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Gold Photography · 2022

Samsa Photography Artwork

by Florian W. Mueller

  • Golden A' Design Award 2022 in Photography
  • CLIENT: Florian W. Mueller Photography
  • Estimated Number of Design Views: 122,736
  • Verification code 593435905C · Verify this award
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About Samsa Photography Artwork

Samsa is a photographic artwork from the series Neglect. The series shows preserved specimens of insects, most of which are extinct or critically endangered. The images were made with a digital camera system and a 105mm macro lens. A multishot function was used to create very large files of 185 megapixels. A small table-top studio was built so that the fragile specimens could be photographed with almost no handling. The prints are produced in two sizes and in limited editions. The aim is to reveal the unusual beauty of insects and to draw attention to insect extinction.

About the Golden A' Design Award

Samsa Photography Artwork is a Golden A' Design Award winner, an immensely prestigious recognition granted to first-rate, marvelous, and outstanding designs. Golden winners are exceedingly innovative, visionary, and glamorously dazzling creations that reflect the prodigy, wisdom, and prowess of their designers. Samsa Photography Artwork is expected to be a highly praised, trendsetting, and monumental invention that delivers unprecedented value. This Golden A' Design Award-winning design is a spectacular, respected project that highly benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Samsa Photography Artwork creates intense feelings of desire, evokes passion, encourages creativity, and fascinates us.

Press Kit

Unique Properties
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
Franz Kafka

Part of the collection NEGLECT, photographed specimens of animals, most of which are extinct or critically endangered.
I want to show a little bit of the sometimes bizarre beauty of the insects, so that the viewer might see them with different eyes.
Because insect extinction is very real and not a made-up story.
Dimensions & Packaging
Different artworks in two sizes in the end: 80 x 60cm and 120 x 90 cm. All available in strictly limited editions of 10/5 pieces.
Tags
photography, macor, insects, bugs, nature, animals, creatures, colors, fine art, artwork
Production Technology
Digital photography with the Leica SL2 system and a 105mm Macro lens.
The photographer used the "Multishot" function of the Leica System to produce giant 185 megapixel pictures of these little creatures.
Design Challenge
The hardest part was to invent a small table-top-studio situation to photograph the little very fragile prepared insects. The photographer wanted to touch them as little as possible because the preparations are very fragile.
Inspiration
Insect extinction is very real and not a made-up story.
And these little creatures do not have a loud lobby.
The photographer wants to show a little bit of the sometimes bizarre beauty of the insects, so that the viewer might see them with different eyes.
Florian W. Mueller worked before with the Senckenberg Institute on a project about mammals.
Project Duration
The planning took about half a year, in total it was four days on site to photograph. The post production took another two weeks.
Operation Flow
The photographer asked for the permission to photograph these sometimes very rare or extinct insects in the institute in Brandenburg near Berlin in Germany. Then he got to work there with great support.
Patents
Copyrights belong to Florian W. Mueller, 2022
Image Credits
All pictures:
Prof. Dr. Thimas Schmitt, Director
Mandy Schroeter, Technical Assistant Coleoptera & Digitization

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