Chill Photographie – Adie, queen of yellow ferns (2018)

Coming up on four years ago now, I reached out to Chill to see if he’d be willing for me to interview him about his work. He graciously agreed–and the resulting interview remains one of the most popular posts I’ve ever made.

He’s continued to make exceptional work in the interim. I’ve especially liked his divergences into B&W. As someone whose work hinges so much on color–his eye is well-suited to a monochrome palette.

What’s interesting is that where I feel like his early work uses a dominant color to create a particular cast for each image–as I recall I observed that he uses color the same way amber traps insects.

This accomplishes something rather intriguing in its departure from that motif. It feels like his forays into B&W have emphasized a new awareness for texture. For example: this frame has six different textures all superbly rendered–ferns (which I suppose are technically two textures as the anterior and posterior surfaces are very different), the sweater, the lace body suit, skin, socks and there’s even a sense of the solidity of the trees in the distance.

The image clearly wouldn’t be as striking in monochrome–but the color is simultaneously key to what makes it interesting while it also balances hyper stylized color against texture, which manages to render the scene more convincingly naturalistic.

Lastly, I am actually grateful to Chill for his continued patronage of Acetylene Eyes. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to suggest that probably 2/3 of the people who find my blog these days get her via his side blog @veryspecialporn.