Miniature Models of History’s Most Famous Photographs

Author: Anika Burgess / Source: Atlas Obscura

The auction of Andreas Gursky’s photograph Rhine II for a record-breaking $4.3 million in 2011 had an unintended artistic consequence: it inspired two Swiss photographers, Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger, to try to recreate the image as a three-dimensional, miniature model.

The original, which depicts a strip of the Rhine under a gray, low-hanging sky, was recreated using transparent paper and cotton wool for the clouds and plastic foil for the water. Now, six years and some 40 models later, they’ve released a collection of their recreations titled Double Take: The World’s Most Iconic Photographs Meticulously Re-created in Miniature.

Since the project began in 2012, Cortis and Sonderegger have built miniature models for some of history’s most recognizable photographs, from Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s 1826 image View from the Window at Le Gras, to the iconic photo of the Hindenberg disaster, to Pennie Smith’s shot of The Clash’s Paul Simonon smashing his bass guitar in London. Along the way, they had to find creative ways to replicate everything from billowing clouds to moon dust.

“When we start, we discuss the materials, but it’s always trial and error,” says Sonderegger in an interview included…

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