Sunday 18 May 2008

Featurette: DANIEL GUSTAV CRAMER

German born photographer, Daniel Gustav Cramer has some stunning work in his portfolio particularly the trilogy of woodland, underwater, and mountain photographs.



Links:
Daniel Gustav Cramer
Daniel Gustav Cramer (DOMOBAAL)
Daniel Gustav Cramer (re-title.com)
Daniel Gustav Cramer (Vera Cortes)
Daniel Gustav Cramer (kunstaspekte)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

From what I could tell, the three parts of his Trilogy were (are?) exhibited separately over the course of multiple years. Unfortunately, the three collections that comprise the Trilogy are, in my opinion, pretty unremarkable when viewed in isolation. Well, ok, a few of the shots in "Mountain" caught my attention; however, I found "Underwater" completely uninteresting; "Woodland" was somewhere in between.

It is when the pieces of the Trilogy are viewed as a collection that the artistry and point of view emerge. The structural and textural similarities between the three different contexts materialize before your eyes. As the physical scale of each context fades away, suddenly a mountain looks like an underwater scene. Trees solidify into cliff faces or piles of rocks. Underwater looks like a dark forest. Fascinating.

I enjoyed how the individual photos are easily seen for what they are, but when the collection is viewed as a whole, it is almost easier to see them as what they are not.

Your post, which combined one shot from each collection, was very effective in demonstrating this relationship between the three collections. Unfortunately, the artist's own website failed in this regard, and it left me wondering how the individual collections could stand on their own.

Siouxfire said...

I think one of the difficulties you're noticing isn't so much in the artist as much as the internet though I do agree that the drama is increased significantly when the images from the trio of sets are juxtaposed. That said, I think the images hold a lot of drama individually, but like other photographers or painters that tackle landscapes (or nudes) there's such an immense catalogue of existing work that it's difficult to standout.

For me, Cramer is focusing on texture with a broad composition that doesn't translate well in the resolution we see online. His gallery images aren't enormous (around 40cm square) but that will be significantly different to what we see plus there's the variance of monitor settings for contrast, colour, resolution, etc.

It is interesting how the textures between the three dissolve and overlap. When I first viewed his work, I found myself jumping between the sets and having similar reactions to your own. It's interesting.

Thanks for the considered comment, Steve.

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