photography is no less sculptural, but far more sensual...
I find it fascinating how much in these, and in all floral photography, the nascent bud--with all of its rippling, unfolding possibilities--is preferred to the full flower.
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