The Photographer and her Images

Rut Blees Luxemburg is included in this part of my research due to her project Liebeslied (which translates to “love song”).  The exploration in this series is the usage of artificial light.

Whilst reviewing her project, I came to see that she has used two distinct styles of framing.

Urban Landscape

First there is the isolation of a selected piece of urban landscpace, an example is shown in Fig 1.

Image made of Light

And secondly there are even closer isolations where light reflecting off water is the main attention grabber in the scene.  An example is shown in Fig 2.

I especially like the way in which she has used the lit up water to create the image.  Whether the image is about the light, or the water, or the whole scene is not entirely clear but the dark background leaves the viewer focussed almost exclusively on the lit water.

Regardless of the differences in framing, the common theme, and the theme across the whole series is the beautiful golden light.

Urban Aesthetics

Researching Luxemburg’s technique, in an interview (Union Gallery, n.d.) she says:

“Well the 5 x 4 camera is the opposite of what the street photographer would use. It requires slowness and concentration and the exposures are long. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.”

It is clear from this that her pictures are taken very deliberately and over an extended period of time.  When I carried out Exercise 4.3 for this part of the course, I took around 30 images in the space of an hour, Luxemburg would have managed just two or three.

Looking at Luxemburg’s urban landscape-style images it is clear that she has a strong interest in the urban scenes themselves, she manages to isolate scenes in a very intimate way.  Researching her further, I discovered that she studies Urban Aesthetics at the Royal College of Art (Royal College of Art, n.d.).

Although this research was triggered because of the artificial lighting aspect, for me, the way in which she has captured urban scenes with a deep intimacy is far more interesting.  In her interview mentioned earlier, it is this intimacy that has also drawn her attention the most, she has gone on to create a new project called “London Dust” which is shown here in Figure 3 at Somerset House.

Learning Points

I have learnt two main points in this research

• Luxemburg’s interests in both photography and urban landscapes are combined in her images. This is interesting from the perspective of expression.  Over this course, I have started my journey to shift from a focus of pure aesthetics and onto expression.  But it has left me thinking, express what?  I find it interesting to see he way two passions are brought together in this series.
• The image “Viewing the Ocean” is a great image to show how something can be made of nothing if one takes the time to really look at what is around you. Slowing down is a useful technique.

Bibliography

Union Gallery, L. (n.d.). A CONVERSATION BETWEEN RUT BLEES LUXEMBURG AND DAVID CAMPANY 1999. [online] Union-gallery.com. Available at: http://www.union-gallery.com/content.php?page_id=653 [Accessed 26 Jul. 2017].

Royal College of Art. (n.d.). Rut Blees Luxemburg. [online] Available at: https://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staff/rut-blees-luxemburg/ [Accessed 26 Jul. 2017].

Contemporary Art Society. (n.d.). Rut Blees Luxemburg – Contemporary Art Society. [online] Available at: http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/artist-members/rut-blees-luxemburg/ [Accessed 26 Jul. 2017].

Figures

Figure 1. Blees Luxemburg, R. (1999). In Deeper. [image] Available at: http://www.union-gallery.com/content.php?page_id=653 [Accessed 26 Jul. 2017].

Figure 2. Blees Luxemburg, R. (1999). Viewing The Open. [image] Available at: http://www.union-gallery.com/content.php?page_id=653 [Accessed 26 Jul. 2017].

Figure 3. The Teaser. (2015). [image] Available at: http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/artist-members/rut-blees-luxemburg/ [Accessed 26 Jul. 2017].