The photographer Paulette Tavormina began her professional career working with antiques, food styling and photographing works of art for an auction house. She’s also spent many years collecting bits and pieces — the insects, objects and flowers that fill her studio — from markets and little shops. Her new book “Seizing Beauty,” out next week, took six years to photograph and brings together all these experiences: It features 65 sumptuous color images inspired by old master still lifes. (The book’s release coincides with a show at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Md., which opens April 23.)
At first glance, you might easily mistake one of Tavormina’s images for a Zurbarán or a work from the Dutch Golden Age of painting — many of the book’s photographs are built up with flowers, fruit, insects, objects, jewelry, butterflies and broken bits of porcelain. Others are inspired by the symbolic Vanitas paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries, with skulls and the reminder of death and the passing of all worldly goods.
