Far Above The Crowd: Katrin Korfmann's Deceptive, Bird's-Eye-View of the World

Let's file this one under "simple photo concepts though not as simple as they might first appear.":

After Katrin Korfmann studied photography at Kunsthochschule Berlin and Rietveld Academie in The Netherlands, she settled down in Amsterdam, where she practices a style of photography that confuses perspectives and the spatial relationship between people and their surrounding environment. More specifically, this means she takes lots of wonderful bird's-eye-view photographs of people on the street from way up high above them.

"Stemming from her background in photography, Katrin Korfmann’s works in various media – photo works, videos and installations – are concerned with photographic concepts of framing, perspective, and the social dimensions of perception, such as the relationship between the observer and the observed, the effect of the camera on behavior and the social codes of looking in public environments."

In her latest series, "Count for Nothing," Korfmann documents her travels to places like Lisbon, Madrid, Berlin, Cambridge, Tehran and Pamplona, where we're treated to a bird's-eye-view of the Running with the Bulls. The images are actually photo collages made by layering several images taken over a series of time to give a sense of progression and movement.

"These monochrome surfaces place the events at first sight in a strikingly abstract context, against which people from disparate cultures seen from above do not necessarily appear so different. But when we scrutinize the figures and events more closely, details such as the goods carried on the heads of people in Luanda, the black robes of the women in Teheran or the slightly different attire of the academic students at the University of Cambridge, help us to localize different habits and rituals very precisely." 

One great feature on her website is the ability to zoom in super close, down past people's shoulders to the dirt in between the bricks they're walking on. 

Katrin Korfmann's solo exhibition at Galleri Andersson/Sandstrom in Umea runs from April 4 - May 25, 2012.

Think you can take on Korfmann's work? We do too. Check out 3rd Ward's Image Manipulation class.

-- Perrin Drumm