When was karl blossfeldt born

He built himself a plate camera which could magnify the subject up to thirty times in size. With it he took over 6, photographs of plants. He used these for making demonstrations to his students. This microphotography made the plants exhibit exotic characteristics like never before. He spent much of his time devoted to the study of nature.

In his career of more than 30 years, he photographed nothing but plants, or rather, sections of plants. In many of his photographs, he would zoom in so close to a plant that the plant no longer looked like a plant. The images he created looked more like lovely, abstract forms. His photos revealed the amazing detail found in nature. When Karl Blossfeldt began his career, photography was still quite new.

Many people saw it as a scientific tool. They looked at it as an infallible means of capturing the world. Many people did not look at photography as an art form yet. Blossfeldt's work can be seen as a transition between looking at photography as just science and looking at photography as art. Blossfeldt was born in Schielo, the Unterharz region of Germany.

Blossfeldt was 63 years old when his first book of photographic images, "Urformen der Kunst" was published. The book contained of his original photographs and was released following an exhibition of his work at Berlin's Gallery Nierendorf. His second book, "Wundergarten der Natur" was published in The uniqueness of his close-up photography created widespread popularity of his first book, which, according to several sources including the Photography Now website, was well-received by both critics and art enthusiasts.

According to the Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Photography, Blossfeldt did not foresee his artistry as a photographer but hoped the release of his work would inspire people to look more closely at art. He was quoted as saying, "My flower documents should contribute to restoring the relationship to nature. They should reawaken a sense for nature, point out its teeming richness of form, and prompt the viewer to observe for himself the local plant world.

Blossfeldt passed away on December 9, , as a result of a scrotal tumour, which had already spread to his spine causing paralysis.