iJourneys

John Gough Photography

Christine Ellger Flower Photography

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I am constantly looking for inspirational flower photography, and recently I have been loving the work of Christine Ellger.

BIOGRAPHY
Christine Ellger was born in Germany in 1948. Her interest in photography was heightened with the advent of digital photography and the infinite possibilities it offers in terms of processing. Since she retired in 2010, Christine Ellger has been continually photographing the world she has been discovering on her travels. She collects photographs and subsequently retouches them, conferring a magical aspect to them stemming directly from her imagination. The originality of her work is thus based on its fantastical and hyperrealist rendering. At first glance, the spectator cannot make out the photographic technique used. Hyperrealist style is the identical reproduction of a photograph as a painting. This painting is often so realistic that the spectator comes to question the very nature of the work. This well and truly applies to Christine Ellger’s bewitching world. 

Christine Ellger is known mainly for her fantastical composites but she has a considerable catalogue of flower photography. I have collated her beautiful flower photography here. Like her composites, they have a dreamy ethereal quality.

The learning for my own flower photography is:

  • Usually single flowers and pairs
  • The flowers are close up and fill the frame. On some only part of the flower is shown
  • The square format usually works well
  • Dark backgrounds and use of texture and light. The backgrounds include several dark colours.
  • Plain background and textured flowers rather than textured backgrounds and plain flowers.

Brilliant

Hyper Collage Photography

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Ysabel Le May Hyper Collage Photography

Hyper collage photography has developed out of collage, which has long been a technique used in both art and photography. Man Ray was an early exponent of photography collage in the 1930s. Jump forward, and we are all aware of the images created using Photoshop layers to build composites. Often to create fantasy effects. Andrea Hargreaves is one of my favourite artists using this technique.

….but what is collage? The Museum of Modern Art defines a collage as: a “technique and resulting work of art in which fragments of paper and other materials are arranged and glued to a supporting surface”.

Hyper collage photography is a technique that combines multiple images that are manipulated using Photoshop. For example, Jim Kazanjian uses the technique to combine photographs of different architectural features to create fantastical buildings and landscapes.

However, what has grabbed my attention. Are photographers that are using natural phenomena to create fine art hyper collage images.

Fine Art Hyper Collage Photography

Ysabel Le May

I first came across Ysabel le May at the Saatchi Art. Where her work sells for upwards of $4000.

She is based in Texas and her art has been exhibited all over the world.

Ysabel Le May can be summed up simply: W.O.W. It stands for ‘Wonderful Other Worlds’, which she creates through the process of hypercollage. 

Saatchi Art

She photographs the natural world and uses collage to piece the images together to create a fantastical depiction of nature. She calls her images baroque tableaux.

The video above demonstrates the process she uses.

Lisa Frank

Lisa Frank is an American artist who describes her work as looking to communicate those momentary flashes of connectedness with nature.

She creates tapestries and still life composites using natural materials.

It is my purpose to draw the viewer into a local world as it hasn’t been seen before.

Lisa Frank

You can follow her process here.

Cas Slagboon

Cas Slagboom is a Dutch artist. Again he uses natural objects but often combined with human figures to create a fantasy feel.

For me, photography is more than capturing the perfect moment. Every time I try to capture my astonishment with a single photo, I am disappointed. This was not what I want to see and feel. It is larger, more complex, more diffuse. I have to bring all those fragments together. In compositions in which they together tell a story that transcends my understanding. So, that every time I look at it, I can be surprised again.

Cas Slagboon

All the photographic technology we have to capture our world in images may give us idea that we really see it. ………I use modern technology to find a language that exceeds the photographic moment, so there is sufficient room for the complexity of what we call reality.

Cas Slagboon

Summary

I included the two quotes from Cas Slagboon because they sum up my own feelings. That it is difficult to capture the reality of the moment with just one photograph. I have been experimenting with the Pep Ventosa style of photography and mixing abstract and reality to capture what we really see and feel.

Hyper collage photography is just one more technique on that journey.

Building a Lockdown Lightbox

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I like to shoot flowers backlit. Like the buttercups in the image above. This was achieved using natural light through a window lightbox.

Now that we are all restricted from roaming around with our camera, the spring flowers in our gardens make fascinating subjects. With a little post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, simple blooms can blossom into fine art.

Over the next few blogs, I will be explaining just how I approach flower photography, starting with how to build a simple window lightbox.

Simplest Simple Window Lightbox

The simplest way to create a uniform lighting effect is to simply stick a piece of tracing paper or baking parchment on a window. Mount, the flower in front of it and take a photograph. Job done.

Simplest Lightbox

I use oasis to mount the flower, which can be purchased from Amazon.

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Simple Lightbox

As my flower photography has evolved I have created a more elaborate window lighting setup, but it still uses natural light.

As I will explain in a later episode. Cutting the flower from its background in Photoshop is best achieved with as white a background as possible. So I now use a white diffusion fabric which I clip to a window using studio clips.

Both items can be bought quite cheaply from a photography store or Amazon.

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I usually pick flowers from my garden, or purchase them from a florist. I certainly avoid picking flowers from the wild. Bringing flowers indoors and photographing in a ‘studio’ environment gives ultimate control over the image.

Over the next few weeks I will be working through the process I use to create fine art flower images. This is episode 1.

Camera Wrist Strap

I have avoided dropping my camera so many times using a simple inexpensive wrist strap like this one. Cameras and expensive lenses do not bounce!

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