These Photo Books are AMAZING!!!
**A Deep Dive into Two Captivating Photobooks: A Review**
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### Introduction
In the world of photography, few things capture the essence of creativity and dedication like a well-crafted photobook. This review delves into two extraordinary photobooks that showcase the diverse approaches and artistic visions of their creators—one from Norway and the other a collaborative effort between a photographer and model duo from Germany.
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### Book 1: A Glimpse into the Arctic World
The first book reviewed in this video is a stunning collection of photographs centered around polar animals, landscapes, and even power lines. Created by a Norwegian photographer who draws inspiration from modern influences like Michael Kenna and Hiroshi Sugimoto, this photobook offers a unique perspective on minimalist photography.
#### Key Highlights:
- **Minimalist Approach**: The book reduces its subject matter to essential elements—ice, sky, water, and wildlife. Penguins and polar bears are featured prominently, with even power lines making an appearance but in minimal numbers.
- **Composition Techniques**: One of the standout features is the placement of subjects near the edges of the frame rather than centering them. This technique creates a sense of interest and draws the viewer deeper into the image.
- **Evolution of Style**: The book progresses over several years, showcasing how the photographer's style evolved during his trips to Antarctica and the Arctic. Early images are sharp and conventional, while later works, particularly in the chapter titled "Guardians of the Last Continent," feature out-of-focus penguins, giving the imagery a diorama-like quality that conveys a sense of urgency regarding environmental concerns.
- **50mm Lens Choice**: The photographer's decision to use a single 50mm lens is intriguing. This choice forces the photographer to engage with his surroundings by physically moving rather than relying on zoom lenses. This constraint has resulted in a cohesive and consistent style across the book.
- **Monochromatic Aesthetic**: All images are black-and-white, which enhances the minimalist theme and allows the textures and forms of the subjects to stand out.
---
### Book 2: An Artistic Collaboration Between Photographer and Model
The second photobook reviewed is a collaborative effort between Olaf Corbanek, a German photographer, and Louise Lance, his model. This book, titled *I Never Knew If You Were the Storm or the Silence*, is a testament to their creative partnership.
#### Key Highlights:
- **Collaborative Process**: Unlike traditional photography setups where the photographer dominates, this duo emphasizes teamwork. Both individuals share equal input in shaping the visuals, themes, and overall direction of the book. This collaborative approach has resulted in a unique and cohesive body of work.
- **Philosophical Influences**: The pair draws inspiration from French existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Their philosophical readings have influenced the mood and narratives of their images, which often explore themes of existence, identity, and human connection.
- **Diverse Techniques and Styles**: The book features 236 pages of work culled from over 40,000 images taken during 37 photo shoots across two locations. This extensive selection highlights a wide range of techniques and styles, including high contrast and low-light imagery that evokes a sense of moodiness and introspection.
- **Artistic Integrity**: The duo chose not to involve makeup artists or hairstylists in their creative process. Instead, they focus on the natural beauty and presence of Louise Lance, allowing her to embody different roles through her pose and expression rather than relying on props or alterations.
- **Influences and Interpretation**: While there are clear nods to photographers like Cindy Sherman and Anne Brigman, this book is far from being derivative. It offers a fresh, modern interpretation of themes explored by these legends, blending the narrative depth of self-portraiture with contemporary aesthetics.
- **Technical Mastery**: The photographer’s skill in manipulating depth of field and contrast is evident throughout the book. Even when employing techniques like shallow focus commonly seen on Instagram, he executes them tastefully, maintaining a sense of artistic integrity.
---
### Conclusion
Both photobooks reviewed here offer unique perspectives on the art of photography, each reflecting the individuality and creativity of their creators.
- **The first book** is a testament to minimalist photography, demonstrating how constraints can lead to artistic growth. Its focus on environmental themes adds an extra layer of significance, making it more than just a visual treat—it’s a call to action.
- **The second book**, with its collaborative approach and philosophical underpinnings, redefines the relationship between photographer and model. It challenges traditional norms in photography, offering a fresh take on storytelling through visuals.
Both books serve as reminders of the boundless possibilities within the medium of photography. They are not just collections of images but narratives that invite viewers to reflect on themes of existence, identity, and our connection to the world around us.
If you’re interested in exploring these works further, the reviewer has provided links in the show notes for your convenience. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or an art enthusiast, these photobooks are sure to inspire and intrigue.
Stay tuned for more reviews and insights into the fascinating world of photography. If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments below! Until next time—happy shooting!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis video is brought to you by Squarespace welcome back everybody it is Friday which means mail time and we're going to do this a little bit differently today so full disclosure both of these books actually came in last week I was going through them both of these are extremely special the work is so good that I want to do a little bit of a different format in this video today so typically when I do a mail video I will randomly grab four or five pieces of mail and I just kind of improvise the whole video and open them but what I'm going to change that up today and kind of do a deep dive on these and talk about why I think this work is so good so because I opened these last week I'm going to spare you all the ASMR package opening here and we're just going to get right down to it so first up is this book called Exodus and this comes to us from Wilfred Wessel birth lesson who lives in Norway so this is very International today we've got a book from Norway and another one from Germany but I'm going to start with Exodus here and Wilfred writes hi Ted I'm a big fan of your channel and your way of thinking and approach to photography you have so many similarities with my mentor and Norway's most famous Fine Art photographer Morton korv gold look him up this book you have received is my first book it cost a lot of money and hard work but certainly far from perfect something a book probably never will be I have now had two exhibitions one in London in October of last year and now at the Grieg Hall in Bergen I had 20 pictures in large format and sold all but one I tried to do something new and original with my photography but as it is said everything has been done before so it's not easy to come up with something original but I have tried as best I could I've spent over 10 years on this project I would appreciate your feedback and criticism though that I can do better on my next book and get better I'm working on several projects I am a Leica photographer and I only use one lens a fixed 50 millimeter it's actually liberating to just have one lens then I do not have to spend time choosing if you want to get closer that's fine just use your legs and walk I will not spend more of your time but if you like the book then you just have to tell others about it it would have been greatly appreciated and when you may meet Ralph Gibson again say hello to him for me I don't know that he remembers me but I was at his workshop with him here in Norway in 2018. I think he liked what I was doing I had been out one day and photographed at the workshop and when I showed him the pictures that I had taken in the evening there was especially a picture that he liked of mine it was a nude on a mountain and then he said you are a visual Okay Wilfred this is some beautiful work and I want to go through and address a couple things he mentioned in his letter and I want to talk about why I think this book is so good so I think first from a contextual standpoint I think that clearly you see some Modern influences in here I would say Michael Kenneth is a big influence I would also say that I'd see a little bit of Hiroshi sugamoto not only in terms of the minimalist quality to the work there's something that sort of reminds me with the out of focus stuff to maybe some of the beyond Infinity architectural work that he did as well as I think some of the dioramas that he did really early on now none of this I don't think is a rip-off at all I think it's influenced but I think he takes it somewhere else which is interesting because he says in his note that he's trying to do something new original but everything has been done before well it comes down to the way that you do it and what it is that you have to say and the first thing I love about this is how minimal all of these images are we've reduced the subject matter just down to essentially ice sky and water and some Wildlife so the penguin is featured pretty prominently throughout the course of the book we also see the polar bear and some other birds as well and there's a little bit in here where we get into power lines but it's pretty minimal in terms of subject matter another thing that's really cool is because these are so minimal it's reduced to just kind of the natural geometry of the scene that you're seeing and then I love the fact that some of them are so minimal and he places the subjects near the edges this is something that I've talked about for years on this channel with composition videos and this is a technique that you can use that really brings emphasis rather than having something near the middle of the frame that's where you would expect it to be it builds interest and builds emphasis of the subject when you put it close to the edge also interesting is the way this book progresses and I know that he mentioned in here he did this over a number of years uh through many trips to Antarctica as well as some to the north is that the style shifts a little bit into some really interesting work we go from very sharp penguins that are in focus and kind of the conventional landscape at the beginning but as we move through here and I think he's making a statement with this particularly in this chapter called Guardians of the last continent where all of a sudden the penguins are out of focus and we get that diorama feel because they're out of focus in the foreground but the landscape is in focus in the background there's obviously an implication of endangerment going on here and I mean it's very strong and very powerful another technique that Wilfred uses in here that I really like is playing with a very shallow depth depth of field and the way that subjects kind of start falling on that transition where you're going from an in Focus area to an out of focus area of course it helps to have a really nice lens to get this pulled off correctly but it's a really powerful technique and I think he's done a really nice job with this book another thing that I want to address that I think is really important about this project and Wilfred stated this in his letters the whole idea of One camera and one lens the 50mm meter is a very interesting lens choice and I think that you don't normally think of 50 millimeters when you're thinking of Landscapes normally people would choose something wider in focal length but I love that idea of the 50 and what I really see with this book is when you get rid of all the distractions I mean if you imagine him being out there and screwing around with changing lenses all the time I don't think the work is going to have this kind of continuity to it I think that clearly he's got a style that's embracing characteristics of the lens and I think he's really starting to understand what it's going to do for him and so there's some things that I really really love about this book anyway I think this is a really mature and really interesting project I'm going to put a link to this in the show description I think he put it in the note there but I will find it either way and if you guys want to go check this out for yourselves it's really nicely printed and it's just a couple technical Notes too I mean when you're going to go on a trip and do a project like this and not one just one trip he mentioned this was over a 10-year period of time it's going to take a lot of time and yeah it's going to take coming up with a budget to get it done right but the results are here in this book just beautiful so next up I've got a project that comes to us from Germany this is a Duo that put this together and there's some really impressive work in here and some really interesting things that you don't see in a lot of places but real quick I want to give a shout out to our sponsor today who are the awesome folks over at squarespace.com listen you need a website and we all know how much work that is to build and maintain but it doesn't have to be Squarespace is by far the easiest way to build your online presence it's also the best way to grow a business that works for you without having to write a single line of code do you just need a simple portfolio or a Blog to Showcase your work well Squarespace is perfect featuring a drag and drop interface it's intuitive it allows you to build galleries quickly and update your site with ease are you running a business well Squarespace gives you additional tools for things like appointment scheduling private member areas social media tools and even Advanced email marketing do you sell products or Services well Squarespace has you covered with complete tools to to power your store for merchandising to check out so that you can sell ship and build your customer base you can even sell classes or manage appointments through your website and with Squarespace extensions you can easily sync with third parties to manage optimize and enhance your website from social media integration to SEO Squarespace gives you all the tools you need to grow a business that works for you so head over to Squarespace and sign up for the free trial start with one of their award-winning templates and see what you can create and just how good you're going to look when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com aop and I can save you an additional 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain just use offer code aop on checkout so give it a try and see if Squarespace is right for you and I want to give a special shout out and thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video okay this is a very beautifully printed book it is called I never knew if you were the storm or the silence and this comes to us from a Duo and it is Olaf corbanek who is the photographer and Louise Lance who's the model they are both from Germany and Olaf wrote me a nice letter in here and I want to read this to you and show you some of the books so he writes in here dear Ted a friend of us gave us the hint to have a look at your YouTube channel I have to admit that it was completely unknown to me but since I've become very enthusiastic especially your recent videos dealing with the non-technical content are especially what I love as a photographer be different Ralph Gibson's on photo books we like to widen our Horizon as a photographer and model Duo you must be asking yourself who is us and why is this guy from Germany sending me these words well we are Olaf corbanic and Louise and we cooperate as a photographer model Duo for nearly four years now just from the beginning it was clear that we share a lot of interests and that we despite our difference in age gender and Status are very similar when it comes to values picture style and photographic development I do not know how it is in the U.S but in Germany a cooperation between the model and the photographer is rare mostly it is the photographer who is well known and he or she decides all of the aspects of about all of the resulting pictures the models are often replaceable reduced to decorative accessory when we first met Louise made it clear that she wanted to be involved she wanted to influence all aspects of the process I was happy about this because it was exactly what I wanted to do I love to develop ideas in a team that is what happens since well we are a team we are reading books especially philosophical books from the French existentialists like Jean-Paul satyr and Albert Camus we discussed photo books we visit art museums we're always searching for new ideas and inspiration after a while we hated the idea that we put all these thoughts and enthusiasm into the pictures just for a like or hard on Instagram it's so sad because pictures deserve better but that's how the photographic world has recently developed because of this we decided two years ago to create a book just for the two of us no hair stylist no makeup artist just two human beings loving art and creativity two years later we have finished the project 40 000 images and 37 photo shoots and two shooting trips are now reduced to 236 Pages we hope that our aim to show different emotions to tell stories and to show a variety of styles and to create a distinct mood is visible if you like our approach the book and the story behind it we would be honored if you think it's worth mentioning on your YouTube channel all the best and greetings from Germany Olaf and Louise okay first off Olaf and Louise this book is absolutely outstanding I love what you're doing here and you asked me if it was like this in the U.S I don't know well so there are collaborations that happen but yes it is very rare and I would say even on a global scale worldwide that usually there are collaborations and I think that when you think of models you typically move into the fashion industry and I think there are pairings of photographers and models who work really well together and have a working relationship like that but I've never seen anything on a project of this scale that is just this massive and I think this is really interesting and like I said I just have never seen anything like this and so I want to talk about that for just a second so I like to approach the concept of creative in a lot of the videos that I make it's something that behind the scenes I'm constantly reading about I'm constantly studying it's something that's very much of interest to me I think probably I have necessity because I think I'm like everybody else you know we tend to burn out sometimes we're trying to decide something new and when you're truly going into new territory it becomes very difficult especially when you're doing it by yourself so one of the impressive things about this is the fact that you guys do have that collaboration going on what I really love is you were talking about researching This Together visiting art museums reading the same books and I can see in these images that there is definitely a legitimate nod back to things that came before but you're doing it in a modern and fresh way and what I really love about this is this does not feel like fashion work to me it actually feels like an art book I love the fact that you mention in here no hair stylist no makeup artist it has a very real feeling to it it's not too slick there's one thing that bugs me sometimes about art photography especially when you do introduce that fashion element is that a lot of times it just becomes overproduced and it does become slick now I'm not knocking on that there's a whole industry around that there's makeup artists and there's people that do their job very well but I'm just saying it's really nice to see something that's an alternative to a lot of those things a couple of things I want to mention in here one that's kind of interesting is there's certainly a nod to Cindy Sherman I don't know whether that was intentional or not in these pictures but because we have the same model putting on different outfits and looking essentially different in each one of these little vignettes in here you do get that vibe to it that's kind of as far as the influence goes because I think they take it in their own Direction very clearly on here but the way this is set up is you essentially have variations with different poses in here and I like this because it starts to give a little bit of a narrative and it starts to tell us something that's a little more deep than just seeing one image another thing that I really love in here is the use of gesture with our model and I love the way that her hands are posed at times and the way this actually interacts with the scene that's around her the way the Shadows Fall the way that light works a lot of this is very high contrast and in some cases it's very low key in other words we don't see a lot of bright highlights in a lot of these images they're very dark they're very dim but it has a very moody emotional effect to it it's really nicely done it also kind of Harkens a little bit of like if you look at earlier pictorialism in some cases like the works of Anne Brigman let's say and the whole idea of the female and the landscape uh hers were self-portraits like Cindy Sherman and that's not what we have here and this is definitely a way more modern interpretation but I like the fact that there is a nod to some of the history that's come before it and of course there's a 1950s Noir look to a lot of these that's very effectively pulled off it's never very campy it's always very well thought out another thing that I like that Olaf is doing from a technical standpoint and this kind of relates to what I was talking about with the other book here as well but he's shooting a lot with a very shallow depth of field and he's been using this to a really nice effect and obviously he's got a really nice lens that he's using whatever it is but when we see that shallow depth of field and the way that the contrasts work I don't get the same feel that you see with a lot of work that liters Instagram where your model's in focus and your background is blown out even though that's sort of what's happening on here it's much more Tastefully done and I think the use of contrast and this is something that a mature photographer does comes into relationship there and as I mentioned I mean there's a couple examples that I can think of but I love the cross-discipline idea of it's not two photographers working together it's a photographer and a model the model is going to inform you if you're willing to listen in directions and ways that you're not going to think of naturally on your own and I think as a photographer it's something that working with a model you're going to be able to bring a lot of aesthetic to the table too so it's a really interesting collaboration I absolutely love this book and again I will put a link to the book in the show description I highly recommend you guys go check this out so a little bit different format today I wanted to try out where I actually kind of dove in and talked about these a little bit because I think these were points worth emphasizing I think there's something that I wanted to share with everybody because I think his artists this is where we start to learn from things and so I might try to mix this in every now and then when we do Mail Time videos but if you have any questions drop them in the comments I'll catch you guys in the next video Until then laterthis video is brought to you by Squarespace welcome back everybody it is Friday which means mail time and we're going to do this a little bit differently today so full disclosure both of these books actually came in last week I was going through them both of these are extremely special the work is so good that I want to do a little bit of a different format in this video today so typically when I do a mail video I will randomly grab four or five pieces of mail and I just kind of improvise the whole video and open them but what I'm going to change that up today and kind of do a deep dive on these and talk about why I think this work is so good so because I opened these last week I'm going to spare you all the ASMR package opening here and we're just going to get right down to it so first up is this book called Exodus and this comes to us from Wilfred Wessel birth lesson who lives in Norway so this is very International today we've got a book from Norway and another one from Germany but I'm going to start with Exodus here and Wilfred writes hi Ted I'm a big fan of your channel and your way of thinking and approach to photography you have so many similarities with my mentor and Norway's most famous Fine Art photographer Morton korv gold look him up this book you have received is my first book it cost a lot of money and hard work but certainly far from perfect something a book probably never will be I have now had two exhibitions one in London in October of last year and now at the Grieg Hall in Bergen I had 20 pictures in large format and sold all but one I tried to do something new and original with my photography but as it is said everything has been done before so it's not easy to come up with something original but I have tried as best I could I've spent over 10 years on this project I would appreciate your feedback and criticism though that I can do better on my next book and get better I'm working on several projects I am a Leica photographer and I only use one lens a fixed 50 millimeter it's actually liberating to just have one lens then I do not have to spend time choosing if you want to get closer that's fine just use your legs and walk I will not spend more of your time but if you like the book then you just have to tell others about it it would have been greatly appreciated and when you may meet Ralph Gibson again say hello to him for me I don't know that he remembers me but I was at his workshop with him here in Norway in 2018. I think he liked what I was doing I had been out one day and photographed at the workshop and when I showed him the pictures that I had taken in the evening there was especially a picture that he liked of mine it was a nude on a mountain and then he said you are a visual Okay Wilfred this is some beautiful work and I want to go through and address a couple things he mentioned in his letter and I want to talk about why I think this book is so good so I think first from a contextual standpoint I think that clearly you see some Modern influences in here I would say Michael Kenneth is a big influence I would also say that I'd see a little bit of Hiroshi sugamoto not only in terms of the minimalist quality to the work there's something that sort of reminds me with the out of focus stuff to maybe some of the beyond Infinity architectural work that he did as well as I think some of the dioramas that he did really early on now none of this I don't think is a rip-off at all I think it's influenced but I think he takes it somewhere else which is interesting because he says in his note that he's trying to do something new original but everything has been done before well it comes down to the way that you do it and what it is that you have to say and the first thing I love about this is how minimal all of these images are we've reduced the subject matter just down to essentially ice sky and water and some Wildlife so the penguin is featured pretty prominently throughout the course of the book we also see the polar bear and some other birds as well and there's a little bit in here where we get into power lines but it's pretty minimal in terms of subject matter another thing that's really cool is because these are so minimal it's reduced to just kind of the natural geometry of the scene that you're seeing and then I love the fact that some of them are so minimal and he places the subjects near the edges this is something that I've talked about for years on this channel with composition videos and this is a technique that you can use that really brings emphasis rather than having something near the middle of the frame that's where you would expect it to be it builds interest and builds emphasis of the subject when you put it close to the edge also interesting is the way this book progresses and I know that he mentioned in here he did this over a number of years uh through many trips to Antarctica as well as some to the north is that the style shifts a little bit into some really interesting work we go from very sharp penguins that are in focus and kind of the conventional landscape at the beginning but as we move through here and I think he's making a statement with this particularly in this chapter called Guardians of the last continent where all of a sudden the penguins are out of focus and we get that diorama feel because they're out of focus in the foreground but the landscape is in focus in the background there's obviously an implication of endangerment going on here and I mean it's very strong and very powerful another technique that Wilfred uses in here that I really like is playing with a very shallow depth depth of field and the way that subjects kind of start falling on that transition where you're going from an in Focus area to an out of focus area of course it helps to have a really nice lens to get this pulled off correctly but it's a really powerful technique and I think he's done a really nice job with this book another thing that I want to address that I think is really important about this project and Wilfred stated this in his letters the whole idea of One camera and one lens the 50mm meter is a very interesting lens choice and I think that you don't normally think of 50 millimeters when you're thinking of Landscapes normally people would choose something wider in focal length but I love that idea of the 50 and what I really see with this book is when you get rid of all the distractions I mean if you imagine him being out there and screwing around with changing lenses all the time I don't think the work is going to have this kind of continuity to it I think that clearly he's got a style that's embracing characteristics of the lens and I think he's really starting to understand what it's going to do for him and so there's some things that I really really love about this book anyway I think this is a really mature and really interesting project I'm going to put a link to this in the show description I think he put it in the note there but I will find it either way and if you guys want to go check this out for yourselves it's really nicely printed and it's just a couple technical Notes too I mean when you're going to go on a trip and do a project like this and not one just one trip he mentioned this was over a 10-year period of time it's going to take a lot of time and yeah it's going to take coming up with a budget to get it done right but the results are here in this book just beautiful so next up I've got a project that comes to us from Germany this is a Duo that put this together and there's some really impressive work in here and some really interesting things that you don't see in a lot of places but real quick I want to give a shout out to our sponsor today who are the awesome folks over at squarespace.com listen you need a website and we all know how much work that is to build and maintain but it doesn't have to be Squarespace is by far the easiest way to build your online presence it's also the best way to grow a business that works for you without having to write a single line of code do you just need a simple portfolio or a Blog to Showcase your work well Squarespace is perfect featuring a drag and drop interface it's intuitive it allows you to build galleries quickly and update your site with ease are you running a business well Squarespace gives you additional tools for things like appointment scheduling private member areas social media tools and even Advanced email marketing do you sell products or Services well Squarespace has you covered with complete tools to to power your store for merchandising to check out so that you can sell ship and build your customer base you can even sell classes or manage appointments through your website and with Squarespace extensions you can easily sync with third parties to manage optimize and enhance your website from social media integration to SEO Squarespace gives you all the tools you need to grow a business that works for you so head over to Squarespace and sign up for the free trial start with one of their award-winning templates and see what you can create and just how good you're going to look when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com aop and I can save you an additional 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain just use offer code aop on checkout so give it a try and see if Squarespace is right for you and I want to give a special shout out and thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video okay this is a very beautifully printed book it is called I never knew if you were the storm or the silence and this comes to us from a Duo and it is Olaf corbanek who is the photographer and Louise Lance who's the model they are both from Germany and Olaf wrote me a nice letter in here and I want to read this to you and show you some of the books so he writes in here dear Ted a friend of us gave us the hint to have a look at your YouTube channel I have to admit that it was completely unknown to me but since I've become very enthusiastic especially your recent videos dealing with the non-technical content are especially what I love as a photographer be different Ralph Gibson's on photo books we like to widen our Horizon as a photographer and model Duo you must be asking yourself who is us and why is this guy from Germany sending me these words well we are Olaf corbanic and Louise and we cooperate as a photographer model Duo for nearly four years now just from the beginning it was clear that we share a lot of interests and that we despite our difference in age gender and Status are very similar when it comes to values picture style and photographic development I do not know how it is in the U.S but in Germany a cooperation between the model and the photographer is rare mostly it is the photographer who is well known and he or she decides all of the aspects of about all of the resulting pictures the models are often replaceable reduced to decorative accessory when we first met Louise made it clear that she wanted to be involved she wanted to influence all aspects of the process I was happy about this because it was exactly what I wanted to do I love to develop ideas in a team that is what happens since well we are a team we are reading books especially philosophical books from the French existentialists like Jean-Paul satyr and Albert Camus we discussed photo books we visit art museums we're always searching for new ideas and inspiration after a while we hated the idea that we put all these thoughts and enthusiasm into the pictures just for a like or hard on Instagram it's so sad because pictures deserve better but that's how the photographic world has recently developed because of this we decided two years ago to create a book just for the two of us no hair stylist no makeup artist just two human beings loving art and creativity two years later we have finished the project 40 000 images and 37 photo shoots and two shooting trips are now reduced to 236 Pages we hope that our aim to show different emotions to tell stories and to show a variety of styles and to create a distinct mood is visible if you like our approach the book and the story behind it we would be honored if you think it's worth mentioning on your YouTube channel all the best and greetings from Germany Olaf and Louise okay first off Olaf and Louise this book is absolutely outstanding I love what you're doing here and you asked me if it was like this in the U.S I don't know well so there are collaborations that happen but yes it is very rare and I would say even on a global scale worldwide that usually there are collaborations and I think that when you think of models you typically move into the fashion industry and I think there are pairings of photographers and models who work really well together and have a working relationship like that but I've never seen anything on a project of this scale that is just this massive and I think this is really interesting and like I said I just have never seen anything like this and so I want to talk about that for just a second so I like to approach the concept of creative in a lot of the videos that I make it's something that behind the scenes I'm constantly reading about I'm constantly studying it's something that's very much of interest to me I think probably I have necessity because I think I'm like everybody else you know we tend to burn out sometimes we're trying to decide something new and when you're truly going into new territory it becomes very difficult especially when you're doing it by yourself so one of the impressive things about this is the fact that you guys do have that collaboration going on what I really love is you were talking about researching This Together visiting art museums reading the same books and I can see in these images that there is definitely a legitimate nod back to things that came before but you're doing it in a modern and fresh way and what I really love about this is this does not feel like fashion work to me it actually feels like an art book I love the fact that you mention in here no hair stylist no makeup artist it has a very real feeling to it it's not too slick there's one thing that bugs me sometimes about art photography especially when you do introduce that fashion element is that a lot of times it just becomes overproduced and it does become slick now I'm not knocking on that there's a whole industry around that there's makeup artists and there's people that do their job very well but I'm just saying it's really nice to see something that's an alternative to a lot of those things a couple of things I want to mention in here one that's kind of interesting is there's certainly a nod to Cindy Sherman I don't know whether that was intentional or not in these pictures but because we have the same model putting on different outfits and looking essentially different in each one of these little vignettes in here you do get that vibe to it that's kind of as far as the influence goes because I think they take it in their own Direction very clearly on here but the way this is set up is you essentially have variations with different poses in here and I like this because it starts to give a little bit of a narrative and it starts to tell us something that's a little more deep than just seeing one image another thing that I really love in here is the use of gesture with our model and I love the way that her hands are posed at times and the way this actually interacts with the scene that's around her the way the Shadows Fall the way that light works a lot of this is very high contrast and in some cases it's very low key in other words we don't see a lot of bright highlights in a lot of these images they're very dark they're very dim but it has a very moody emotional effect to it it's really nicely done it also kind of Harkens a little bit of like if you look at earlier pictorialism in some cases like the works of Anne Brigman let's say and the whole idea of the female and the landscape uh hers were self-portraits like Cindy Sherman and that's not what we have here and this is definitely a way more modern interpretation but I like the fact that there is a nod to some of the history that's come before it and of course there's a 1950s Noir look to a lot of these that's very effectively pulled off it's never very campy it's always very well thought out another thing that I like that Olaf is doing from a technical standpoint and this kind of relates to what I was talking about with the other book here as well but he's shooting a lot with a very shallow depth of field and he's been using this to a really nice effect and obviously he's got a really nice lens that he's using whatever it is but when we see that shallow depth of field and the way that the contrasts work I don't get the same feel that you see with a lot of work that liters Instagram where your model's in focus and your background is blown out even though that's sort of what's happening on here it's much more Tastefully done and I think the use of contrast and this is something that a mature photographer does comes into relationship there and as I mentioned I mean there's a couple examples that I can think of but I love the cross-discipline idea of it's not two photographers working together it's a photographer and a model the model is going to inform you if you're willing to listen in directions and ways that you're not going to think of naturally on your own and I think as a photographer it's something that working with a model you're going to be able to bring a lot of aesthetic to the table too so it's a really interesting collaboration I absolutely love this book and again I will put a link to the book in the show description I highly recommend you guys go check this out so a little bit different format today I wanted to try out where I actually kind of dove in and talked about these a little bit because I think these were points worth emphasizing I think there's something that I wanted to share with everybody because I think his artists this is where we start to learn from things and so I might try to mix this in every now and then when we do Mail Time videos but if you have any questions drop them in the comments I'll catch you guys in the next video Until then later\n"