Broken Conch Shell

American photographer Andreas Feininger is best known for black and white photographs of cityscapes, but he also produced an extensive body of work featuring natural subjects. Enlarged forms fill the picture plane, showing Feininger’s fascination with the internal structures of both animate and inanimate entities while intimating the effect studies in cabinetmaking and architecture had on his sensibilities. Although taken before international attention was paid to the ecological crisis, looking at such close-ups of shells and coral today inevitably makes us think about how climate change has affected coral reefs around the world. The life of those fragile ecosystems is endangered, as they suffer the consequences of pollution, rising water temperatures, acidification, agricultural runoff and other human-induced damage to the environment.