When American publishing house Condé Nast opens its archives in New York, Paris, London and Milan for the first time you can be sure to see some of the world’s finest fashion photography! To be honest we even expected a more daring selection but nevertheless some real treasures could be found. Especially seeing the classic compositions of photography’s old masters such as Edward Steichen was truly amazing. In many images you see that fashion photography reflects the respective era, society and zeitgeist and does not just tell us about timeless beauty, as the exhibition’s title might suggest.

Right in time for Berlin Fashion Week, the lookbook we designed for eyewear label Lunettes Kollektion arrived from the printers. Great glasses, perfect models, beautiful photos shot by David Fischer and styled by Rainer Metz … a welcome dash of colour in Berlin’s grey weather. Check out the new Lunettes collection at the Collect Showroom!

Lying in bed with an unseasonal flu has its good sides, too: The last two days I browsed through the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog of the U.S. Library of Congress. It contains an unbelievable amount of digitized images and offers you an insight into U.S. history in a very direct way. It includes everything you might think of, just go ahead entering some keywords into the search field and you’ll get hooked! I was amazed by the photographic footage of the encounter between settlers and Native Americans in the 19th century, Civil War photos and the oil rush in the early 20th century.

Of course, the well-known images by Walker Evans for the Farm Security Administration are included, depicting life in rural America between 1935 and 1944. But until today, I had not seen the color series from this huge collection of 175,000 images.

Another tip for your next flu is the Picture Library of the Royal Geographic Society. These pictures will take you on a journey round the world in the footsteps of famous explorers and travellers.

Pics: Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection

For the second time Corbis awarded a prize for the best cover in corporate publishing media at BCP. We are really happy that our cover for »The Romantic Issue« of Electronic Beats Magazine won this special prize! The image of the romantic German shepherd was shot by Mikael Kennedy. »The cover is the perfect adaption of this issues’ topic romanticism. A strong and exceptional image that intentionally breaks with the viewing habits of its target group, the ‘Digital Natives’.« Yay! Photographer: Mikael Kennedy / Art Direction: Lisa Borges / Editor-in-Chief: Viktoria Pelles / Publisher: Commandante

We´re happy to finally hold it in our hands, Berlin say hello to a new magazine which is dedicated to your vivid and complex fashion scene! Instead of trying to describe what’s going on fashionwise in our capital, we thought we’d better just show it! 10 fashion editorials present different facets with their pure images. Designwise we worked with a lot of paper qualities for the spreads, to enhance their look with a matching feel. A big thanks to Arne who initiated Œ Magazine and all the people who helped us with the financing part. Check out all participating photographers, stylists and hair & make-up artists here. We look forward to working on Œ number 2!

UPDATE: If you want to see ΠMagazine on TV click here!

A small bunch of this beauty is sitting on my desk right now.
Via Lemmemakeit.

I didn’t see the Gregory Crewdson exhibit in Germany (it’s not so often I visit Baden-Baden…) but when I entered Stockholm’s Kul-turhuset this weekend I was lucky to discover that they had a big Gregory Crewdson show on display. Especially the images in his precisely choreographed and elaborately staged “Beneath the Roses” series were impressive. Additional images from the production process provided an insight into how much planning and orchestration is needed to achieve the final results.

Together with more than 30 photographers, stylists, hair & make-up artists and models we were part of a fun project during the last weeks. We took care of the visual concept and layout of »Œ Magazine«, which is a new fashion magazine that focuses on Berlin’s fashion scene. The magazine is non-commercial and is in parts financed by crowdfunding. Check out the project’s campaign video here on WeFund and if you like it, feel free to support a good cause!

Contributing photographers: Amos Fricke, Dirk Merten, Lars Borges, Christoph Schemel, Andreas Lux, Jochen Arndt, Rachel de Joode, Clément Martz

Contributing stylists: Christian Stemmler, Christof Post, Rainer Metz, Åsa Lundström, Brenda Barr, Antje Gohlke, MAVEN, Julian Zigerli

Contributing hair & make-up artists: Alexander Soltermann, Henriette Höft, Manuela Kopp, Miriam Jochims

Now I´m on that track of science and science illustration I have to admit that nature itself just tops the attempts of picturing the same. In the Nikon International Small World Competition you can admire the beauty of nature seen by photographers through the light microscope. Inspiring and somehow quite modern.

www.nikonsmallworld.com
1. Cotton fibers stained with berberine sulphate and color depth shaded (200x) (Dr. Lloyd Donaldson)
2. Olivine inclusions in gabbro (magmatic rock) (5x) (Dr. Bernardo Cesare)
3.  Algae and diatoms (10x) (Dr. Arlene Wechezak)
4. Discus fish scales (20x) (Dr. Havi Sarfaty)

Funny electricity, serially numbered doors and beautiful floors: we´ll miss all that when c/o Fotogalerie has to move out of Postfuhramt and the place gets transformed into another shopping mall! Until the 27th of March you have the chance to see their last exhibition there, a Robert Mapplethorpe Retrospective.

A lot of things kept us busy in December, for instance the art direction and production of a fashion spread for a new Berlin based magazine. We chose an approach which included a great deal of crafting and painting – so nice to get away from the computer for some time! Here are some behind the scenes pictures, we’ll keep you posted with the final results…

Thank you everyone for spending a cosy sunday afternoon with us!

This sunday we´ll celebrate  a relaxed advent afternoon with an exhibition in our office. Work of the following artists will be exhibited:
Casey McGonagle
Benne Ochs
Franziska Sinn
Chelsee Ivan
Jeff Luker
Irina Rozovsky
Lars Borges
Delaney Allen

The museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden combines the two american artists Duane Hanson and Gregory Crewdson in the exhibition »Unheimliche Wirklichkeiten«. Each in his own media, they deal with reality in an irritating way: Crewdson creates elaborate sets in which he freezes weird moments of pseudo-reality and Hanson builds hyperrealistic life-sized clothed fiberglass figures. Might be an interesting combination, there is time until the 6th of march 2011 to find out.

Thanks to ACHTEINHALB for the great opening! We were also exited to see the new visual identity we designed for them applied in the store.

Lars participation in the group exhibition inter.cool 3.0 at Ruhr 2010 led to a trip to the Ruhr region. We went to the opening and at the following weekend we took in everything the European Capital of Culture had to offer. From  »A star is born – Photography and rock since Elvis« at the museum Folkwang in Essen to the SANAA museum showing all famous Ruhr photographers from the Bechers to Gursky in one spectacular building and the Zeche Zollverein in Essen it was a real cultural treat!

Elle UK lately really makes a difference with its collector’s covers. Here’s the June cover, a blurry Kylie shot by David Slijper. And some more beauties from earlier months.