Floria Sigismondi

I can't praise Floria Sigismondi enough. Her music videos for Marilyn Manson, Sigur Ros and David Bowie are haunting and beautiful, and her photography is even more stunning. Her second collection, Immune, published by Gestalten Verlag, was released this past November and it is from this volume that the above photographs were taken (the first volume, also published by Gestalten Verlag, was titled Redemption and is currently both out of print and in great demand - copies sell at auction anywhere from $60 USD to $600 USD.) Both books are incredible and worth every penny.

Studio execs of the world: give Floria Sigismondi lots and lots of money to make feature films. Palm Pictures: for your next series of Director's Label DVDs, I urge to you consider Floria Sigismondi for inclusion. Everyone else: visit Floria's website, and order a copy of Immune before it, too, goes out of print.

Link to Floria Sigismondi's website.

(All Images © Floria Sigismondi 2006)

Zohar Studios

Study For A Painting

From Memory (Series)

The Raven

Stephen Berkman is the massively talented photographer and artist behind Zohar Studios (motto: "The New Instantaneous Process Employed".) He utilises a photographic technique called ambrotype which involves a silver nitrate development of a glass negative which appears positive when placed against a white backing. Ambrotype is similar to daguerrotype but less expensive, and experienced a short-lived popularity in the mid-19th century. I've always found this sort of antiquated look very appealing and Berkman's subject matter is perfectly suited to the technique.

Both the "From Memory" series and "The Raven" bring to mind Moreau's human-animal chimaera from H.G. Wells' "The Island of Dr. Moreau". "Study For A Painting" reminds me of the sort of awkward, ethnocentric posed portraits that were so popular during the heyday of the British Empire, wherein "noble savages" would be dressed up in stiff, European attire and photographed. All of Berkman's work is infused with a grim grotesque quality that I find fascinating. Take a look at his website.

Link to Stephen Berkman's Zohar Studios.

(All images © Stephen Berkman 2006)