Karl Blossfeldt — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:12hey everybody my name is Ted Forbes and
3. 0:13welcome back once again to another
4. 0:15episode of The Art of Photography and
5. 0:17today we're going to talk about another
6. 0:18photographer today we're going to
7. 0:20discuss the work of Carl baselt and if
8. 0:22you're not familiar with Carl I think
9. 0:23you're really going to like this uh Carl
10. 0:25was a German photographer he was born in
11. 0:271865 and died in about 1932 and is
12. 0:30extremely significant he did you know a
13. 0:32large collection which we're about to
14. 0:33look at of these Botanical studies so he
15. 0:35shot a lot of flowers um you know pretty
16. 0:37extensively it's his entire repertoire
17. 0:39is made up of those photos um you know
18. 0:42kind of a master of the still life
19. 0:43master of the flower Master of the
20. 0:45Botanical kind of study uh huge
21. 0:46influence on me and a lot of other
22. 0:48photographers um you know he died kind
23. 0:50of before the end of World War II and I
24. 0:53think after the end of World War II
25. 0:54being a German photographer his
26. 0:55popularity kind of you know dwindled and
27. 0:57you know Europe moved on to other things
28. 0:59and he was was kind of rediscovered in
29. 1:00the 1970s um through a series of key
30. 1:03exhibitions and you know is kind of
31. 1:05known today as is you know one of the
32. 1:06greats again um but there was kind of a
33. 1:08large period where he kind of went
34. 1:09missing uh from a popularity standpoint
35. 1:12but that has no bearing on his work um
36. 1:14you know I think another interesting
37. 1:15thing about Carl because he was born in
38. 1:17the late 19th century and had most of
39. 1:19his career both in the 19th and the 20th
40. 1:21he really brought together those two
41. 1:23kind of schools of aesthetic he brought
42. 1:25together this this you know 19th century
43. 1:27Enlightenment uh you know the flowers
44. 1:29and the beauty of it with this 20th
45. 1:30century modernism that I think is really
46. 1:32unique uh in terms of um you know
47. 1:35influence as a photographer so anyway
48. 1:36come on over and let's take a look at
49. 1:37the uh at the blossfeld book here all
50. 1:40right so uh we're looking at Carl
51. 1:41blossfeld the complete published work um
52. 1:43the Tashan book uh one of the things
53. 1:45that's really interesting about Carl uh
54. 1:47may have mentioned this a second ago he
55. 1:48uh he was really not known as a
56. 1:50photographer he was known as a sculptor
57. 1:53and more importantly is a teacher and
58. 1:55his legacy now is his work here with a
59. 1:58series of what I consider to be at the
60. 1:59time extremely uh unique and uh
61. 2:02Innovative uh ways of photographing
62. 2:05plants or Botanical Works um you know
63. 2:07kind of flowers if you will and a couple
64. 2:09things that are interesting about this
65. 2:10first of all he was not a professional
66. 2:12photographer and a lot of times he did
67. 2:13not print his work and I think this is
68. 2:15the first really Innovative thing about
69. 2:17this a lot of the uh photos that you see
70. 2:19in here were done for drawing classes
71. 2:21and so a lot of times you see these
72. 2:22really interesting compositions you know
73. 2:24reductions into line you know things
74. 2:26like this swirl down here you're going
75. 2:27to see a lot of that in his work uh he
76. 2:29didn't print the out on a paper but
77. 2:30these were actually made into projection
78. 2:32slides uh that were used to be projected
79. 2:34up onto a wall for students to draw from
80. 2:37uh which is interesting because I think
81. 2:38it affected the kind of composition that
82. 2:40he was going for that had not been seen
83. 2:42in photography up to that point um I
84. 2:43also think it's part of his you know and
85. 2:45I did say this before his his unique
86. 2:47ability to combine uh kind of this 19th
87. 2:50century aesthetic into this modernist
88. 2:5220th century School of uh of design and
89. 2:55um and and and art and uh anyway um
90. 2:58there's some essays in here that are
91. 2:59really in foran Dunst his uh art forms
92. 3:02and nature is the translation into
93. 3:04English in that and this was his first
94. 3:05book that was published and you know
95. 3:07later of collected works and he you know
96. 3:10it's hard to say CU you want to think
97. 3:12that he was kind of this botanist which
98. 3:14you know in some ways he may have been
99. 3:16because he was cataloging images of
100. 3:17these things uh the other thing that's
101. 3:19really interesting I think that a lot of
102. 3:21these and you could say because of the
103. 3:22streem extreme horizontal nature these
104. 3:24you know it has a very clinical um well
105. 3:27it doesn't have a clinical look to it
106. 3:28but it almost has a approach to it you
107. 3:30know uh which kind of gives it a little
108. 3:32bit of the vibe that it does another
109. 3:34thing you're going to notice in here
110. 3:35that a lot of the um the captions in
111. 3:37here will say things like you know um
112. 3:39Dutch Rush soaring R scaring Rush
113. 3:41cross-section through a stem 30X and so
114. 3:45they were actually enlarged so this is
115. 3:46actually enlarged 30 times so you can
116. 3:48tell that that was a very small you know
117. 3:51whatever piece of nature that was
118. 3:53enlarged and a lot of these were not
119. 3:54done with enlargers that technology
120. 3:56really had not been perfected at that
121. 3:59point um I assume he was doing these in
122. 4:01camera and cropping and uh little has
123. 4:03known about what he worked with um other
124. 4:06than that he made his own cameras and at
125. 4:08least had some kind of magnifying uh
126. 4:10system put together to capture these on
127. 4:12uh but anyway really really beautiful
128. 4:14stuff a lot of macro stuff a lot of high
129. 4:16depth of field um and Carl even said
130. 4:18that that he didn't really ever go
131. 4:20purchase expensive plants or flowers to
132. 4:22do these things with most of these were
133. 4:24found near his home um and you know I
134. 4:26think because of the macro nature you're
135. 4:28starting to view a world that almost
136. 4:29doesn't exist um these are not things
137. 4:31that you're used to seeing every day in
138. 4:33terms of going to a florist or seeing
139. 4:35them at the grocery store or something
140. 4:36like that or in your mother's garden and
141. 4:39I think that's one of the things that
142. 4:40kind of makes them really unique they
143. 4:41have this old um you know like I said
144. 4:4419th century you know this this kind of
145. 4:46O you know OED to the past but almost
146. 4:48this futuristic quality because they're
147. 4:50flowers but not like anything you've
148. 4:52seen necessarily um when he passed away
149. 4:55uh you know you have to consider the
150. 4:57times this being right around the time
151. 4:58of World War II to and a lot of change
152. 5:01obviously that took place after the end
153. 5:02of World War II and he just you know for
154. 5:05whatever reason his work kind of got
155. 5:06lost um in the shuffle compared to other
156. 5:08things and it wasn't until you know a
157. 5:10series of exhibitions that came out in
158. 5:12the 7s where he kind of you know
159. 5:13suffered a um resurgents I think that if
160. 5:17these looked like things you would see
161. 5:19every day they would have a different
162. 5:20impact uh I think first of all at the
163. 5:21time they probably would have been
164. 5:22interesting but now they wouldn't have
165. 5:24been as relevant uh but because they
166. 5:25almost have this this otherworldly
167. 5:27quality to them I think that makes a
168. 5:30huge difference um you know you never
169. 5:32see pretty much a straight ahead flower
170. 5:34in here for the most part except as I
171. 5:36turn to one so anyway uh another thing
172. 5:38that's interesting about bossel and I
173. 5:39think why he's very important today is
174. 5:41that he's had a tremendous influence on
175. 5:42a lot of modern photographers especially
176. 5:44who deal in um still life plants things
177. 5:47like that uh you know specifically I
178. 5:49think Robert Maple Thorp is a big one
179. 5:51although Maple thorp's work doesn't look
180. 5:52like this I'm sure this influenced him
181. 5:54on some level and then uh you know
182. 5:56especially modern photographers like Tom
183. 5:57Burell people like that and so you know
184. 6:00anyway some really really absolutely
185. 6:01beautiful stuff in here and you know
186. 6:03it's you can see as time went on they
187. 6:05got into almost a pattern quality to
188. 6:07them um less of a still life of a single
189. 6:10image but more how repetition uh comes
190. 6:12into play um you know patterns things
191. 6:15like that um anyway the other
192. 6:17interesting thing too is that a lot of
193. 6:18these are you know the prints that you
194. 6:20see these are not from the glass slides
195. 6:22but uh there were a bunch of printers
196. 6:24that were making photogra prints of
197. 6:26these um you most of them in the70s
198. 6:28they're easy to find love this of the
199. 6:30wheat um so I I actually have a Bloss
200. 6:33felt and they don't cost a fortune um
201. 6:35and they're really interesting
202. 6:36photographier is a process we'll have to
203. 6:37go over sometime but it it uh it's more
204. 6:39than silver gelatin it really involved
205. 6:41more of an etching acid-based um style
206. 6:43of of being able to print images and
207. 6:45reproduce them with ink uh using an
208. 6:47etching plate um so anyway some really
209. 6:49awesome stuff and uh anyway I will put
210. 6:51the uh the book here in the show notes
211. 6:53so you guys can uh track this down if
212. 6:55you want um I just think this is just
213. 6:57Sublime stuff and it's really endless
214. 6:59and what a fabulous career and a very
215. 7:01significant uh piece of photo history so
216. 7:04that is the complete published work of
217. 7:05Carl blossfeld um I guess we didn't look
218. 7:08at everything in depth but uh go by this
219. 7:10book if you're halfway interested it's
220. 7:11extremely good I think he's such an
221. 7:13important historical figure uh
222. 7:15especially having an impact on Modern
223. 7:17photography and a lot of photographers
224. 7:18that are successful today I think he's a
225. 7:20really important guy to study um and you
226. 7:22know once again um you know this is
227. 7:24great stuff I will put a link to this uh
228. 7:26book in the show notes and so please
229. 7:28check it out uh once again if you
230. 7:29haven't done so join us in Flickr uh we
231. 7:31have a Flickr group put together we have
232. 7:33some great discussions in the forums and
233. 7:35I'm really proud to say we have a really
234. 7:36cool group of people that participate in
235. 7:38there um don't be shy everybody's open
236. 7:40everybody's learning we're all trying to
237. 7:41help each other get better and I think
238. 7:43that's the important thing and flickr's
239. 7:44been really good as a conduit for making
240. 7:46that happen because we have discussion
241. 7:48groups in there we're able to display
242. 7:49photos and things like that so anyway
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254. 8:15this has been the Art of Photography and
255. 8:17thank you for
256. 8:22watching