My new passion: Trays

One day in college I came across my new photographic passion rather accidentially and spontaneously. When talking about typology in photography we were asked by our tutor to work on a little exercise on that topic.

It came immediately to my mind that the returned trays with their empty plates, packaging and dirty cutlery would be perfect for that. The tray as a formal uniform frame placed on a very bland background and the actual image is very informal and chaotic. 

These trays reflected so much on how we look at food in modern society but also is highly estetic. Never thought, trays could tell so much. In the long run I plan to visit canteens and start a series with pictures/collages similar to this:

Treys, Andrea Anneser, 2012

Shutter speed - Photographers - Jim Rakete

Mr. Music

Jim Rakete (born 1951) is as influential in the German music scene as he is with his photograpy. Starting with Photography as young as 4 years old, and working professionally at the early age of 17 for magazines such as Rolling Stones, he was running a photography agency in Berlin 1977 - 1987 he was in the epicentre of the upcoming Neue Deutsche Welle (at that time a revolutionary way to perform German music in German) portraying many of its musicians and later managing them (who doesn't remember Nena's 99 Red Balloons?) He concentrated on photography again and refuses to date to work digitally because for him enhancing and photoshopping pictures corrupts the integrity of the medium plus he doesn't want to loose his darkroom skills. He mainly works with medium format cameras and also occasionally large format cameras.  In 2009 he worked on a portraits of German celebrities and strictly used a shutter speed on 1/8 sec. Here are some samples of that project:

Jim Rakete, Selfportrait

Markus Luepertz, Painter

Nicolai Valuev, Boxer

Juergen Vogel, Actor

Christiane Paul, Actress

 

Jana Pallaske, Actress

Shutter speed - Photographers - Ellen von Unwerth

Or as I call her 'Queen of Shutter Speed'. The model-turned-photographer started after a successful career in runway and photomodelling photography - as she claims - just for the fun and being bored while working as a model for a photoshoot in Africa 1986. She quickly worked for Elle, Vogue and Vanity Fair. When looking for a model for the legendary Guess Jeans campaign she discovered 17-year-old Claudia Schiffer. Ellen von Unwerth is strongly inspired by Helmut Newton so naturally her work reflects cool erotic and celebrates beauty of women. By using long shutter speeds in her portraits she adds an air of mystery which I like a lot.