We humans classify, almost as an instinct. The Flemish physician and botanist Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585) classified plants and did this in a way that was unique at the time, proving of great influence on the scientific world. Now, 500 years after his birth, Geene and De Nooy bring a playful interpretation of his work and […]
Ornithology refers to the scientific study of birds, including their physiology, classification, ecology and behaviour. Due to their visibility and colourful appearance, birds are a popular subject of both the sciences and the visual arts – photography in particular. With their pseudo-scientific approach hunter-collectors Geene & De Nooy defy the borders between these disciplines. Their […]
Pelor is Ancient Greek for ‘monster’. Carl Linnaeus used the term for plants that showed abnormal regularities (or common irregularities).
Using digital catalogs of photo archives can cause you a lot of frustration. If you’re looking for photos of specific subjects (e.g., “German Shepherd”), you’ll often have to use a very general (e.g., “dogs”) or creative search term (e.g., “hunting”) to get results. Thereafter, the search results can be so numerous that you’ll spend hours […]
An in the world of taxidermy famous instruction manual called ‘Preparing and Mounting a Starling’ by P. Staffeleu explains in 24 photographs how to mount a Starling. Intrigued to finding out how communicatory a photograph actually is I try to follow the manual. I was forced to use a black bird though because Starlings have […]
In contrast to animals (and humans) the final shape of a plant is not fixed. Plants can adapt their shape to the conditions of their environment during their lifetime. These leaves were selected from a tree in Berlin. The tree stood in the shadow for most of the day. Its leaves almost seemed to grow […]
From sea to molecule
For some, photographs are still the ultimate proof of truth. Frequently used in science, the medium of photography is often considered more reliable in presenting factual evidence than observations made with the naked eye. This notion is central to this book: after the photographic registration of natural phenomena a layer was added; short descriptions, quotes […]
Our familiarity with images causes us to effortlessly ‘scale’ a mountain landscape to the size of a 10 x 15 cm photograph. This phenomena also works the other way around: in a wooden pole we sometimes see a rocky landscape and in the flocks of reed a dune landscape.