Swedish-born, San Francisco-based photographer Gabriel Isak shoots stylized photos filled with enigmatic symbolism and an enchanted ambiance. Solitary figures populate desolate nature scenes that seem to take place in the dead of winter. His color palette of black, grey, brown, and icy, cool blue underscores his work's dark mood. Take a look at some of his recent photos below.
Swedish-born, San Francisco-based photographer Gabriel Isak shoots stylized photos filled with enigmatic symbolism and an enchanted ambiance. Solitary figures populate desolate nature scenes that seem to take place in the dead of winter. His color palette of black, grey, brown, and icy, cool blue underscores his work’s dark mood. Take a look at some of his recent photos below.
Moscow based photographer Katerina Plotnikova has been making a name for herself for her daring photos of young girls embracing wild beasts. (We first posted her work on our Facebook page.) Her haunting portraits are created with real, specially trained animals such as bears, owls, deer and foxes, blending surrealism with inspiration from fairytales. Perhaps our fascination with her images comes from a place we’ve almost forgotten, as deforestation and global warming become imminent threats to our planet. With each series, her work pushes the boundaries even further. Read more after the jump.
You might get a jolt of déjà vu looking at Brazilian artist Lucio Carvalho’s photographic work. Significant images in his portfolio feature monuments of culture - a towering Tate, a sinewy Bilbao Guggenheim, a sun-reflected Louvre - contemporary institutions that have proved integral to the architecture of a city’s art scene. However, in each of these images, something is a little off – the usual foreground and background are hijacked with paraphernalia (shopping bags, STOP signs, yellow plastic chairs) that reveal no explicit tie to the museum or gallery. The images are both familiar and unfamiliar, not so much a trick of the eye as a trick of our cultural systems.
Intricate portraits created by Jason Chen, a photographer based in Philadelphia, come from multiple images of the same subject. But as the artist weaves them together, in a process he says explores “time, movement, process, and mutation,” a new representation of the individual emerges (and the backdrop that encloses them). And somehow, their humanity remains intact.
Austrian photographer Andreas Franke combines his two passions for the camera and scuba diving in his images of a ghostly sinking world. His digital montages combine the artist's own photographs of sunken ships with carefully orchestrated sets, built above the surface at his studio. In his statement, Franke writes, "With my photographs of sunken shipwrecks, I want to pull the spectators into unreal and strange worlds. Mystified scenes of the past play within a fictional space. Dreamworlds you can get lost in or you can identify with. This creates a new and unexpected atmosphere. This work shows a lot of myself, since I am always on the lookout for stunning themes to create new images never seen before."
