Rob Blanken (b. 1956) begins his photography projects by asking himself a series of questions: what do I see, what does it evoke in me and what story do I want to tell? The Dutch artist first fixed his lens on nature 15 years ago, revealing how ordinary subjects can be made remarkable. His images of crystals are painstakingly created, using scientific methods to uncover the hidden worlds within the rocks. Blanken explains: “I made the set up myself, and it uses LED lights, a polarisation filer, petri dish with crystals and a camera with a magnifying macro lens.” The process involves adding amino acids to the crystals and slowly heating them, until a pattern of crystalisation begins to appear on the bottom of the dish.
The result is unique each time. Some swirling designs are deep blue and purple, others are fiery red and orange. One image is so multicoloured it looks like a field of flowers, stretching out into the distance. The single moment of beauty is well worth the laborious work. In revealing this splendor, Blanken highlights how the the human body is often mirrored in nature, like the veins of a leaf repeated in a pair of lungs. He continues: “The formation of crystals is a natural process that happens within our bodies, and when chemicals crystallise they often look a lot like my patterns. Nature repeats itself a lot. You can’t see them but they do exist on a more or less microscopic level and surprisingly, they resemble the actual world.”
Words: Emma Jacob
Image credits:
All images courtesy of the artist.
