Monday, January 26, 2015

Mimi Brune: Still Lifes

mimi brune is the pseudonym of Alya Galinovskaya, a chef who lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. All of these were shot in natural light with her iPhone. Lots more on her instagram.







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3 comments:

pootrsox said...

I think I like these images better than any others you've shared!

It's the composition, the saturation of the colors, and the clarity-- almost super-realistic, if such a term is possible with a photograph.

January 26, 2015 at 3:01 PM
G. Verloren said...

I'm afraid I'm completely of the opposite mindset here.

This is the sort of photography I can only class as "hipster kitsch", despite feeling a bit like that's too harsh a term and negative a view, and wishing I had a more polite way to phrase things.

To be fair, I have a huge personal bias against anything I perceive as coyly artificial or otherwise insincere. (The chief exception of course being when a work displays self-mocking self-awareness, or simply doesn't take itself seriously.)

But here, in particular, I'm annoyed by the combination of several factors that each individually ruffle my feathers quite enough on their own. 1) Vague, overly pastoral themes with sledgehammer-emphasis on "simple life", "rustic", "quaint", "old-timey" nonsense. 2) Artificiality which is obviously and desperately trying to pass itself off as naturalness. 3) A general sense of sterility and lack of life, both human and otherwise.

January 26, 2015 at 5:09 PM
Katya said...

I dunno, G--while I agree with/accept to some degree the criticisms you make here, the person who took these photos is in fact a chef, right? Some element of the 'feeling' in these photos would seem to be based on that, rather than mere posing.

&, frankly, there is a certain Russian-ness, or better said "Rus," quality to these images that I find enjoyable. To me--they're coming from a culturally credible place.

...except for that last dopey beige-on-grey embroidery one, which left me cold. What kind of a Russian would willingly elevate that British twee comfty wool poorly-embroidered tat?

January 26, 2015 at 5:30 PM

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