CGD

"The client really had confidence in us and gave us a blank check, which is very rare among big commercial clients." Bet Orten

Photographer Bet Orten says that her aim recently has been to deviate from traditional fashion photography by having fashion take a backseat in her work. She takes another daring step in her photographs of lighting objects from the Solitaires collection made by Preciosa Lighting and designed by leading Czech designers. While enhancing the shape of Klára Šumová's Unité chandelier with a group of models veiled in large colourful drapery, she concentrates on light in her other photos - shifting an improvised lit wooden interior in an electrifying landscape close to Kamenický Šenov from one place to another as a way of confronting natural and artificial light. Beams from the light designed by Jakub Berdych intersect with the shadows of trees in the surrounding forest; Souls lights by Eva Eisler "leak" from smouldering logs and pure geometric shapes emerge from the morning mist. In all her photos, Bet Orten succeeds in showing her exceptional feel for sensitive stage design and allows the spectator to see these lights in unexpected contexts. This is perhaps best seen in her production photos where she keeps distance from her installation, depicting a doll's house in a foreboding deep forest or at the columnar rocks of Panská skála.

Karel Císař