photographer Archives

Christine Ellger Flower Photography

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

David Hurn: A Life in Pictures

by John Gough

David Hurn Exhibition

There was an under trailed programme on BBC television about David Hurn, a photographer who started in the 60’s with fashion then moved on to celebrity photographs notably Jane Fonda in Barbarella and Sean Connery in the Bond movies. The programme is a delight and you may still be able to find on BBC iPlayer.

It is charming because at the age of 83 Hurn is still as enthusiastic about photography as he has been all his life.

Before photography became art and pictures sold for thousands, Hurn would swap his pictures with other photographers. As a result, he has a vast and valuable photograph collection with images from all the great photographers of the 20th Century. Last year he exhibited at Photo London. The exhibition which was co-curated with Martin Parr marked the 70th anniversary of Magnum Photos and included work that Hurn had swapped with Bill Brandt, Bruce Davidson, Sergio Larrain and Diana Markosian.

In the programme, he explains his rationale for donating his collection to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. There was an exhibition of the collection which has now finished, and there are no plans I understand for a further exhibition at present.

David Hurn, however, is primarily a documentary photographer:

and I have collected some of his work here.

Elliot Erwitt

by John Gough

Elliot Erwitt

At Huxley-Parlour, there is an exhibition of the work of Elliot Erwitt until Feb 17th. If like me you are a bit fuzzy about his photography, enter the gallery and walk straight ahead until confronted by a sublime portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Priced at between £4000 and £11,500 depending on the size, signed and a direct silver gelatin print from the original negative. You will be convinced you should buy it whether you can afford it or not.

I have collected some of the images in the exhibition here.

Erwitt was one of the first to join Magnum Photos in 1953 and was in the distinguished company of Capa, and Cartier-Bresson. Erwitt throughout his career carried a ‘hobby’ camera, a Leica M3 with a 50mm standard lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X or Ilford HP4 film. He called these pictures his ‘snaps’, captured with humour, sarcasm and incongruity. He was a street photographer before the term was invented, just using the power of his own observation.

photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.

Elliot Erwitt