Mountain slopes glow in fuchsia, forests explode in luminous pink, and valleys seem almost fluorescent. A color world that radically recodes familiar landscapes. What at first glance looks like digital manipulation is in fact the precise revelation of a hidden spectrum.
With Modernising Nature, Kehrer Verlag presents an eye-catching photobook by Zak van Biljon. Using infrared photography, the photographer expands the spectrum visible to the human eye - opening a completely new perspective on landscape.
Originally developed for military and agricultural applications, the technique reveals the energy reflected by plants that normally remains invisible to us. The result: hypnotic image worlds in intense red, vibrating violet and radiant pink - nature as a glowing energetic system.
Van Biljon deliberately plays with the irritation these colors create. His images seduce - and unsettle at the same time. In an age of visual oversaturation, they feel like a reset for our perception: landscape not as a romantic backdrop, but as a dynamic system we have only partially been able to see.
"We need a new way of looking at nature in the 21st century - just as the landscape painters of the 19th century faced the rise of industrialization, I explore how color reshapes our relationship with the world. For me, color is more than light - it’s language. Changing it rewrites how we connect with the landscapes around us." Zak van Biljon
Born in South Africa and now based in Switzerland, Zak van Biljon combines technical precision with conceptual depth. His work revolves around the fragile relationship between humans and the environment - powerful, formally elegant and defined by a distinctive use of color. Modernising Nature is more than an aesthetic experiment: it is an invitation to rethink landscape.