The World is Beautiful
Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer born in Wurzburg. He began making photographs by age twelve worked as a press photographer for the Chicago tribune in the early 1920s before becoming a freelancer and publishing his book, The choir stalls of Cappenberg in 1925. He had his first museum exhibition in 1927.
A second book followed in 1928, The World is Beautiful. This, his best-known book, is a collection of one hundred of his photographs in which natural forms, industrial subjects and mass-produced objects are presented with the clarity of scientific illustrations. The book's title was chosen by his publisher; Renger-Patzsch's preferred title for the collection was "Things".
A second book followed in 1928, The World is Beautiful. This, his best-known book, is a collection of one hundred of his photographs in which natural forms, industrial subjects and mass-produced objects are presented with the clarity of scientific illustrations. The book's title was chosen by his publisher; Renger-Patzsch's preferred title for the collection was "Things".
Here is a collection of images taken by famed photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch from his book, "the world is beautiful". Renger-Patzsch takes his photographs in a very particular way, often taking them in monochrome or using just one shade of brown. The title of the exhibition shows how beauty is his theme here but instead of showing conventional forms of beauty in his photographs he opts for displaying beauty in a more abstract way. Many of these photos are mechanical or show factories and products produced on a mass scale. This shows how he is able to use a unique way of looking at the world to show seemingly uninteresting and run-of-the-mill objects in another light. His subjects are things that you see in regular life, nothing out of the ordinary which is where the link to the title lies. The world is beautiful, so rather than just photographing what you expect and often see relating to beauty, he shows the world, with all its grit and ruggedness. Renger-Patzsch also often uses repetition and symmetry in his work, particularly here. This adds to his aesthetic and shows reality, seeing as within the world patterns appear, so he captures this in his pictures. Patterns and the shapes they create can also be quite beautiful so that's another link.
My Work
When I looked at the work of Albert Renger-Patzsch I took note of his focus on form, repetition and the thingness of things. In his photographs he is often able to take seemingly normal and plain everyday objects and sights and uses photography to make them beautiful. His images often look almost like extremely detailed paintings because of the black and white and their general texture, among other qualities. He also often uses repetition and symmetry, for example shooting multiple identical objects and arrange them so the two sides of the photo give the illusion of a mirror. However even as symmetrical as these pictures are, each object is hit differently by light adding to their beauty and uniqueness.
In the images I took, I considered all the different elements of the Renger-Patzsch photographs I was looking at. I observed how he uses line and transitioned that into my own work. I looked at how he works with very particular and close up shapes to piece together and structure an image. I also considered these things when editing and cropping my images. In some of my images I used the effect of having multiple of the same or similar objects or patterns shown next to one another to create an entire beautiful piece of work.
Another element of his work I enjoy and am fascinated by is when he photographs architecture because even though he is capturing a larger object and their is inherently more going on inside the frame, he is still able to carry his own unique still into these photos also.
I wanted to see if I could do the same in my collection so I made sure that the images were quite calculated and even looking. Something I noted when looking at the work of Renger-Patzsch is that his pictures are quite formulaic and almost mechanical, like they were done by a machine. This style is difficult to replicate but I attempted it when capturing my images of different buildings, and I noted to make them as mechanical looking as possible.
I also explored techniques deviating from Renger-Patzsch's traditional style, such as photographing human subjects and using blur and experimenting with focus. I wanted to use these specific ideas to expand on the concept of beauty in the world. For example, one of my images is of m brother's hair. I deliberately avoided showing his face in this image in order to draw focus to the intricacies and complexity of his plaits. Just like Renger-Patzch shows things with a very mechanical and technical aesthetic, I wanted to do the same with this picture but instead use a natural, living and breathing subject.
This same idea carries on into an image of my friend laying in the grass. I noted how the texture of his hair was similar to the texture of the grass and it blended in quite well, especially in monochrome. This picture is using the idea of repetition, common in Renger-Patzch's work, and I tried to make it as though his hair fused with the grass, giving the photo a sense of endlessness.
My use of blur and not completely in focus images was me trying to experiment outside of the box, while still running with the theme of the world is beautiful. Since a blurred image has a quality of uncertainty I wanted to see if beauty could be found in the unknown, and so in the images I captured I deliberately made them familiar looking but not completely recognisable. I didn't want them to appear completely disorienting, because that would take away the beauty factor, but I wanted the viewer to see something mysterious, while still intriguing and interesting to look at.
In the images I took, I considered all the different elements of the Renger-Patzsch photographs I was looking at. I observed how he uses line and transitioned that into my own work. I looked at how he works with very particular and close up shapes to piece together and structure an image. I also considered these things when editing and cropping my images. In some of my images I used the effect of having multiple of the same or similar objects or patterns shown next to one another to create an entire beautiful piece of work.
Another element of his work I enjoy and am fascinated by is when he photographs architecture because even though he is capturing a larger object and their is inherently more going on inside the frame, he is still able to carry his own unique still into these photos also.
I wanted to see if I could do the same in my collection so I made sure that the images were quite calculated and even looking. Something I noted when looking at the work of Renger-Patzsch is that his pictures are quite formulaic and almost mechanical, like they were done by a machine. This style is difficult to replicate but I attempted it when capturing my images of different buildings, and I noted to make them as mechanical looking as possible.
I also explored techniques deviating from Renger-Patzsch's traditional style, such as photographing human subjects and using blur and experimenting with focus. I wanted to use these specific ideas to expand on the concept of beauty in the world. For example, one of my images is of m brother's hair. I deliberately avoided showing his face in this image in order to draw focus to the intricacies and complexity of his plaits. Just like Renger-Patzch shows things with a very mechanical and technical aesthetic, I wanted to do the same with this picture but instead use a natural, living and breathing subject.
This same idea carries on into an image of my friend laying in the grass. I noted how the texture of his hair was similar to the texture of the grass and it blended in quite well, especially in monochrome. This picture is using the idea of repetition, common in Renger-Patzch's work, and I tried to make it as though his hair fused with the grass, giving the photo a sense of endlessness.
My use of blur and not completely in focus images was me trying to experiment outside of the box, while still running with the theme of the world is beautiful. Since a blurred image has a quality of uncertainty I wanted to see if beauty could be found in the unknown, and so in the images I captured I deliberately made them familiar looking but not completely recognisable. I didn't want them to appear completely disorienting, because that would take away the beauty factor, but I wanted the viewer to see something mysterious, while still intriguing and interesting to look at.