Golden Brown Gifts + A Haunting House: Photography 2023 New Entries

The Extended Late deadline for the Photography 2023 competition is tomorrow, so enter your work while you can and have it judged alongside these great works!

Known for his still life and product photography, Nicholas Duers received his BFA at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2007, and then opened his own studio in New York. He shoots for brands such as Breuninger, Rémy Cointreau, and MVMT, getting up close to capture the finer details of fashion accessories, beauty products, and luxury goods. In his series “Ralph Lauren, Gifting” (above), Duers’ clever choices bring the Ralph Lauren gift boxes to a whole new level. The series is consistent with using the color brown, setting the images in a sort of study with wood panel walls and furniture. Rather than becoming one big brown mass, the texture of the desk, leather chair, suitcases, and mantle break the brown up, as do touches of white and gold with candles and flowers. The lighting streams in as if through a window, giving a golden effect of late afternoon sunshine. With different still life set-ups, each image stands on its own as a warm space you want to step into and interact with.

From products to portraits, we move from one series to another. Editorial and commercial fashion photographer Caroline Knopf learned all about photography from her grandfather, a World War II photographer. Based in New York, Knopf was born in the South, and she takes us on a trip down there with her series “One Foot in Eden” (above). It was shot for South magazine, a bi-monthly publication that covers food, culture, and entertainment in the Southern states, at Drayton Hall, a 18th-century plantation located near Charleston, South Carolina. The moss-covered trees, scratched-up walls, and dark staircase make for haunting yet beautiful backgrounds as models pose in black, white, and red dresses. A raven is included in some of the images, perched above open hands in mid-flight. According to Knopf, the bird “represents the soul,” and is a symbol of a past integrated into current history, which makes sense given that the plantation is known for its preservation and studies to integrate its checkered past into current history.

To see more entries from this year’s photography competition, feel free to visit Graphis.com here.