Photographers You Should Know About - Loretta Lux

Loretta Lux

One of my favorite fine art photographers has to be Loretta Lux. Her photographs of children, in odd outfits, and in sometimes odder environments, make for some really beatifully eerie images. And things are usually intentionally just a bit 'off' to make things even more surreal (note the slightly enlarged heads in many of the images, or the fact that many of the children appear to be 'snatched up' from Eastern Europe during World War II). And though these images rely heavily on Photoshop, as they are admittedly pieced together in post-production which often takes up to 2 months per image, Lux takes on a much more 'painterly' approach when creating her photographs. 

Born in Dresden, Germany in 1969, Lux early on was influenced by Old Master paintings from artists like Rubens and Velåzquez. In the 90's, she studied to be a painter for a bit, but was not into the 'messy' aspect of painting, so she took many of the influences and ideas she loved about painting, and applied them to her photography. And what's even more amazing is, it wasn't until 1996 that she picked up a camera for the first time, basically knowing nothing about photography. Her large prints now sell for nearly $20,000. (See kids, if that's not something to be inspired about, I don't know what is!)....

If you haven't checked out her first book, which is titled 'Loretta Lux' (and published by Aperture), I do suggest you find a copy, make yourself a nice cup of tea, and slowly feed your brain, page by page, with her beautiful images. Her use of color, light, models and minimalism absolutely makes me weak in the knees.

all images © loretta lux. 

Online, you can check out more of her work, by visiting   

http://www.lorettalux.com