Plantstudie 1928

This is an image of a plant study, by Karl Blossfeldt. With its pared-back palette, it's less about botanical documentation and more about form. The plant itself looks like a kind of gesture drawing. The texture in this photograph is amazing, from the smooth curve of the stem, to the dark and peeling base and the tight bud at the top. The plant seems to be reaching upwards, unfurling, but also, with the bend in the stem, somehow recoiling. It’s all there in the details; the way the light falls on the surface of the plant, how the tones shift from dark to light, the way the plant fills the frame, all pushing against the edges. Blossfeldt’s process reminds me of the work of contemporary photographers like Thomas Demand, who create images by building models and sets, and then photographing them in a similarly deadpan style. Ultimately, these images are about seeing, about how we perceive the world around us.