Best Modern Photographers of July 2020

Originally from Arctic Russia, Natalya Saprunova is an independent photographer based in Paris. She was a photojournalist in Murmansk Messenger daily newspaper before coming to France after her graduation as a French teacher at the Pedagogical University of Murmansk. After 5 years working in the Marketing & Communication department at PENTAX Company in Paris, Natalya continues on her way in documentary photography. Graduated from the school of photojournalism EMI-CFD in Paris this year, her photos series explore issues of modern society related to identity, youth, femininity, immigration, environment and spirituality. Natalya also gives workshops at the Graine de Photographe photo school, based on Ile Saint-Louis in Paris and she accompanies photo trips to Russia, especially to Baikal Lake in collaboration with the Worldway agency.

Mathilde Helene Pettersen, born 1976 in Norway. Photographer and visual artist, lives and work in Kristiansand, south of Norway. Holds a BA in Photography and film from Napier Edinburgh University, Scotland and a MA in Art from the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. Pettersen is a member of Association of Norwegian Visual Artist and society of Fine Art Photographers in Norway. Between 2013 and 2015 she was selected for the Norwegian Journal of Photography #2, a program supporting eight independent photographers in Norway, working on long-term projects and published by Journal, Stockholm (2015). In this publication, she chose to show a selection from her project Searching for Cloudberries, which was featured in Time Magazine/Lightbox and SHOTS magazine and exhibited at the Festival Voies Off in Arles, France (2016) and at the Encuentros Abiertos Festival de La Luz , in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2016) and at the Henie Onstad Art center in Oslo, Norway (2019). Her work I need a kiss before they leave was exhibited at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland (2016), Kristiansand Kunsthall, Norway (2017), the International Photofestival PhotoVisa in Krasnodar, Russia (2017) and is currently on show at the Sørlandets Museum of Art (Jun-Nov 2020) alongside photographers as Swedish Christer Strömholm and Anders Petersen and the Norwegian Tom Sandberg, Dag Alveng and Kåre Kivijärvi. Her first photobook I NEED A KISS BEFORE THEY LEAVE was launched at Paris Photo 2019 at the Grand Palais by the German Kehrer Verlag in Heidelberg.

Philippe Fatin is a photographer and a great traveller: after first stays in Mexico and South America, he discovered Asia (Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Korea) and fell in love with China and more particularly with the region of Guizhou. After an interlude with the Wayanas Indians in French Guyana and the publication of his first book Guyane terre d'espace, he multiplies his travels to the Miao people of Guizhou and ends up residing there for more than twenty years. He published a book Randonnée d'un photographe voyageur in China and exhibits at the Guiyang museum, he also publishes in the national and international press. He is also a collector, organized various exhibitions of his personal collections in French museums: Gold and lacquers from Burma, tribal textiles from southwest China, Nuo masks from the exorcism theatre of China accompanied by publications.

Lisa Tichané is a commercial photographer specialized in kids & babies. She has a true passion for children and loves documenting the energy and playfulness of childhood. Based in France but travelling internationally for commissioned work, she is well known for her unique ability to connect with her tiny models and get irresistible images even from the most unpredictable, unwilling subjects. She thrives to capture real life, true joy and wild carefree moments. She is a published author and her work has been featured in many international books and magazines. Her images can be found in advertising campaigns for international brands such as Colgate, MAM Baby, Procter & Gamble, Enfamil, Danone Cow & Gate or Stanhome. In addition to shooting international advertisements for major brands, she has been hired by the world's leading publishers to write books on children photography, as well as teach her tricks and tools of the trade to hundreds of other photographers.

Lynn Karlin's move to Maine after 13 years as a successful commercial photographer in New York City brought her back to her love of fine-art photography. Growing up in Queens, New York, Lynn graduated from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Her career took off when she was chosen as the first woman staff photographer for Women's Wear Daily and W, where, day and night, she photographed the rich and famous. Back then, her portraits featured everyone from trendy fashion designers to celebrities. She went on to freelance for the New York Times Magazine, House Beautiful, New York Magazine, Country Living, and other major publications. When Lynn left NYC in 1983 for a new life on a farm in Maine, she helped run a market garden while co-authoring, with Stanley Joseph, the now-classic Maine Farm: A Year of Country Life (Random House, 1991). She also took on assignments for garden magazines, winning awards world-wide. Her life after the farm led her down yet another road photographing the best-selling Gardens Maine Style (Down East Books, 2001), with writer Rebecca Sawyer-Fay. Then, in 2008, after seeing an amazingly beautiful cauliflower at a local farmers' market, Lynn began photographing and styling a series of still-lifes called The Pedestal Series which celebrate vegetables by elevating them to a place of honor-on a pedestal. Thirteen years later she moved from produce back to people after spotting a remarkable young man named Paul, whose ruffled hair and strong features led her in an entirely new direction: Stories in Profile, a series of portraits that have won international competitions and currently show in galleries and private collections from New York to Paris.

I was born in 1992 in Lebanon, right after the end of the war, in a fragmented country that had to reinvent itself. At the age of 16 I started to get closer to Beirut and used my camera to question the city, its people, and my place among them. I graduated with a master degree in photography from the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in 2015. Today I use photography to explore, defy and resist society. It is my way of constantly reinventing myself in the body and the city I live in.

Dotan Saguy was born in a small kibbutz five miles south of Israel's Lebanese border. He grew up in a diverse working-class Parisian suburb, lived in Lower Manhattan during 9/11, and moved to Los Angeles in 2003. In 2015, Saguy decided to focus on his lifelong passion for photography after a successful career as a high-tech entrepreneur. Since then Saguy attended the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop, Missouri Photo Workshop and studied photojournalism at Santa Monica College. Saguy's award-winning photographs have been published by National Geographic, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. Saguy teaches street photography and documentary workshops for Leica Akademie and Momenta Workshops. In 2018 Saguy's first monograph about the endangered culture of Venice Beach, CA was published by Kehrer Verlag and received a Bronze award by the prestigious Deutscher Fotobuchpreis 2018-19. Saguy lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

Tony Law is a professional designer and photographer. He has a studio, mainly focussed on interior design, graphic design, architectural illustration and photography. He was born and raised in Guangzhou, China. He studied in Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. majoring in Industrial Design. In the early 1990s, he came to Australia for further study, settled in Sydney, and has been living there ever since. He was interested in art and photography when he was a child. After joining the "Chinese Photographic Society of Australia Inc." in 2011, he began his photography journey. Later in 2012, he and some local landscape photographers formed the "Australian Seascape Photography Group". He has great interest in shooting a wide range of subjects, exploring different styles and techniques. In recent years, though, he has mainly focused on shooting sports, seascape and astrophotography. His works have been published in magazines and he has won many prominent international photography awards.

Gary Beeber is an award-winning American photographer/filmmaker who has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe. His documentary films have screened at over 75 film festivals. Solo (photography) exhibitions include two at Generous Miracles Gallery (NYC), the Griffin Museum of Photography (Wincester, MA), and upcoming exhibitions at PRAXIS Photo Arts Center, and the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts. Beeber’s work has also been included in juried exhibitions throughout the world. Among Fortune 500 companies who collect his work are Pfizer Pharmaceutical, Goldman Sachs and Chase Bank.

Solmaz Daryani is an Iranian photographer and photojournalist, based between the UK and Iran. Her work is particularly known for exploring the themes of climate security, climate change, water crisis, human identity and environment. Daryani has worked internationally, covering social and environmental documentary stories in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Her work has been published by international magazines and newspapers such as National Geographic Magazine, L'OBS Magazine, Foreign Policy Magazine, Polka Magazine, Zenith Magazine among others.