Karl Blossfeldt

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Karl Blossfeldt – A Mindblowing Botanist

Karl Bloss Feldt was born on June 13, 1865, in Shielo, Germany. He was best recognized for his close-up portraits of seeds, leaves, plants, flowers, and others and was a german photographer, teacher, sculptor, and artist. he always believed that "the plant must be valued as an artistic and architectural structure."

Early life as a botanist and photographer

In 1890, Karl got a scholarship to study in Rome under Moritz Meurer, a unique artist, and professor of ornament and design. With several other assistants, Blossfeldt made and photographed casts of botanical specimens in Rome. He continued to work with him and traveled to many places to collect the specimen. He did not have any cameras for a photograph. He made homemade cameras and lenses which can click up to 30 times more than the natural photo. In his 60s, his work was exhibited at Berlin's avant-garde Galerie Nierendorf for the first time. The works exhibited there were published in Urformen der Kunst (1928; Art Forms in Nature [2003]). The first of his three photo books. The other two were Wundergarten der Natur (1932) and Wunder in der Natur (1942), the last published posthumously. It got successful and became the most significant photobook of that time. He taught himself techniques for amazing photographs, such as lighting the specimens to reveal their three-dimensional form and painting on his glass plate negatives to cut off distracting shadows. He has got formal training in photography but worked under Moritz murderer from 1890-1896. Then he got appointed as a teacher in the royal institute of a royal arts museum in 1898-1931.

Though he got a late appreciation for his work, the photo books got famous, and people have loved the book until now. His work as a photographer was applauding worthy. The abstract shapes and structures in nature that he photographed impressed so many photographers. Blossfeldt's objective and detailed photography was praised by Walter Benjamin, who declared that Karl "has played his part in that great examination of the inventory of perception, which will have an unforeseeable effect on our conception of the world." He died on December 9th, 1932.