Born in Germany in 1865, Karl Blossfeldt began his artistic career at an apprenticeship in sculpture and metalwork at the Art Ironworks and Foundry. He moved onto studying music and painting at the Institute of Royal Arts Museum in Berlin and where he eventually applied for a teaching post. He taught plant drawing and modeling there for over 30 years. 

Blossfeldt's main focus in photography was plants. He was particularly interested in extremely close up images of buds and how plants grew. He believed that "the plant must be valued as a totally artistic and architectural structure." He used his images in his teaching. 

 Bossfledt never received any formal training in photography. However, he did create a series of home-made cameras specially made to magnify the plant up to 3000 times. 

At 63 years old, he made a book collection of 120 his photos titled "Art Forms in Nature".