This weekend I had the pleasure of being invited to a dinner party with Françoise & Daniel Cartier. It was hosted by Monika Wertheimer, who runs a wonderful gallery specialized in photography.

It was the last day of the Cartier show at Monika's gallery. I had seen their work a few weeks before already, but last Saturday it struck me even more. Their main body of work consists of so called photogrammes, where an object is placed on Baryt Paper and exposed in bare sunlight for about 30 minutes. As a result the object remains white and the surrounding blank areas are exposed, turning somwhat pinkish, mauve or red. Technically it is a mistake when this happens, but the Cartiers are doing it on purpose since the tone of pink is hardly ever the same. Daniel Cartier told me that the tone largely depends on the wheather conditions during exposure. A clear sunny day will produce a much darker almost violet tone, while an overcast sky will render shades of rose with yellowish elements around the borders of the object in place.

They really are cathing the light! Quite in tune with this technique the images have a very ghostish quality! Even more so since their current series on show featured womens dresses and under garments from the past 100 years. All of the clothes were actually worn by someone, which makes the images portraits of ghosts to me. The person isn't there but the very cloth which touched their skin is caught by light and banned on paper. I couldn't think of anything more poetic!

Due to the technique employed all of the images are unreproduceable originals. The quality is simply outstanding, rendering finest, razor sharp detail where the fabric touches the paper. It's a little like working with a huge 120cm by 60cm sensor (insane resolution on it) and having an f/0.1 lens on top of it. As soon as the fabric ever so slightly raises from the surface it turns into a wonderful and delicate bokeh!

Check out their site: F&D Cartier





Journal CSS by `ClaireJones

For a rather long time now, I managed to avoid the blog sphere altogether. Until recently I doscovered that the ramblings of many pro shooters in their blogs can be a rather inspiring source of knowledge. Not so much on a technical but on a philosphical end. I find it highly interesting to hear what shooters are doing out there, what their assignments are and how they experience their profession.

So I've decided to join in and let you guys know from time to time what I'm up to and how things are rolling. Feel free to ask any questions, I'd be happy enlight

So check it out here: Nicolas Henri's Blog





Journal CSS by `ClaireJones

Just logged onto dA and saw the number of messages
Thank you so much =starlight15 for suggesting it and ^Staged for featuring!



This is fun!

In January I submitted a small selection of my work under the heading COLD HEART to one of the bigger Swiss photo awards called ewz.selection. It cost me 150 bucks entry fee... so far so good.
Yesterday they had a showcase of all the submitted work in an old electricity plant. Sounded like a great location and I thought I'd check it out to see what the competition is doing. Entry to the expo cost another 20 Swiss Francs (about $18!!!).
What we found was some weird cellar with the rare sighting of fluorescent tubes to serve as a light source. 3000 images were spread across the floor in what seemd to be a completely random order. The prints they made out of the digitaly submitted works were fairly small and one had to bend down to see any detail in the images... let alone the horrific lighting.

And suddenly I saw them... my images... in the furthest corner of the cellar, where no photon ever dares to visit... and they printed them on super glossy paper!

All in all 170 bucks to see my work, small, glossy, dark and all alone in a corner!

This weekend the jury will decide on the winners.... they better give me a prize or else...

Yesterday we shot the 2008 Collection of bags and trolleys for the Swiss Fashion Label RoyalBLUSH. It was an outdoor shoot (what a great idea in early February!) at freezing 2 degrees.
Our lovely models Hope and Beat alomost suffered hypothermia during the outdoor make up session, leave alone the 5 hour shoot until sunset.

Freezing along of course was our hair & make up artist Rachel and the two assistants Andrea and Dave.

A great thanx and warm hug to all of them! The results will have been worth the sacrifice... Images will be up some time this week.


I'd also like to give my thanx to all you Deviants for the great response on the ice princess series! It is really satisfying to see that the results of endless hours of work are appreciated by so many.

The are still a few more in the pipeline... just give me a little time to work on them.


Widely unkown to DA are the Heart-Break Series, featuring Jakob and his twin brother Martin as an eerie couple trying to find and understand their place in a world they had never been introduced to.
At the end of the month we'll shoot the third and final part of the series. Leading up to that I'll release the first two episodes onto DA. Should be fun... you'll see