Impact

BEAUTIFUL SOULS OF COUPLES NOW

As we wrap up our week of Beautiful Couples, we are sharing some extraordinary photos that we have curated, that feature the essence of couples’ souls -- from contemporary visions of Paul Schneggenburger and Maud Chalard to a retrospective of an iconic couple in the world of photography, Paul and Hazel Strand.

PAUL SCHNEGGENBURGER

Is it sex that is the most intimate exchange between lovers? Before you leap to say “yes,” consider what happens between couples when they are actually sleeping together -- I mean, really sleeping. What transpires when two minds drift off, into other layers of consciousness, and their bodies toss and turn, entwine and diffuse?

Paul Schneggenburger has studied couples as they sleep together, using long exposure photographs to track their trajectories.

In his series, “Sleep of the Beloved,” Schneggenburger takes 6 hour exposure shots of couples, as they sleep, snuggle, and wrestle with their dreams.

It is fascinating and powerful to see how two separate beings merge and cross boundaries, living, both as two and as one -- as if during the night, a new creature emerges -- one with two heads, four arms, four legs -- one massive beating heart.

The couples blur and shift shapes. They continue to communicate well after words have closed down for the night. They love, they hate, they are friends, they are strangers, they clutch, they repel, all the time traveling the landscape of the mattress.

What are they thinking and feeling as they journey through the night? What are they longing for? What problems will they solve? What ideas will they conjure? What passions will they stir together and apart?

MAUD CHALARD

French photographer Maud Chalard captures lovers through her lens in ways they may well wish they could do themselves -- moments in which they might be thinking, “I want to remember this feeling forever.”

The images transcend their medium, as somehow, a mere photographer manages to not only master light, shadow and depth of field, but also depth of emotion. Love pours out of the prints.

Chalard also shoots self-portraits together with her boyfriend Théo Gosselin.

Check out the beauty in Chalard’s couples on her Facebook page as well.

PAUL STRAND & HAZEL STRAND

Aperture Foundation recently presented an exhibition of the iconic couple, Paul and Hazel Strand, both photographers, who made indelible marks in our consciousness, as they covered the history of their world, from 1907 to 1976. This was in concert with the recent retrospective of the couple’s work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the new home of the Paul Strand Collection.

Being the man in their partnership, Paul got all the glory and fame. But Hazel’s works are equally powerful. Aperture is the first to give both sides of the couple their due. Anthony Montoya, former director of the Paul Strand Archive, has selected over fifty works by both photographers.

Viewing the exhibition, we begin to see their relationship, as it plays out in their travels through France, Italy, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, and Scotland.

Hazel assisted her husband, often prepping his shoots, preproducing the locations, technical, and administrative details. Once she had him all set, she went about taking her own photos of the people and places they encountered. She managed to express her own view of what the couple was experiencing.

See more of this beautiful couple’s works here at the Philadelphia Art Museum and at Aperture.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Couples in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 02.15.15. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!