The Aquatic Street by Deb Achak

Deb Achak's Aquatic Street series documents life by the ocean as a silent observer. She swims within crowds of people, looking below the surface, both literally and figuratively.

Traveling the world and swimming with her camera allows Achak to chronical beach culture from the unique vantage point of the water, a method she refers to as aquatic street photography. She looks for locations where people seek pleasure in the water, capturing the full range of human experience, from joy to weightless suspension to peaceful contemplation.

The "street" in "aquatic street photography", often takes the form of rocks jutting out of the water, the sandy or pebbly coastline, and the water itself, which becomes a thoroughfare for families, packs of children, elderly couples and endless others captured in weightless suspension, or swept up into a wave.

The concept of seeing below the surface is a key element of the Aquatic Street. It's about getting in touch with what's hidden or not readily visible. It also celebrates the fundamental beauty of people, regardless of culture, age, or body size. There is a hidden world under the surface of water but also within each of us that is mysterious and rare. Achak is curious about the way ordinary bodies suspended in water -- both poetic and painterly -- reveal something about our true nature. We are all exceptional in our own way, but who are we without the artifice of belongings and careers, stripped down to our swimsuits and bareskin, floating weightless and in our joy? The water brings that forth like no other environment.

Croatia © Deb Achak

Ka'anapali Beach, Maui © Deb Achak

Water Country, NH © Deb Achak

Maui © Deb Achak

About Deb Achak
Deb Achak is a contemporary fine art photographer based in Seattle, WA. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including Women Street Photographers Anual Group Exhibitions, New York, NY (2018, 2019, 2020); Winston Wächter Fine Art in Seattle; Foto Festival in Bielsko-Biala, Poland; Sofia Photo Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria; Photoplace Gallery in Middlebury, VT; and the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro, VT. In addition, her work is in the permanent collection of the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops in Santa Fe, NM. She is the recipient of numerous accolades for photography, and her work is represented by Winston Wächter Fine Art New York and Seattle.

Deb Achak's Website
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All About Deb Achak

Maui © Deb Achak

Undertow © Deb Achak

Croatia © Deb Achak

The Queue, Maui © Deb Achak

Favignana, Sicily © Deb Achak

The Blue Lagoon, Iceland © Deb Achak

Local Girl Split, Croatia © Deb Achak

Deniro Tattoo, Zlatne Rat, Croatia © Deb Achak

The Blue Lagoon, Iceland © Deb Achak

Split, Croatia © Deb Achak

The Blue Lagoon, Icland © Deb Achak

Secret Lagoon, Iceland © Deb Achak

Punta de Mita, Mexico © Deb Achak

Split, Croatia © Deb Achak

Diana Markosian: Father

By Diana Markosian

Publisher : Aperture

2024 | 144 pages

Diana Markosian’s Father is an intimate and engrossing diaristic portrayal of estrangement and reconnection, recounted through documentary photographs, family snapshots, text, and visual ephemera.

Diana Markosian: Father presents the photographer’s journey to another place and another time, where Markosian attempts to piece together an image of a familiar stranger—her long-lost father. The book explores her father’s absence, her reconciliation with him, and the shared emptiness of their prolonged estrangement. The images, made over the course of a decade, take place in her father’s home in Armenia. In Markosian’s first monograph, Santa Barbara (Aperture, 2020), the photographer recreates the story of her family’s journey from post–Soviet Russia to the US in the 1990s. Father uses both documentary photographs and archives of objects, letters, and vernacular images to probe the fifteen years of absence and separation from the photographer’s childhood. In this voyage of self-discovery, Markosian touchingly renders her longing for connection to a man she barely remembers and who asks her, when she finds him, “Why did it take you so long?”

All About Diana Markosian

Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images

By Aperture

Publisher : Aperture

2024 | 312 pages

The first title in Aperture’s Vision & Justice Book Series—featuring a collection of award-winning short essays by Maurice Berger that explore the intersections of photography, race, and visual culture. Created and coedited by Drs. Sarah Lewis, Leigh Raiford, and Deborah Willis, the series reexamines and redresses historical narratives of photography, race, and justice.

Race Stories: Essays on the Power of Images examines the transformational role photography plays in shaping ideas and attitudes about race and how photographic images have been instrumental in both perpetuating and combatting racial stereotypes. Written between 2012 and 2019 and first presented as a monthly feature on the New York Times Lens blog, Berger’s incisive essays help readers see a bigger picture about race through storytelling. By directing attention to the most revealing aspects of images, Berger makes complex issues comprehensible, vivid, and engaging. The essays illuminate a range of images, issues, and events: the modern civil rights movement; African American–, Latinx–, Asian American–, and Native American photography; and pivotal moments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when race, photography, and visual culture intersected. They also examine the full spectrum of photographic imaging: from amateur to professional pictures, from snapshots to fine art, from mugshots to celebrated icons of photojournalism.

Race Stories collects together Berger’s reader-friendly essays in their breadth and brilliance to encourage a broad range of readers to look at and think about photographs in order to better understand themselves and the diverse world around them.

The Minimalist Photographer: 50 techniques for capturing beauty in simplicity

By Antony Zacharias

Publisher : Laurence King Publishing

2025 | 144 pages

Find out how to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary with this guide to minimalist photography.

With advice on composition, balance, shape and texture, this book takes inspiration from the masters of minimalism to demonstrate how stripping a subject down to its very essence can help you craft beautifully bold and unique images.

Illustrated with the finest examples of the style from the likes of Fan Ho, Imogen Cunningham, Michael Kenna, Berenice Abbott, William Eggleston and Horst P. Horst, this book guides you through the key techniques that define minimalism and provides easy-to-follow advice for how to create your own minimalist images that are visually striking in their simplicity.

Alan Schaller: Metropolis

By Alan Schaller

Publisher : TeNeues

2023 | 240 pages

In his coffee table book Metropolis, Alan Schaller presents city life in his own individual way, setting standards in modern street photography. For all lovers of spectacular black-and-white photography, the coffee table book Metropolis is a must-have, because there is hardly anything comparable on the market. In a unique way, Alan Schaller depicts urban contrasts that big cities like New York, London, Paris, Tokyo or Istanbul hold in store in their architecture and everyday life. In the photo book Metropolis, Alan Schaller elevates city views to an art form, playing with light and perspective and creates a world in black and white that captivates the viewer. This is what fans of Schaller love about his work. The photo artist manages to capture moments for eternity. Accompany Alan Schaller in his coffee table book Metropolis on 240 pages through the most famous metropolises on earth. Look forward to impressive black-and-white photographs, with extraordinary city views in which people and architecture merge in an intimate moment.

The Aquatic Street by Deb Achak

Deb Achak's Website

Selected Books