Azuma Makoto’s known for his ambitious flower art, manipulating nature into something new, yet still maintaining its beauty. With the “In Bloom” project, he’s taken his sensibilities to space. Makoto’s been sending bouquets to space with specialized balloon vehicles and cameras. The result is something that combines the inherent exquisiteness of the Earth and its surrounding bodies.
Makoto offers some insight into how this incarnation of the series had to be planned: “For this installment, the subject – the flowers – will be significantly larger and heavier than in our first installment,” the artist wrote. “Weighing approximately 6kg with a diameter of approximately 1.5m, we will launch this huge ‘bouquet’ from the Love Lock Desert of Nevada, US. The bouquet will then be arranged around the structure of the Earth. Although we were previously not able to due to the weight limit, for this project we will be using a medium-format mirrorless camera to best capture the process of change and movement in the flowers in full clarity. The ever-changing landscape of the flowers, the changes in lighting and contrast from the direct rays from the sun, the ways in the which the flowers will react in an environment of -60°C, and the way in which they will scatter and fall back to the ground… we will record this epic documentary of the flowers’ progress from ground to heavens, and back.”
Makoto was last featured on HiFructose.com here. See past experiments with “In Bloom” below.
Michael Reid Gallery in Sydney is currently showing "Maelstrom", an exhibition of photographs by professional photographer and creative director, 
Angelo Musco's textured work uses the photographed human body as its building blocks. The results are landscapes and structures literally teeming with life. Below, his studio offers a preview of his new project arriving this fall: “The Land of Scars,” a work that takes an even more personal and churning turn than previous series.
Swedish-born, San Francisco-based photographer