Imogen Cunningham. Two Callus, 1929. Gelatin Silver print.

And here is the original, the inspiration.

Imogen Cunningham was born in 1873 in Portland, Oregon. She was born into a wealthy family and was able to afford formal education. She attended the American School of Art in Scranton, Pennsylvania to study photography, but then left the school to return west and attend the University of Washington. There her love of photography was rekindled and she worked with a chemistry professor studying the photographic process. She then attended the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, Germany, where she developed a new process for creating sepia tones.

During her years of study, she worked as a photographer of botanical specimens for her professors, and this eventually turned into a fascination. Cunningham was a part of the Precisionists--a group of photographers that strove to move away from the "dreamy romanticism" of the art photography at the time. She emphasized details and patterns in her photos, rather than subject matter alone.

This image is among one of her many botanical prints. The two white Callus are framed by a nearly black background, given the heavy shadows of the piece. A high contrast was used, yet the piece remains balanced due to the nearly equal amounts of white and black areas. The white lilies were captured close-up and straight on. The light, coming from somewhere to the right, highlights the crisp edges of the lilies' petals and leaf edges, helping it to emerge from the darkness.

For Cunningham, this photo was mainly about patterns and details found in nature, and tied in with her Precisionist philosophy as an example of the kind of crisp, un-romanticized images they strove to create. Probably created for art's sake, the photo nevertheless shows her curiosity for natural details.

Cunningham used the Gelatin silver print method, which allowed for shorter exposures and subsequently sittings. It was a fairly popular process at the time, and a step up from the Collodion wet-plate process. Cunningham got close to her subject when photographing as well.

While her photos are aesthetically pleasing, there's also a degree of documentation, probably stemming from her background in chemistry and science, that appeals to me--while the photo may actually be staged somewhat, it doesn't appear to be. She seems just as much a naturalist as an artist.