I was going to do separate photography posts for Debora Mittelstaedt and Yelda Yilmaz, but the similarities between the two were too good to pass up. Both German photographers, both have great light and tone in their work. Ok, not a pile of similarities, but for my purposes here they’re perfect. Plus there are all kinds of interesting parallels drawn between two German photographers, one living in New York and one in Hamburg. Is their German-ness the source of their shared styles? Does being German automatically make you a good candidate for warm, buttery lighting and a feeling of cold morning air? Check after the jump for more of my bullshit along the same lines.
Debora Mittelstaedt (work pictured above), currently an NYC loc, has that Ryan McGinley-esque quality of lighting (though not as forced) that always makes me think that I’m watching the sunrise in a quiet house with my friends. It feels like a dewy, clear morning in early Spring, on a decaying front porch, everyone is not awake enough to talk, and the silence just magnifies the first syrupy rays of light that paint the trees gold and cast a million diamonds through the wet grass. Mostly portraits, calm, cool, and quiet, Mittelstaedt has a way of capturing those transitional moments in life where the questions are forming but the decisions haven’t been made. This is the moment right before fight or flight, the calm before the storm. You can see more of Mittelstaedt’s work here
The work of Hamburg photographer Yelda Yilmaz, in contrast, is more intimate. It’s softer and more like a caress. It gets in close. Yilmaz, like Mittelstaedt, has a way with that buttery light, but uses a wider range including starkly contrasted black and white, and dim light. Her photos are more like film stills from a French New Wave film, like whispers in bed on a perfumed pillow. Her work is also mostly portraits, but more Autumn than Mittelstaedt’s Spring. They’re breathy and just a little melancholy, photographs taken just to remember that life, at times, has been very beautiful. Check out Yilmaz’s Flickr or her portfolio.
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