Patrick Gries’ images of skeletons are some of the most incredible we’ve ever seen

For six months, photographer Patrick Gries spent every day photographing 250 skeletons from Museum of Natural History in Paris and other French museums. Each skeleton was rendered against a stark, plain, black background. Yet even with such a restricted environment, he managed to create some of the most amazing photos we've ever seen.

These images were originally created in 2010 for a book he worked on called Evolution (in Action): Natural History Through Spectacular Skeletons, with text by Jean-Baptiste De Panafieu. On his site, Gries explains the project:

This project offers an atypical approach to viewing natural science. The photo series of Paris’ Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle’s collections of vertebrates presents these skeletons as sculptures and forces us to reconsider the boundaries between artistic and scientific objects.With texts written by Dr. Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu, this book belongs both to the realm of art as it does that of science and has been acclaimed throughout the world.

Evolution has been on exhibition in France and Denmark with plans for a show in Tokyo.

According to LensCulture, the images are currently being shown at PhotoVisa Krasnodar in Russia.

The photographs are unlike anything else we've seen, and have an absolutely astonishing range of tones and shades within their limited pallettes. Given how often we've seen animal skeletons at museums, these photos do an amazing job of making them feel as incredible today as they did when we first saw them as children.

(via BrainPickings, Photojojo, LensCulture)