Unfolding

As the pandemic unfolded in Spring of this year, and I was not being able to travel oversees to visit my family in Germany, I found inspiration in Karl Blossfeld’s (1865-1932) photographic studies of Art Forms in Nature (Urformen der Kunst). After another long, cold winter in northern Minnesota I was down on the ground with my camera, fascinated by the primeval forms and shapes as emerging plants unfolded their leaves and buds. I did not work strictly formal as Blossfeld did, I photographed the plants where I found them in the garden with the given ambient light. While I enjoyed the color burst, I decided to convert my images to black and white and added some toning. For me the monochrome photos not only bring the focus more to the structure and shapes of the plants, the toning also expresses my feelings about the Coronavirus crisis I found myself trapped in, and it connects my photos with the past century that experienced a similar situation.