Flowers on Film and the Beauty of Cosmetics: Photography 2023 New Entries

The photographs featured this week come from both film and digital photography, showcasing how a photograph can be beautiful in many different ways. Our first entry utilizes large format film to create simple, yet visually stunning elegies of flowers in a series of four photographs. The second entry shows the grandeur that a good cosmetics line can make the wearer feel through an image, championing commercial photography as an art form.

Frequent Graphis Master and contributor Craig Cutler’s conceptual photography is centered around the art of visual storytelling. In his series “Flowers” (above), Cutler uses an 8×10 view camera to shoot still-life images on film since the constraint Cutler gave himself was to not use any digital assistance whatsoever in the taking and printing of these images. With white and cyan paper backgrounds, the flowers appear to be giants, growing tall from an unknown (to the viewer) ground. The petals, in their varying oranges, pinks, yellows, and greens, help each flower have its own identity: whimsical, bold, and perfectly lit, one could come up with so many stories about these flowers. The four prints in the Flowers series are exemplary in the importance of a keen eye and a photographer excelling when following a vision and taking their time. 

The next entry comes from photographer Nicholas Duers, who, with Jessica Solitrin as the art director, created promotional images for Gwen Stefani’s makeup brand, GXVE. Using Phase One photography equipment, Duers’ image, “GXVE.01” (above), blends artistry and commercial photography to evoke an artistic advertising image. Black and white tubes of lipstick are juxtaposed against a black and white background, with their gold “GXVE” logo shining in the light. One open tube adds a pop of bright red as it stands atop the lipstick tower. As a celebration of the launch of Stefani’s makeup brand, this photograph is clearly exceptional, as Duers and his team show a thorough understanding of the technical components of photography and the artistry that takes commercial photography to the next level.

To enter our Photography 2023 competition, click here.

Author: Graphis