Elevated Perspectives: Krista Jahnke’s Aerial Artistry in Landscape Photography

The Canadian photographer Krista Jahnke acknowledges that, during her time studying architecture at Ottawa’s Carlton University, architecture was never her main source of inspiration for her studio work. Rather, she gravitated towards art, especially the cubism of Picasso and Braque, whose compositions hinted at their own version of spatial geometry. She expresses that her studio creations were more focused on physical modeling than illustration. Initially, photography served as a way to depict her models in two dimensions, but it gradually became more abstract; intensely close-up, interpreted as baroque layers or in gentle focus, the images turned into works of art themselves, with the subjects becoming secondary.

What occurs when the world itself becomes your model? Jahnke reveals that she never ventures out without her camera drone; here, she is accompanying a few architect friends on a journey through Italy. The build-up to this image involved a gradual, twisting drive up the opposite side of this valley near Carrara. Along the way, they encountered dilapidated, dusty workers’ villages inhabited by those whose responsibilities were to carve stone from the hills. They were strikingly photogenic; Jahnke laments not taking the time to capture them on camera.

The drone captures the vista in a manner that even Jahnke, from her final viewpoint, could never achieve; and from this position, the abstraction she sought at the micro level is mirrored at the macro. Nature subjected to human intervention for over 20 centuries, this ancient, now fractal, landscape embodies the characteristics of exceptional contemporary art – eternity wrapped in modernity.