Michael Levin is landscape photographer who creates the most stunning monochrome images. In our second award of the month, we look at his website.
A Vancouver based landscape photographer, Michael Levin creates striking monochrome landscape photographs.
Michael’s website is a stunning reflection of his work, calm, cool and oh so elegant. He is a master of the very long exposure that turns moving water, especially the ocean, into a massively blurred tonal area devoid of detail. Michael’s work shows a truly masterful use of this approach. He create minimalist, abstract and yet realist, landscape images that work at so very many levels. I love this approach myself, having done some of it, but I am in awe of Michael’s images. Almost all of his images include manmade objects and constructions, whether there are piers, an ocean swimming pool, a sea wall or the remains of some jetty. All the works are just perfect, and mostly square. Reflecting on the images I am drawn into a calm, tranquil place that lies somewhere between this world and the next.
The website is elegant in its simplicity. Also in monochrome, the site design gives the images a lot of space to work in. An opening page takes you into the main site. Michael’s photography is displayed in four galleries of six works each. A plane HTML site, it works beautifully. In addition to the four galleries there is a statement page, a news page and a contact page that not only has Michael’s contact details but also lists the galleries that represent his work. On any of the main pages if you click on his name you are taken straight to your email program to send an email. Effective, elegant and stunning.
Michael’s work has touched me deeply. It reminds me of the power of photography to not simply record but to create, for the photographer to be an active crafter of the image, through any of the huge range of available tools. That you can create such stunning images using such a simple approach of the long exposure is a great reminder that complexity is not always desirable.
Explore Michael’s images, contemplate them, learn from them. I hope they move you as much as they move me.
