Riemenscheiben Albert Renger-Patzsch Object photography

Renger-Patzsch,Albert “Riemenscheiben” Photograph. Museum für Gestaltung Zürich eGuide. The Museum of Zurich University of the Arts, 1928. https://www.eguide.ch/en/objekt/riemenscheiben/, Accessed 23th January 2025

Impressive factors

    1. As the black-and-white photograph has no colors, the natural, organic shapes of the plant is expressed as itself.
    2. The composition that fill frame only with plant accentuates the beauty of compactly blooming plant
    3. The outlines of leaves are apparently revealed through short bristles. As the bristles are so small that reflect light, the borders of leaves look white, which distinctly separates one other.

I will name the photograph “continuous beauty” as the leaves of the plants keep generating and growing.

  • line

The photograph possesses natural, curvy lines of a plant. Without any artificial lines, the lines of nature simultaneously show both spontaneity and perfection. The intersection points of pairs of two lines head toward outside, showing their vital  growth.

  • shape

The shape of leaves and the plant is organic shapes. With leaves that spread everywhere from the center of the plant, the photograph exhibits luxuriant well-being.

  • pattern

Centering around the middle of the plant, the leaved spread and widen. The expansion of similar shaped leaves forms a regular pattern.

  • texture

Taking in extremely close shot, the grainy texture of leave and its pointed sides with bristles are realistically shown. Additionally, the achromatic colors makes the plant look drier than it actually does, so the photography maintain modernity, while it displays the beauty of nature at the same time.

  • tone

Even though it is black-and-white photograph, the light offers clarity to the plant to indicate stereoscopic shape of the plant. Generally, its upper part is darker, the lower part is brighter. The division of brightness shows the volume of plant, letting viewers approachably accept it as a three-dimensional subject.

  • focus

The photograph sets its focus on whole shot, but mainly concentrate on the center of the plant.