Modern Photographers / P

Platon (Antoniou)

Platon (Antoniou)

United Kingdom
1968

Born in London in 1968, Platon was raised in the Greek Isles until his family returned to England in the 1970's. He attended St. Martin's School of Art and after receiving his BA with honors in Graphic Design, went on to receive an MA in Photography and Fine Art at the Royal College of Art. After working for British Vogue for several years, he was invited to NY to work for the late John Kennedy Jr. and his political magazine, 'George'. After shooting portraits for a range of international publications including Rolling Stone, the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ and the Sunday Times Magazine, Platon developed a special relationship with Time magazine, producing over 20 covers. In 2007 Platon photographed Russian Premier Vladimir Putin for Time Magazine's Person Of The Year Cover. This image was awarded 1st prize at the World Press Photo Contest. In 2008 he signed a multi-year contract with the New Yorker. As the staff photographer, he has produced a series of large-scale photo essays, two of which won ASME Awards in 2009 and 2010. Platon's New Yorker portfolios have focused on many themes including President Obama's Inauguration, the U.S Military, portraits of world leaders and the Civil Rights Movement. The following year, Platon teamed up with the Human Rights Watch to help them celebrate those who fight for equality and justice in countries suppressed by political forces. These projects have highlighted human rights defenders from Burma as well as the leaders of the Egyptian revolution. Following his coverage of Burma, Platon photographed Aung San Suu Kyi for the cover of Time - days after her release from house arrest. In 2011, Platon was honored with a prestigious Peabody Award for a collaboration on the topic of Russia's Civil Society with The New Yorker Magazine and Human Rights Watch. Platon's first monograph 'Platon's Republic', was published in 2004 by Phaidon Press. To coincide with its publication, the work was exhibited internationally, in London at the ex-Saatchi Gallery as well as the Milk Gallery in New York. His second book, 'Power' - a collection of portraits of over 100 world leaders - was published in 2011 by Chronicle and following its success was selected by Apple to be released as an app. The book includes portraits of Barack Obama, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Dmitry Medvedev, Benjamin Netanyahu, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Abbas, Tony Blair, Robert Mugabe, Silvio Berlusconi, and Muammar Qaddafi. In recent years, public speaking has progressively played a major role in Platon's career as communicator and storyteller. He has been invited to be a keynote speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Yale, the London School of Economics, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the International Center of Photography in NY. He has also appeared on a range of television media including Charlie Rose (PBS), Morning Joe (MSNBC), Fareed Zakaria's GPS (CNN) and the BBC World News. Between 2011-2013, Platon's work has been exhibited in galleries both domestically and abroad. He has exhibited in New York at the Matthew Marks Gallery and the Howard Greenberg Gallery, as well as internationally at the Colette Gallery in Paris, France. The New York Historical Society also exhibited a solo show of Platon's Civil Rights photographs, which remain as part of the museum's permanent collection. Other permanent collections holding Platon's photography include The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Tampa, Florida and The Westlicht Museum for Photography in Vienna, Austria. Platon's advertising credits include the United Nations Foundation, Credit Suisse Bank, Exxon Mobil, Diesel, the Wall Street Journal, Motorola, Nike, Converse, Verizon, Vittel, Levi's, IBM, Rolex, Ray-Ban, Tanqueray, Kenneth Cole, Issey Miyake, Moschino, Timex and Bertelsmann among others. Platon lives in New York with his wife, daughter and son. (Source: www.platonphoto.com)

Anna Hayat and Slava Pirsky

Anna Hayat and Slava Pirsky

Israel

We are Anna Hayat (born 1974) and Slava Pirsky (born 1965), originally from the Soviet Union. Each of us decided to start a new life in Israel in the early 90s, in search of new horizons. Fate brought us to Jerusalem through different paths, where we lived for over 20 years and now find joy in a small town nearby. We met in 1999 and instantly felt a special connection, as if our shared passion for photography brought us closer. In 2000, we became proud parents of an exquisite daughter whom we started photographing from her very birth. Since then, we have become an inseparable team and partners in the world of photography and art. For over 20 years, we have actively collaborated on joint photography projects. Our creative process revolves around analog photography, primarily using old Polaroid large-format black and white negative plates. Despite the discontinuation of production of these films in 2008, we use expired films to create unique and emotive works of art. We capture images using both a large studio camera and small field Polaroid cameras. The slow shooting process is of utmost importance to us, as it imparts a special depth to our works. In a way, the negative itself becomes another partner in our process. We appreciate the unpredictability of old negatives, which gives our photographs a distinct character, a touch of poetry, and a timeless feeling that is crucial to our work. Our latest project reflects our emotions and pain caused by Russia's treacherous aggression. For this series, we ventured into a mixed technique for the first time, tearing and cutting our works, stitching them anew, adding patches and seams. The project was showcased at the Ramlah Museum and immediately after at the KyotoGraphie International Photography Festival in Japan.

David Pace

United States
1951 | † 2020

David Pace is a Bay Area photographer and curator. He received his MFA from San Jose State University in 1991. He has taught photography at San Jose State University, San Francisco State University and Santa Clara University, where he served as Resident Director of SCU's study abroad program in West Africa from 2009 - 2013. Pace photographed in the small sub-Saharan country of Burkina Faso annually from 2007-2016, documenting daily life in Bereba, a remote village without electricity or running water. His work has been exhibited internationally. His African photographs of the Karaba Brick Quarry are featured in the 2019 Venice Biennale in a group show entitled "Personal Structures" organized by the European Cultural Center. His book Images In Transition, a collaboration with gallerist Stephen Wirtz, was published in the spring of 2019 by Schilt Publishing. "Through my photography I want to express to a broad audience what it's like to live in West Africa. The Western media typically shows only the negative side of life in Africa, highlighting war, famine, genocide, and illness. This perspective is newsworthy but it is incomplete and misleading. It fails to capture the richness and complexity of life in small villages where a large percentage of West Africans live and work. Most live simple, meaningful lives. My photography in the remote village of Bereba and the surrounding region portrays a story of life in the community that is largely positive. My work projects a view that may be at odds with the more common perspective, but is no less accurate or realistic. I am committed to communicating the realities of life in West Africa to challenge the negativity that too frequently pervades the images we see." David Pace About Sur La Route

Manuello Paganelli

Manuello Paganelli

Dominican Republic/United States
1960

I was born in the Dominican Republic and growing up in the 1960s I watched my parents devote time to help others, exposing me to the inequality of wealth, education, and the lack of mind and body wellness prevalent on our small island. It was hard for me to understand why poor children would be on the streets instead of in a warmer, safer place. I saw school-age boys like me but barefoot and shining the fancy shoes of businessmen. Scruffy kids with open hands asking for pennies. Running, begging for anything to eat, fending for themselves, and surviving on their wits alone. None of my parents' words made it better, or helped me understand what led to my country's socio-economic crisis. With my parents' humanistic influence, I figured I would become an attorney like my father or a missionary doctor. In 1972, I arrived in the US for high school without speaking any English. By my last year of college in Tennessee, I lost all desire to become a doctor, My father stopped supporting me. I found work on the assembly lines and loading docks of the local McKee Baking Company. In 1982 I bought my first camera as a way to forget my doomed career. While browsing in a bookstore I learned about a man named Ansel Adams. A few glances at Adams' powerful black-and-white landscapes left me hypnotized. Within days, I was on the telephone with Ansel. It was an innocent call but that first conversation with Ansel Adams led to many more, until we established a warm mentoring relationship that lasted until he passed away in 1984. My break into professional photography began when I was hired as a staff photographer for The Chattanooga Times in 1982. While that photojournalism experience was invaluable, I soon left for the Washington, DC area, where I began a freelance editorial photography career and from there migrated into humanistic photography. In 1989, I began traveling to Cuba to find long-lost relatives. There I learned about the social issues of the island and the survival spirit of the Cuban people, becoming increasingly aware of the socio-political climate I continued to travel there. My documentary photos from my Cuban project culminated in an exhibition in 1995, where a Washington Post columnist wrote: "Paganelli's Cuban photographs are a brilliant window on a land and people too long hidden from North American eyes... Paganelli brings an artist's eyes and a native son's sensibility to his superb photographs." My current essay project, which started in 1994, explores Black Cowboys across the USA, examining cultural and regional influences within this well developed sub-culture. Statement I never planned on becoming a professional photographer. I always thought I'd be a doctor, but during my senior year in college I began to have doubts about a career in medicine. It was around that time that I bought a Canon camera. Despite years in the business, I still possess that same excitement for the craft that gripped me the first time I picked up a camera. And, too, I maintain a passion for sharing my subjects' stories through documentary photography. My influences are the things that my eyes capture from the moment I get up, see, sense and experience and everything else beyond that with the elements of sounds , shadows and light. But I've always admired the work of Walker Evans, Henry Cartier Bresson and most notably the works of W.Eugene Smith and Robert Frank. I also love the landscape of Ansel Adams and the beautiful magical touches of the portraits done by Irving Penn.

Anastasia Pagonas

Anastasia Pagonas

United States

Anastasia Pagonas is a photographer, writer and teacher living in the American Southwest. She is the founder of MEMORY CULT, an online community for insurgent family photography. Her writing explores artistic autonomy, the subject/photographer relationship and the effect of the attention economy on creative vision. For 16 years she has photographed families from the child’s point of view, producing art books and large format prints for her clients and audience, drawing particular inspiration from the physical photograph as art object and personal document.

Nelli Palomäki

Nelli Palomäki

Finland
1981

Nelli Palomäki was born 1981 in Forssa, Finland. At the moment she lives and works in Karkkila and Helsinki, Finland. Her timeless portraits of children and young people reveal the fragility of the moment shared with her subject. Palomäki’s photographs deal with the growth, memory and our problematic way of seeing ourselves. One of the crucial themes in her portraiture is our mortality. She describes: “We fight against our mortality, denying it, yet photographs are there to prove our inescapable destiny. The idea of getting older is heart-rending.” She is a graduate of Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture in Helsinki. Palomäki’s works have been exhibited in numerous international solo and group exhibitions. Selected solo shows: Shared (Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris 2018), Shared (Gallery Taik Persons, Berlin 2017), Jaettu (Forum Box, Helsinki 2016), Breathing the Same Air (Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen 2013), Nelli Palomäki (The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki 2013), Sons of Nakhimov (The Wapping Project Bankside, London 2012), As time consumes us (Les Rencontres d’Arles, Discovery Award 2012), As time consumes us (Kulturhuset, Stockholm 2011), Elsa and Viola (Next Level Projects, London 2011), Elsa and Viola (Gallery TAIK, Berlin 2009), I, Daughter (Turku Art Museum, Turku 2008). Her photographs have been shown in several group shows including Helsinki City Art Museum, Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg, Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York, Daegu Photo Biennale in South Korea, The National Museum of Photography in Copenhagen, Purdy Hicks Gallery in London and Aperture Gallery in New York. Palomäki’s photography has been featured in several publications such as TIME magazine, British journal of photography, Independent magazine, New York Magazine, Zoom and Exit. Her book Breathing the Same Air was published spring 2013 by Hatje Cantz. In spring 2010 Palomäki placed 2nd in Sony World Photography Awards in portraiture category and the same year Hasselblad Foundation awarded her the Victor Fellowship Grant for the studies in London. She has been selected as one of the young emerging artist for the reGeneration2–Tomorrow's Photographers Today project. In summer 2012 Palomäki was nominated for the Discover Award at the Rencontres d’Arles in France. Permanent collections include: Moderna Museet in Stockholm; The Hague Museum of Photography, Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg and Helsinki Art Museum. Palomäki is represented by Gallery Taik Persons (Berlin), Galerie Les filles du calvaire (Paris) and Jackson Fine Art (Atlanta). Source: nellipalomaki.com About The Work Seen and captured by someone else’s eyes reminds us that the image we have of ourselves is not absolute, it is not truthful. In many senses the mirror lies more than a photograph. We learn to see ourselves in such a one-dimensional way, that hardly any image can satisfy us anymore. While time gnaws away at the faces of us and our close ones, we return to look at the pictures from our past. As beautiful or poignant as an image may be; as much as we could garner from it emotionally, the feeling for which we search remains intangible and elusive. We will never fully comprehend or recreate the moment, it died at the moment of its’ birth. Sadly, the portrait is just a shadow of our meeting, a small stain of the time we spend together. Each and every portrait I have taken is a photograph of me too. What I decide to see, or more likely, how I confront the things that I see, inevitably determines the final image. But more than that, the intensity of the moment shared with the subject, controls the portrait. As we stand there, with our grave faces, breathing the same heavy air; never so aware of each other’s details. One blind and lost without seeing his own appearance, one desperately trying to reach the perfect moment. The complexity of portraiture, its greatest trap, eventually always lies on its power relationships. What I desire to find and to reveal might be someone’s secret. These secrets, finally shown to the viewers, as they were mine. A portrait remains forever. It is a desperate way to stay connected to someone who, though possibly a stranger, remains so familiar. It is my way of preserving a part of that person, embalming them. Through the portrait I build a relationship with my subject. I carry my subject’s memories with me, memories, as they are, being so intimately connected with photographs. Secretly I study their faces. This is how I remember them. I wonder how they remember me. As the time eats slowly away at us, I still hold these images of them, like they are the only way I ever knew, or will know these people. And that ever pervasive feeling; I met them. They will die and eventually I too will die.

Lydia Panas

United States
1958

Lydia Panas works with photography and video. Working primarily with women, her images are attentive to the psyche and what lies below the surface investigating questions about who we are and what we want to become. Panas’ work has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally and has appeared in many periodicals including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, PDN, Rain Taxi Review of Books, and Hyperallergic among others. Her photographs are represented in numerous public collections including the Brooklyn Museum; Bronx Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Palm Springs Art Museum; Allentown Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego; and Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. She published three monographs, “The Mark of Abel” (Kehrer Verlag, 2012), “Falling from Grace” (Conveyor Arts, 2016), and “Sleeping Beauty” (MW Editions, 2021). She divides her time between her farm in Kutztown, Pennsylvania and New York City. Statement The series “Hidden Forest” explores the relationship between the artist, the audience, and the gaze. I investigate photographic looking as a way to understand identity, family secrets, and love. Art is a way to make sense of disorder and reveal truths. Article Sleeping Beauty

Laura Pannack

United Kingdom
1985

Laura Pannack is a London-based, award-winning photographer. Renowned for her recognizable portraiture and social documentary artwork, she often seeks to explore the complex relationship between subject and photographer. Her work heavily focuses on the youth. She was educated at the University of Brighton, Central Saint Martins College of Art and LCP. Pannack's work has been extensively exhibited throughout the UK and abroad, including at The National Portrait Gallery, Somerset House, the Royal Festival Hall and the Houses of Parliament. Driven by research-led, self-initiated projects, Pannack seeks to fully understand the lives of those she captures on film in order to portray them as truthfully as possible. Perceiving “time, trust and understanding” to be the key elements to achieving this, many of her projects develop over several years, helping her achieve a genuine connection between herself and her sitter and allowing her to capture the intimacy, shared ideas and shared experiences of this relationship. Pannack chooses to shoot with analogue film on her personal projects. By using traditional methods of working from negatives, as well as shooting with Polaroid, she finds beauty in the mistakes that come from working with unpredictable material. Her artwork has received much acclaim and won numerous awards, among which are the John Kobal Award , Vic Odden prize,World Photo Press Awards and the HSBC Prix de la Photographie prize In addition to her own practice, Pannack lectures, critiques and teaches at universities, workshops and festivals around the world, and in 2015, judged the portrait category in World Photo Press Awards in Amsterdam. Pannack has also been widely published, both commercially and as a photographic artist, with work appearing in The British Journal of Photography, Hotshoe International, TIME, The Guardian Weekend, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Creative Review. Her monograph 'Against the dying of the light' was published by Acts de Suds in 2016 and YOUTH Vol 1 was released in 2018 by Polite company

Marco Panzetti

Italy
1981

Marco Panzetti (Italy, 1981) is a freelance documentary photographer, multimedia journalist and visual artist. His work focuses on contemporary issues related to social injustice, migration and collective identity. He successfully carried out projects in Europe, Latin America and Asia, frequently in collaboration or on assignment for nonprofit organizations and media outlets. His long-term body of work on the European migrant crisis, 'The Idea of Europe' (2015 – present) received international recognition including an Honorable Mention at the 2017 Lange-Taylor Prize and the first prize in the video category at the 2017 Migration Media Award. 'The Idea of Europe' is a long-term documentary work on the human impact of the European refugee crisis. Fleeing from conflicts, humanitarian crisis and economical distress in their countries of origin, and escaping the slavery practices commonly reported in Libya, since early 2015 more than 10,000 people lost their lives in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, and about 3 million people applied for asylum in EU countries. This huge influx highlighted the limits and unfairness of border control policies and asylum systems still anchored to the post-WWII treaties, and caused a major discussion among the public opinion. Can Europe still indulge in considering itself the cradle of human rights? With this question as motivation and common thread, 'The Idea of Europe' follows the migrants' journey from the desperate Mediterranean crossing to the asylum request in Italy. This project encompasses work from 'In Between', a project done in 2016-2017 from a rescue vessel in the Mediterranean to report on the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in international waters, 'We are not going back', a project work done in 2015-2016 from the disembarking port of Lampedusa and at the Italian border town of Ventimiglia where I documented the migrants' encounter with the resurging (physical, ideological and bureaucratic) walls of Europe, and 'Life after Hell', a project done in 2017 from various reception centres across Italy where I portrayed the daily lives of those waiting for a decision on their asylum request, which could take up to two years.

Elena Paraskeva

Elena Paraskeva

Cyprus
1973

Elena Paraskeva is an international Conceptual Photographer and Art Director. Having lived and worked in the U.S for a decade, she now resides in Cyprus, but often travels for assignments. Elena loves to create surrealistic conceptual work bathed in color and is often inspired by everyday life and popular culture. Achievements: LensCulture Portrait Awards 2019 - Jurors' Pick, Digital Camera Photographer Of The Year 2018, Neutral Density Awards 2018 - Gold Medal in Advertising, Trierenberg Supercircuit 2018 - Gold Medal in Series, Trierenberg Supercircuit 2017 - Gold Medal in Portraiture, Prix De La Photographie, Paris 2018- Silver in Portraiture, Prix De La Photographie, Paris 2017 - Silver in Advertising/Fashion, Prix De La Photographie, Paris 2017- Silver and Bronze in Children Portraiture, Monovisions Photography Awards 2018 - Bronze in Conceptual, American Photography Open 2018 - Shortlisted, International Photography Awards (IPA) 2018 - Honorable Mention, One Eyeland Awards 2017 - Silver in Advertising/Conceptual, Moscow International Photography Awards (MIFA 2017) - Bronze in Portraiture, Chromatic Awards 2017 - Bronze in Fashion/Beauty, Neutral Density Awards 2017 -Bronze in People Category, International Photographer Of The Year (IPOTY 2017) - 3 Honorable Mentions in Portraiture, London International Creative Competition 2017 - Honorable Mention, International Photography Awards (IPA) 2017 - 3 Honorable Mentions, WPPI - Second Place Individual Portrait Division 2017, First Place Individual Portrait Division 2016, FAPA 2017 - Honorable Mentions Conceptual & Portrait Divisions, PDN World In Focus 2016 - Second Place, Neutral Density Awards 2016 - Bronze in Advertising/Conceptual, International Photographer Of The Year 2016 - Honorable Mention, Monochrome Photography Awards 2016 - Honorable Mention Fashion/Beauty Exhibitions: Aperture Foundation, New York City - April 2019, Menier Gallery, London UK - 2018, NEC, Birmingham UK - 2018, Photo Oxford 2017, Oxford UK, Design Center, Linz Austria - 2017, Espace Baurepaire, Paris - 2017, Opus 39 Gallery, Cyprus - 2017, Thalassa Museum, Cyprus - 2017, The Printspace, London UK - 2015 Publications: Photography Masterclass, Digital Camera, Digital Photographer, N-Photo, PDN, Good Light, Economia, Fileleftheros Newspaper, Blurred, Omikron, Volition, Vantage, Icon, Ellements, Elegant, Incredible, LoveBite, La Plus Belle, Surreal

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

United States

Robert ParkeHarrison (born 1968) is a photographer, best known for his work (with wife Shana ParkeHarrison) in the area of fine art photography. The photographs of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison have been displayed in 18 solo exhibitions and over 30 group shows worldwide. Their work can also be found in over 20 collections, including the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution and the George Eastman House. Their book, The Architect’s Brother was named as one of 'the Ten Best Photography Books of the Year' of 2000 by the New York Times. "My photographs tell stories of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use…. strive to metaphorically and poetically link laborious actions, idiosyncratic rituals and strangely crude machines into tales about our modern experience." -- Robert ParkeHarrison Source: Wikipedia Artist Statement: We create works in response to the ever-bleakening relationship linking humans, technology, and nature. These works feature an ambiguous narrative that offers insight into the dilemma posed by science and technology's failed promise to fix our problems, provide explanations, and furnish certainty pertaining to the human condition. Strange scenes of hybridizing forces, swarming elements, and bleeding overabundance portray Nature unleashed by technology and the human hand. Rich colors and surrealistic imagery merge to reveal the poetic roots of the works on display. The use of color is intentional but abstract; proportion and space are compositional rather than natural; movement is blurred; objects and people juxtaposed as if by chance in a visual improvisation that unfolds choreographically. At once formally arresting and immeasurably loaded with sensations—this work attempts to provide powerful impact both visually and viscerally. Source: parkeharrison.com

Bharat Patel

United Kingdom
1949

Bharat is an Indian born photographer living in Oxford, UK. At first embracing many genres of photography but since the last ten years he has been mainly involved in travel and documentary photography, some of these in collaboration with NGOs. Underlying influence in his photography is his upbringing in the British colonies and his exposure to different cultures and social structures. He has lived and experienced life in four different continents with vastly different life styles. From a young age his inclination to connect everything has had an influence on his photography. Mixed with this is his formal education as Electronic Engineer which exposed him to world of sub-atomic matter where order and hierarchy exist amongst the chaos, just like his experiences in real life. Bharat considers his work as “Photography for a Purpose”. This can be seen in his long-term project on “Nomadic Tribes of India”, “Brick Workers” and “Women Workers in the Informal Sector”. Always looking to preserve these as documentaries to retain the importance of what is present and that which may inform the future. Bharat uses both black and white and colour images depending on what he wants to portray. Without the distracting colours, his black and white images lay bare the subjects and show their inner selves. In his words everything is waiting to be photographed and to be remembered, it is how you photograph it that counts. Bharat is a member of the Royal Photographic Society.

Anuar Patjane

Mexico
1981

Social anthropologist, photographer and scuba diver born in Puebla, Mexico in 1981. World press photo second place Winner in 2016, Nature category National Geographic Traveler photo contest ist place winner 2015 Statement: We can not be just photographers, accountants, politicians or students anymore, our planet is reaching the point of no return and action from everyone is needed. I believe it is necessary to do what we can to revert our aggressive behavior and carelessness towards our own planet, lets use all in our reach to change our behavior once and for all. Underwater Realm Project Conservation and protection of the oceans has become an urgent issue, and few governments and NGOs are doing something about it. With the underwater series, I try to drive our attention towards the beauty of our oceans and a truth usually unnoticed: We are brutally overfishing in our oceans, and our attention should be concentrated on the way we fish as well as what we eat from the ocean. We see and care when a forest is gone because it is visible to everybody, but we don't see when we destroy life underwater, we don't see how nets from the tuna, the shrimp industry and the whaling vessels cause damage and death to the sea. We are not familiar with this environment because we don´t see what we destroy, and this needs to change very quickly so we can reverse this course. By sharing the beauty of our oceans we might start to care more and build or strengthen the connection between us and the sea. About the winning photograph of All About Photo Awards 2018: "TORNADO" A school of Bigeye Trevally forming a "tornado" at Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico. I took this photograph during one of my three exploration trips to Cabo Pulmo in 2015, the diver in front of the tornado school is park ranger Leonardo who accompanied me during that week of exploration. New research shows that schools of fish are self organized aggregations that learn and remember as a group and not as individuals. This new information needs to be taken into account by fishing regulations so fishing techniques could be modified in order to preserve the health of the whole fish population and never fish the whole community. A few years ago and after almost completely depleting the local reef of Cabo Pulmo, the local fishermen decided to stop fishing and bet all on ecotourism. After a few years that bet became anl economic social and ecological success; what used to be an almost lifeless place now has a complete life chain and one of the highest concentrations of biomass in Mexican seas, even bull sharks and tiger sharks are back and orcas and humpbacks come near the coat of Pulmo and visit often. Cabo Pulmo is a true example that by letting the ocean recover, it will do so by itself.

Brad Patocka

United States

Born in Upstate NY, USA to a blue-collar upbringing, I was quickly drawn to the rugged environments of the outdoors. This inevitably led to an unrelenting quest for exploration and travel, always driven by a curiosity of what the world is and what it can be. Like many, I first became interested in the photography from Nat Geo magazines, looking at images of the vastly different cultures and habitats around the globe produced by the countless photographers who would grow to be my idols. The aesthetic quality of a physical print really drew me in, photos that can depict a specific situation while also speaking to a larger issue or narrative resonated with me and inspired me to first pick up a camera. I believe we are all story tellers in some way, shape, or form. For me being able to effectively do just that in a single frame has always been the goal. Having the opportunity to cover important issues, and to present them in a powerful light that will ideally create some sort of change or impact others to consider the world we live in, is the ultimate goal. Traveling the globe in pursuit of various projects, I have found my works range from humanitarian aid, human rights, and environmental issues. Discover Brad Patocka's Interview

Jackson Patterson

Jackson Patterson

United States
1975

Jackson Patterson received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2009. He began his process in Arizona where he grew up. Exposed to the expansive landscapes throughout the west Jackson laid foundation for his appreciation for the land and the human story within it. He continues to tell the stories of his family and others intertwined with the majestic landscapes in his photomontages. Patterson’s images breathe insight into representation, fabrication, visual language and the relationship of earth and people.He has been exhibiting his photographs in Hong Kong, London, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Texas, Colorado, Oregon, California and Arizona since 2000 at the Houston Center for Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Morris Graves Museum of Art, the Pendleton Art Center, the Center for Fine Art Photography, and at the David Brower Center. His work is in various private collections and in the Paul Sack Collection at the SFMOMA. He was recently awarded the Renaissance Photography Prize 2013 for best single image, the International Photography Awards 1st place in 2014, and was a Photo Lucida Critical Mass top 50 photographer in 2015. Jackson currently resides and works in Chicago.

David Peabody

United States

David Peabody is an American architect and photographer. He was born and raised in Natchez, Mississippi. After college, inspired by the work of Walker Evans, David spent a year working odd jobs and moving around Mississippi, documenting rural life. Now, nearly 50 years later, he is completing the project, digitally scanning and printing that early work. In the process, he is photographing the changed landscape of rural Mississippi. David went on to study and practice architecture, but has always returned to taking pictures Currently he is following the progress of several young couples building homesteads in rural Maine. In one way or another, most of his work is an attempt to find beauty and see beyond the corporate veneer that increasingly covers our built environment. David lives with his wife Ginger in Alexandria, Virginia and East Blue Hill, Maine.

Vincent Peal

Belgium
1976

Vincent PEAL was born in 1976 in Brussels - Belgium. After a music career with the band EMMA PEAL, signed to the international PIAS - label, Vincent Peal now essentially dedicates his energies to the visual realm. He produced a number of super 8 video clips in NY, Londo n, Berlin...and made a documentary about the outcast living in Brussels. Some of his pictures of the Bombay slums and the problems surrounding the pollution on West Africa's beaches were selected for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai in the "World Water Pavilion". In 2015 he released a book "Brussels Open City" a portrait of the inhabitants of the capital of Belgium. In 2018, with the same publisher "Les Editions de Juillet" based in France he realized his second photography book "World News" about people he met during his different journey around the world. Today on the street I saw dozens of faces, each one telling a story, amazing stories, rugged, beautiful, funny and sometimes complicated, but always in those faces there is another universe to discover.

Dasha Pears

Russia
1982

Dasha Pears is an award-winning Russian conceptual photographer, currently based in Helsinki, Finland. Dasha uses the instruments of surrealism, color, and photography to speak about deepest psychological matters, including emotions, states of mind and mind shifts. She started her photographic path in 2011, after reaching burnout in a marketing communications career. Having tried many types of photography, Dasha found herself in the conceptual and fine art sphere. Since then her images have been exhibited in Russia, France, Poland, Austria, Italy and Finland. Dasha's photographs can be found on covers of books published in Europe, the United States and South America. In 2016 Dasha started sharing her experience of organizing conceptual photography shoots and producing surrealist artworks in the form of creative photography workshops. Since then she has held over 15 events in Finland and abroad. Statement Photography turned out to be a way of discovering my true self and expressing it. My works are a reflection of this discovery process and I hope that they can help others who are on the same journey as me. In metaphorical ways I try to show and share processes that are going on in many people's minds: dealing with negative self-talk, being overwhelmed by all kinds of emotions, finding that activity that puts you in the state of flow, when time ceases to exist. My photography is influenced by classical fine art, surrealism, as well as fantasy and science fiction books. The instruments of surrealism help me show that the scene is only partially real and that most of it is going on in the character's mind. My works are carefully composed and many of them are leaning towards minimalism. This is my way of expressing that controlling your mind and creating space is crucial for discovering who you are and who you are not.

Phil Penman

United Kingdom/United States

The British-born, New York-based photographer Phil Penman has documented the ever-changing scene of New York City’s streets for more than 25 years. In his career as a news and magazine photographer, with a large body of work in such publications as The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Review of Books, among others, he has photographed major public figures and historical events. In particular, his reportage following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center has featured on NBC’s Today show, as well as on the BBC, History Channel, and Al Jazeera, and his images have been included in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum’s archives. His work covering the pandemic lockdown in New York City has been acquired by the U.S. Library of Congress, whose collection holds work by such great Depression-era documentarians as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Besides showing at Leica galleries in New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, and London, Penman’s signature street photography has appeared in international exhibitions as far afield as Venice, Berlin, and Sydney. He also tours the world teaching workshops on photography for Leica Akademie. He was recently named among the “52 Most Influential Street Photographers,” alongside such legends as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Diane Arbus, and Garry Winogrand. Penman’s first book, Street, published in 2019, became a best-seller and was featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. New York Street Diaries Phil Penman shows the big city on the east coast of the USA from a side that is rarely seen, calm and tranquil. The pictures were taken partly during the great snowstorm and partly during the Corona Lockdown and are thus contemporary witnesses of the pandemic restrictions that completely turned our previously-known world upside down. Born in Great Britain (Poole, Dorset), he has been photographing the streets of New York for well over two decades. He is known, among other things, for his photographs of famous personalities such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez or Bill Gates. When the biggest tragedy in New York's history shook the city on 11 September 2001, Phil Penman was on the spot and created unique footage of the events with his camera. Penman knows how to capture the city in its most sensitive moments in an impressive way. He catches intimate moments in his black-and-white photographs and shows the people and streets of New York City far away from the hustle and bustle. The city life of the metropolis is presented so closely that some pictures inevitably evoke a smile in the viewer. Penman literally catapults his viewer into the scene with a refreshing directness and the feeling of really being present. New York Street Diaries

John R. Pepper

Italy
1958

John Randolph Pepper, (1958) is an Italian photographer, screenwriter, theatre and film director, the son of sculptress Beverly Pepper and journalist/writer Curtis Bill Pepper, editor of Newsweek and manager of its Rome office. He was born and raised in Rome; lives in Palermo and works worldwide. Pepper started his career in Black & White analogical photography with an apprenticeship to Ugo Mulas at 14. He published his first photograph at 15 and had his first show at 17. He studied History of Art at Princeton University, where he was also the youngest member of the exclusive painting program, '185 Nassau Street'. He then became a 'Directing Fellow' at The American Film Institute, (Los Angeles) and subsequently worked as a director in theatre and film for 20 years. For thirty years, he dedicated himself to photography while directing both theatre and film. During that time he continued to take photographs with his Leica camera always using the same Ilford HP5 film stock. John R. Pepper, represented by the Art of Foto Gallery (St. Petersburg, Russia) and The Empty Quarter Gallery (Dubai, UAE), is a 'Cultural Ambassador' of numerous Italian Institutes of Culture in may parts of the world. Since 2008 he has exhibited his different projects 'Rome: 1969 - An Homage to Italian Neo-Realist Cinema', 'Sans Papier', 'Evaporations' in the United States, France, Italy, the Middle East and Russia. He has published three books and is represented in several major museums around the world. Since 2015 Pepper has been working on his project 'Inhabited Deserts', where he explores deserts and their effect on time, history and people. 'Inhabited Deserts' debuted in Paris in November 2017; in September 2018, with the support of the Italian Embassy in Iran and the Italian Foreign Ministry, Pepper exhibited at the Aaran Projects Gallery in Tehran where he was one of the first Italian photographers since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In November 2018, after participating at Paris Photo with the Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, 'Inhabited Deserts' went to Tel Aviv, Israel, representing Italy at the 6th International Photo Festival 'Photo Is:Rael'. From December 12th 2018 to February 15th Inhabited Deserts was presented at The Empty Quarter Gallery in Dubai, U.A.E. with curatorial text by Kirill Petrin. Subsequently the show opened on March 19, 2019 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, at the Art of Foto Gallery and shortly thereafter, on April 18th, it returned to Tel Aviv at the NOX Contemporary Gallery. In 2020 Inhabited Deserts will be seen in the United States and Italy. Per John Pepper "When talking about photography, we're talking about time. The image is fixed in time. We also talk about black and white and color, digital and film, reality and punctum - the critical concept of the French philosopher Roland Barthes, denoting the wounding, personally touching detail, which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it. Is a photographer an artist or not? The ones who feel they are, modestly define themselves as artisans. Still others, who do not think of themselves as photographers will snap photos relying on destiny's outcome. Finally, there are the ones who fantasize conceptual sequences snapped in extravagant situations - most of which without interest. About photography, much has been said. There are established masters, schools of thought, and many hopes. Yet whoever is sufficiently open to a vision within himself, who has cherished and assimilated the masters, will emerge with something new. Passion triumphs when backed by culture. When looking at one of John Pepper's photographs - the one with the group of people, friends and family, in front of their home, for example - I think of Paul Strand's image in his book, published with Zavattini 'Un paese' del 1955. There is a similar gathering of characters at the doorstep of their home. Time here is not just in the shutter time and lens aperture - a sixtieth of a second at eight - but in the transformation of the people, in the process of revealing themselves. With John, however, the appearances differ from those of Strand - moved up in time as evident in the shoes and pants, the motorcycle helmet, the technology of the wheelchair and the modern necklace of the young girl. They appear happy and to be speaking to the photographer. Despite some apparently expensive upper-class possessions, we perceive they are of a modest condition. In Strand's photograph, there is no doubt they are of peasant culture. Motionless, they stare at the photographer with a serious gaze, though ignorant of the world of images. Today, image is consumerism. It goes beyond diffidence. Everyone can have a camera, a motorcycle helmet and Nike shoes. People are well nurtured; they have even grown in height. With John the scene is of movement. The characters interact with ease, and the photographer is part of the game. He uses black and white film enhanced by the fine art of printing - images stemming from classical photography. John was just a boy when he came to my house in Milan, in piazza Castello, above the studio that once belonged to Ugo. I like to think that the darkroom at that time influenced him. Who knows? However, I do believe that Ugo's work helped him to become a photographer. His reportage in Italy is filtered through the memory of many great photographers - Diane Arbus, Cartier Bresson, Robert Frank, the first Richard Avedon, and William Klein to name a few. He has also traveled through Italy, in the streets and byways of youth, finding dramatic, enlightened faces in the theater of life. His portrait of the religious procession is most beautiful, with a perfect, compact, composition, among astonished angels and those bearing a religious float against a sharp background of light. John lives and works in Palermo, an outward antithesis of New York. An American born and raised in Italy, it is as an Italian that he grasps the vital spirit, the soul, and the humanity of people. His choice to live in a region like Sicily, so full of contradictions and archaic values, will surely help him in chronicling the history of change in our era. Then, apart from making art, he will have absorbed it as his own - a part of his life that will recur in defining time, space, and the evolution of the human condition." Antonia Mulas, Todi, May 5, 2012

Sean Perry

United States
1968

Sean Perry is a fine-art photographer living and working in New York City and Austin, Texas. His photographs and books center on architecture, space and light - expressing the ambiance felt within built environments. He is currently completing three series/books on New York City entitled Monolith, Gotham and Fotopolis, as well as exhibiting a recently completed body of work on the dreamscape of temporary environments, Fairgrounds. Perry attended Berklee College of Music and was a working musician before turning to photography in 1996. His photographs and books have been acquired by notable private collectors including Manfred Heiting and Alan Siegel in addition to being held in the permanent collections of the Museum Fine Arts Houston, the Amon Carter Museum, Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern & Mexican Photography, and the Harry Ransom Center. Cloverleaf Press published Perry's first limited edition book, Transitory in 2006, and followed with a second title, Fairgrounds in the Fall of 2008. In 2009 he was selected as a finalist for the Hasselblad Masters award for his work and book Fairgrounds. His photographs have been published widely including the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Graphis, Camera Arts, New York Magazine, Billboard and American Photography. He has served as an adjunct Professor of Photography in Austin since 2001 as well as an adjunct Professor for the School of Visual Arts in New York City since 2006. Perry frequently contributes his photographs to auctions that benefit photographic and social concerns. His work is represented by the Stephen L. Clark Gallery, Austin. Interview with Sean Perry All About Photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? Sean Perry: When I was younger I didn't know or have access to any professional photographers, but I really loved movies and looked at a lot of books. At that time I got into music and everything else was just secondary. As a musician I always thought about pictures and the visual atmosphere great songs provoke and in my thirties I started photographing and haven’t stopped. AAP: Where did you study photography? With whom? SP: I don’t have a formal background studying photography but it’s not quite right to say I'm self taught either. One of my old bandmates, Jeff Miller is a brother to me, a great photographer and my first teacher - I learned about cameras, making good pictures and printing in the darkroom. That experience was also my first big introduction to contemporary artists like Joel-Peter Witkin and The Starns. I later had important mentors in a photographer I assisted for, Frank Curry and a sculptor who has had a tremendous influence on me as an artist and photographer, John Christensen. AAP:Do you have a mentor? SP: I have a few friends and colleagues who I admire and trust that I ask for insight and guidance with various things... Elizabeth Avedon, Jace Graf, Stephen Clark - there are others. I ask different people, different questions for different reasons if that makes sense. I think it's important to deeply consider who you ask and why. I've been a client of Mary Virginia Swanson for many years and her savvy is always invaluable, I truly owe her a great deal. I'm always learning and seeking out the chance to improve and grow. AAP: How long have you been a photographer? SP: I have been making pictures consistently since 1996 and started working professionally in 1998. AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it? SP: What I remember most are the pictures that when I saw the film, they made me feel that the image was somehow better, or more than my capability at the time. It would lead to months of chasing and trying to catch up to the image. The first time that happened was of a barren tree in the wintertime, backlit. I remember making the other pictures from that time, but the experience of seeing something unexpected back on the contact sheets always sticks with me as meaningful. AAP: What or who inspires you? SP: Music always. Also the discovery and study of people that give themselves to their pursuits with the discipline and heart to be excellent. New York City. Late fall leading to snow and cold weather makes me happy. AAP: How could you describe your style? SP: A little romantic but not sentimental - sci-fi but not overtly conceptual. I always work to make beautiful images and objects that don’t apologize for their consideration of aesthetic and design. My experience has taught me there is a strange, small line between beautiful and pretty, arbitrary and yet often substantial. I think my favorite word or aim for my work is earnest, and hopefully elegant. I try to be consistent and to quote someone I deeply respect, Paul Rand – "Don’t try to be original, just try to be good." AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film? SP: I’m fluent in digital tools and use them to manage images online etcetera, but I have used the same camera gear for over twelve years. Hasselblad 501CM with a 120mm lens and 25A Red filter. Tri-X film in A12 backs. Processed in D76, 1 to 1. Silver gelatin prints bleached and then toned in combinations of sepia and selenium or platinum–palladium prints from enlarged negatives. AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? SP: I tend to run film and then not look at it for a while.... I then go through the contact sheets and make work prints of the things that seem to have promise. As the series and work evolves the process of editing, sequencing and design kicks in. After the edges of a project are more or less in place, I’ll go back again and see what I may have missed on the contact sheets. AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)? SP: If I am only allowed one, Irving Penn – hands down, no one else. I love books and too many favorites to list, but in no particular order others would be Saul Leiter, Ted Croner, Robert & Shana Parke-Harrison, Tom Baril, Louis Faurer, Edward Burtynsky, Albert Watson, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Berenice Abbott and Matt Mahurin. AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer? SP: Fearlessly make all the bad pictures you need to in order to get to the good ones. Not thoughtlessly in the number of images, but without hesitation in the intent to chase your ideas. When you are disappointed, try to understand why specifically – was it a technical mistake your effort and experience will resolve over time or was it about vision in what you could or could not see at that moment. The technical things are usually easier to improve upon, I have found the other takes additional perseverance and courage. For myself there is always the confrontation of closing the distance between the potency I’m after and the many challenges at hand while guiding it there. I think the biggest secret is simply not to quit. AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid? SP: Everyone is different, so very hard to say. I believe one truth for myself has been it’s more valuable to invest time in what your pictures, your life, your point of view are all about and less energy worrying about the urgency sometimes encouraged in technology and shorter term concerns. Play long ball. AAP: An idea, a sentence, a project you would like to share? SP: I am currently administrating an ambitious project that connects college students with high school students, creating mentorship and the development of visual language. For the college students it is to illustrate the value of mentorship from both sides, as well as create meaningful dialogue about photography and image making. It provides a mechanism for high school students to share and express their photographic work with a new audience and has direct, tangible advantages for everyone involved – accenting the importance of communication and emphasizing the photography community's tradition of portfolio review. Visit The Picture Review. AAP: Your best memory has a photographer? SP: All of my favorite memories are darkroom related. My first darkroom was in John Christensen's studio, I deeply miss those days and that place. I would often print all day and all night - it's where I learned about photo-chemistry and the subtleties of split-toning and other irresistible alchemy. AAP: Your worst souvenir as a photographer? SP: My checking account. AAP: If you could have taken the photographs of someone else who would it be? SP: It's an interesting question but it reminds me of a rock & roll story, urban legend I remember as a kid and recently retold in Esquire Magazine. When Van Halen was touring in the late 70’s they were opening for Ted Nugent who admired Eddie Van Halen's guitar tone. Among other things, Eddie would hide one of his effect pedals (a tape echo) in an old bomb casing, adding to the mystery of his great tone and why he sounded the way he did. Everyone believed he had a "magic" black box. During sound check, Ted Nugent got the chance to play through Eddie’s rig and was disappointed to discover his guitar tone was unchanged – he sounded like he always did and whatever he loved about Eddie's tone was in his hands and not in the gear. I think photographs are like that, there are many pictures I would be thrilled if I had produced but in the end I can only make what is in my hands and heart. The images I love that others have made don't represent my life and could never belong to me. I remain a fan and audience to my heroes, happily so.

Anais Perry

France/Germany
1986

I was born in Burgundy, France where I also grew up. For the study of Photojournalism at the Hochschule Hannover I moved to Germany. After 2 years, I changed to the HAW Hamburg to develop a more personal photography. The studies of Communication Design with the focus on photography offered me the possibility to discover a large scale of this art and to construct an own picture language. 2013 I earned the BA of Photography in the Class of Prof. Vincent Kohlbecher and Prof Ute Mahler and in 2016 the Master in Photography with Prof. Gesa Lange and Prof Linn Schröder. In 2018, I won the Juror's Pick at the Lensculture Street Photography Award 2018, and in the same year appears a self-published edition of my work "What remains at the end?". To create my works, I find inspiration in the cinema art. The fiction is my starting point to capture the reality and to build a strange or an artificial atmosphere. I'm living and working currently in Hamburg.

Enrico Pescantini

Enrico Pescantini

Italy
1984

Born in Italy, but a citizen of the world, Enrico Pescantini has visited over 66 countries in the world, experimenting with all kind of photography: from taking Polaroids of Barbie and Ken in Israel and Cuba to pioneer drone photography in Iceland, from sneaking pics in North Korea to take portraits of monks in Tibet. Currently living in Milan, where he works on its exhibitions, partnerships with tourism boards and of course, the next travel destination. Enrico Pescantini's photography is defined by vibrant colours and different perspectives, using drone, digital and underwater photography to give the audience an immersive experience of each travel destination, that can't be confined in just one point of view. His hope is to inspire people with the beauty of our world: he strongly believes that traveling brings people together, giving them understanding that we all live on the same planet, and we need to work together to preserve it. Barbie Around The World

Hana Peskova

Czech Republic
1967

Hanka Peskova - passionate self-taught photographer whose journey began at the renowned Skola Kreativni Fotografie in Prague. In 2021, she was honored with the prestigious International Title of Excellence FIAP (EFIAP) by the FIAP (Artiste de la Fédération Internationale de l'Art Photographique), a testament to her artistic prowess and dedication to the craft. Nestled in the picturesque town of Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, she has turned the globe into her canvas, capturing the ephemeral beauty and indescribable energy of moments and people. Her work transcends the mere act of memory preservation to unveil the essence of life itself, through the eye of her camera. As a freelance photographer, her lens has intimately explored the vibrancy of street and documentary photography for years. With a focus on the tapestry of social life, her work dives deep into the heart of ordinary life, cultural narratives, and contemporary issues. She possesses a unique attraction to the narratives of old, the allure of isolated places, and the stories of people living beyond the limelight. Her photography is not just a window to the world but an invitation to view it through her unique perspective. Capturing not only the bustling life on the streets and the untouched facets of nature, she also ventures into the realm of creative photography. Each frame is a story, a whisper of the past or a shout of the present, always aiming to evoke emotion and provoke thought. AAP Magazine AAP Magazine 38 Women

Ralf Peters

Germany
1960

In the series "24 Hours" Peters reflects on the moment of simultaneousness. He dissolves the visual antagonism between the moment before and afterwards in each image. The works represent the light cycle of one day, starting from the left at night, passing daylight and ends again in the darkness of the night. The time states are not superimposed one upon the other but set side by side. In an extraordinary technique Ralf Peters obtains that the transition of the different daytimes is shown as in fast motion and is continued without any cuts, but can be noticed in the brightness and the illumination of the motif. Day and night are united in one image and at the same time, appearing invisible and visible. The variety of subjects going from exotic landscapes to cool architecture allows a reflection about our own world and foreign surroundings referring to a superior relationship of time and space. (Source: Diana Lowenstein Gallery) Ralf Peters is a conceptual photographer who creates visual studies of places and objects, often in thematic series. Playfully navigating between fantasy and reality, Peters manipulates digital images to challenge the viewer’s conception of traditional photography, raising the question as to whether something is a realistic rendering or a skillfully manipulated vision. Through the creation of portraits of everyday locations like supermarkets, gas stations, and swimming pools, Peters explores the possibilities for the photographic medium. Manipulating the focus, lighting, and composition of his images, Peters creates photographs that obscure the traditional notion of capturing an individual’s perspective on reality, favoring, instead, constructed works that comment on the aesthetic relationship we have to our surrounding environment. Peters’s works have been shown at notable institutions including the Hamburg Kunsthalle and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. (Source: Art Space) Represented by: Diana Lowenstein Gallery Galerie Kornfeld Galerie Bernhard Knaus Fine Art Galerie Martin Mertens Galerie Andres Thalmann

Mathilde Pettersen

Mathilde Pettersen

Norway
1976

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. Mathilde Pettersen presents two projects: Searching for Cloudberries (2008-), analogue black and white photographs. My projects revolve around portraiture and self-portraiture, and in their themes touch upon motherhood and family as constellations. So does this project, presently spanning ten years now. It takes shape by depicting a sense of dysfunctionality of the infertile female body - a theme that is often taboo in our society - before it turns and grows in a new direction when discovered not, moving on to contemplate the development of the child and the changes of the body of its mother over time in connection with life cycles in nature. I need a kiss before they leave (2011-), digital colour photographs. I NEED A KISS BEFORE THEY LEAVE is an emotional family portrait, filled with immense joy, but also with a disturbing realization of a wonderfulness that cannot be stored. It reflects upon a human desire to freeze time, to forever savoring those moments which are destined to live on only as distant memories. Photography is of course the artistic technique to actually freeze time and to store a split second forever. In this book, Norwegian photographer Mathilde Helene Pettersen captures an entire parenthood, with all its bright and dark moments. I need a kiss before they leave reflects on becoming and being a mother, on building a family, on the immediate and unpredictable, on strengths and fragilities in life, and sometimes on the overshadowing fear of death and the irreversible. From the text in I NEED A KISS BEFORE THEY LEAVE by Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger: First things first: loving is not for the faint of heart. Loving, day af- ter day, requires the courage to handle the disappointment of quotidian love falling short of the ideal of love. It requires even more courage to extend love to societal structures in need of repair. (...) "This is my story." These are the words used by Mathilde Helene Pettersen at the beginning of her book I need a kiss before they leave. The series, consisting of photographs taken with a camera phone over a period of eight years, is a chronicle of childbirth, motherhood, and family life. Pettersen writes that this was a story she hesitated to tell. Pettersen has spoken about the challenge and dichotomy of com- bining motherhood with the work of a photographer. On the one hand, she leads an ordinary enough, down-to-earth life with her family; on the other, she has a life outside the home, working as a photographer. Even in the Nordic countries, this is no simple equa- tion to balance. Although the principle of gender equality in the workplace is firmly established, or at least acknowledged, it re- mains elusive in practice.

Dede Pickering

United States
1953

Dede Pickering is a photographer, storyteller and humanitarian who travels the world hoping to build a bridge between cultures with her photography. She is committed to the unshakable dignity of all people, and her photographs express a universal human spirit. Exploring the far corners of the world has been Pickering’s lifelong personal journey. Recording what she sees has given her insight into, and empathy for, other cultures and our shared human condition. Recently, Dede has found a connection with ice and the polar regions. Fueled by a curiosity and concern for our shared planet, she hopes that her work will inspire awareness and positive change.

Diane Pierce

United States

For over twenty-five years Diane Pierce has used the medium of photography as her most primary, expressive tool. The majority of her work is created on a small tabletop. Themes for her work have included collected letters, an idea about marriage, observations when straying from home, still life, collage and most recently thoughts on drawing. She studied both Painting & Drawing and Photography as an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University and did graduate studies at Mills College, Oakland, CA, specifically in photography. She has a thorough background in traditional and digital photographic skills as well as alternative photographic processes and has often crossed the territories of a variety of mediums, but always including photography. Her work is in the collections of The San Francisco MOMA, The MFA, Houston, The Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris and others. She has quietly exhibited over her career.

Vesa Pihanurmi

Finland
1967

Vesa Pihanurmi is a multi award winning fine art photographer based in Helsinki, Finland. He was born in 1967. His photographs cover wide range of subjects from architecture to abstract studies and from landscapes to street photography. Regardless of the subject the main focus of his photography is in the emotional impact of the images. He interprets reality with minimalistic approach revealing alternative perspectives of our world through methods like long exposure, monochrome conversion and selective coloring. His photographs are often described as minimalistic, poetic, atmospheric and soothing. He has received several awards in the most important photography competitions worldwide (SWPA, IPA, PX3, ND Awards, Monochrome Awards, etc.).

Ave Pildas

United States
1939

Thank God I had a really good education. - Ave Pildas Ave Pildas began his arts education as an architecture student, designing department stores, government and medical buildings. Before long, this path felt too conservative and constricting, so he changed majors to design. Creating products, packaging and graphics provided enough diversity, to seem like "complete freedom" at the time. Concurrently, Ave was designing exhibits, displays, graphics and publications for the Cincinnati Public Library. After studying at the University of Cincinnati and graduating from the Cincinnati Art Academy inn 1962, Ave headed east to Pittsburgh, where he worked designing collateral for U.S. Steel, Alcoa, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Koppers, and Westinghouse. At Westinghouse he met renowned graphic designer Paul Rand. With encouragement from Rand and well-known typographer Noel Martin, Ave traveled to Switzerland and enrolled at the Kunstgewerbeshule, studying typography and graphic design during the Cold War. As a student, he visited every country in Europe and parts of North Africa, often by car. It was at this time that Ave set the lofty goal of "raising the visual conscience" of the world, and, at the conclusion of his studies, accepted a position as assistant professor at Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Since then, he has taught at Layton School of Art, Leicester Polytechnic in Britain, Cal Arts, Art Center College of Design, UCLA, USC, as well as Otis College of Art and Design, where he served as Chair of the Communication Arts Department. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Otis. "Although Pildas was formally trained in Swiss design, he developed an early love for photography in the '60s when he photographed jazz legends like Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie for Downbeat Magazine," writes Mae Ryan of Southern California Public Radio/KPCC. For over 50 years, Ave's been taking pictures of diverse subject matter. Many of his images of Hollywood Boulevard from the 1970s reside in the permanent collections of museums and libraries including LACMA and the New York Public Library. He has published three books: Art Deco LA, Movie Palaces, and Bijou, which was released in December 2016 by Nazraeli Press. Ave Pildas provides a fascinating glimpse into how, over the span of four decades, the streets and people of Hollywood Boulevard have both changed and remained curiously the same, writes Haley Evans for Beautiful Decay Magazine. In the studio, Ave is working on a still-life series based on circles, squares, and triangles, substituting geometric objects like pyramids, cubes, and spheres for the typical vase of flowers or table setting. Outside the studio, Ave shoots "Paper Movies". These collages of multiple images are shot in public spaces and allow him to interact with passers by, encouraging them to participate with the photographer and the background. After collecting hundreds of photos, he edits them to tell a visual story, combining them into a single piece. He is also producing short, stop-action videos using still images from "Paper Movies" to promote the series. One of the videos, "Stairway to Heaven," assembled from images of a staircase at The Getty Museum, garnered 40,000 views in a week. Galleries Joseph Bellows Gallery Richard Moore Photographs Tufenkian Fine Arts Rock Photography Museum Small Books & Small Prints

Matthew Pillsbury

Matthew Pillsbury

United States / France
1973

Matthew Pillsbury is a French-born American photographer, living in New York City. The Screen Lives series, inspired by Sugimoto's movie theater photos, features black and white, long-exposure photographs of family and friends sitting in their apartments interacting with their computer and television screens. In 2004 The New York Times Magazine commissioned him to do a portfolio of photos of New York museums after hours. One such photo was taken at the Guggenheim Museum: An installation in progress in the Ronald O. Perelman Rotunda (Oct. 1, 2004.) In addition to New York, he continued to shoot within museums in both London and Paris, including the Musée du Louvre. At the Louvre he photographed the Mona Lisa. The New York Times and the Aperture Foundation published New York Times Photographs in the fall of 2011, featuring one of his photos of the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center For Earth and Space. In the Dec 11, 2011 issue of New York Magazine, Pillsbury's works were published as part of their "Reasons to Love New York 2011" feature. The photos included four shots from City Stages, which included Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park, as well as Jing Fong dim sum, Fausto in Washington Square Park and High Line. His series, City Stages initially ran from February 23, 2012 to April 28, 2012 at the Bonni Bunrubi Gallery in New York City. The exhibition opened in Atlanta, GA on September 13, 2012 and ran until November 17, 2012 at The Jackson Fine Art gallery. In September 2013, the Aperture Foundation published a monograph that includes a retrospective of his works, titled, City Stages. The New York Times Magazine published one of Pillsbury's City Stages photos as part of their Manhattanhenge feature in July 2013. Art Relish conducted an interview in October 2012 with him discussing his City Stages works. In the Oct 1, 2012 edition of Time Magazine, High Line photo, featuring a park in Manhattan constructed of abandoned train tracks, was highlighted as part of his exhibit at the Jackson Fine Art gallery. The Screen Lives series, inspired by Sugimoto's movie theater photos, features black and white, long-exposure photographs of family and friends sitting in their apartments interacting with their computer and television screens. On the CNN Photos Blog, Pillsbury's Screen Lives series was featured in a post about the School of Visual Arts "Myths & Realities" show, which took at the Visual Arts Gallery in New York, Aug 29-Sept 29, 2012. On November 27, 2011, New York Times Magazine featured two of Pillsbury's photos of Jane's Carousel from "City Stages." In April 2014, Pillsbury was one of 11 photographers awarded with the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Approximately 200 Fellowships are awarded each year through two annual competitions that receive between 3,500 and 4,000 applications. Guggenheim Fellowships are grants awarded to "advanced professionals in mid-career" who have demonstrated exceptional ability by publishing a significant body of work within the fields of natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and the creative arts, excluding the performing arts. In 2014, Pillsbury photographed various cities in Japan, with the focus being in and around Tokyo. Recent photographs from his work in Tokyo were revealed in a photo essay published on July 18, 2014 in The New York Times Magazine and include images from Tokyo Disneyland, Robot Restaurant and the CupNoodles Museum in Yokohama. In April 2014, The New York Times Magazine first ran a photo essay of Pillsbury's work that centered around the hanami parties that occur during the week when the cherry blossoms are at peak bloom. An exhibition of His new Tokyo work opened Sept 10, 2014 and closed November 15, 2014 in New York City at Benrubi Gallery. A portfolio of Pillsbury's new images was featured in The New Yorker in September 2015, and showcased locations that include the High Line, the American Museum of Natural History, Astoria Park Pool and the Coney Island Boardwalk. He has also widened the project's focus to include locations outside of Manhattan, after a move to Brooklyn in January 2015 that inspired him to shoot urban life in the outer boroughs. In a redesign and relaunch in the February 22, 2015 issue, The New York Times Magazine published a photograph Of his on its cover. The long exposure image featured an illuminated spinning globe, which he took in his basement. He is represented exclusively by Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York.Source: Wikipedia

Bernard Plossu

France
1945

Bernard Plossu, born in Vietnam to a French family, is a renowned French photographer known for his evocative and poetic images that capture the essence of time and place. His work spans several decades and covers a wide range of subjects, from landscapes and travel photography to street scenes and intimate portraits. Plossu's interest in photography began in his youth, and he developed a deep passion for the medium while studying art history in Paris. Plossu was inspired by American photographers such as Robert Frank and Walker Evans to embark on a lifelong journey to document the world through his unique lens. Plossu, best known for his black-and-white photographs, has an eye for composition and the ability to capture the essence of a moment in a single frame. His photographs frequently have a dreamlike quality to them, capturing the fleeting beauty and emotions that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. Throughout his career, Plossu has traveled extensively, capturing landscapes and cultures from Mexico to India, the United States to the Mediterranean. His photographs convey a sense of wanderlust and a fascination with the world, inviting viewers to join him on his visual journeys. Plossu has made significant contributions to the documentation of the French cultural and artistic scene, in addition to his travel photography. He has photographed iconic figures such as Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Luc Godard, providing intimate portraits of their lives. Plossu's work has been shown in prestigious galleries and museums all over the world, earning him international recognition. His photographs have appeared in numerous books and magazines, cementing his reputation as one of France's most influential photographers of his generation.

Fausto Podavini

Fausto Podavini

Italy

Fausto Podavini was born in Rome, where he still lives and works. His passion for photography began when he was 18, first as assistant and studio photographer, then working on ethnological and social reportage. In 1992, he worked at MIFAV, the photography museum at Tor Vergata University in Rome and then studied at the John Kaverdash photography academy in Milan, taking a master’s degree in reportage. Podavini left studio photography to dedicate himself exclusively to reportage, and is nowadays a freelance photographer, collaborating with a number of NGOs. He has covered issues in Italy, Peru, Kenya, and Ethiopia, where he is currently developing personal photographic projects.Italian social reportage photographer Fausto Podavini is honoured this year as both third place winner in the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards Lifestyle category as well as first prize for the 2013 World Press Photo's 'Daily Life' category. His winning series, follows the relationship of Mirella and Luigi as Mirella cared for for husband at home in Rome. Married for over 40 years, Luigi began experiencing symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. For six years, Mirella tended to her husband's needs due to the progressive degenerative illness. After five years of living with Alzheimers, Luigi no longer recongised his wife; he died in May 2011 with her at his bedside. Podavini's intimate and delicate series follows Mirella for four years. WPO's Kaley Sweeney spoke to the photographer a bit more about his experiences developing the long term project. (Source: World Photography Organisation)

Joseph Podlesnik

Joseph Podlesnik

United States
1959

Joseph Podlesnik holds a BFA in drawing and painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MFA in drawing and painting from Cornell University. He currently serves as Adjunct Faculty (online) for the Stockton University Visual Arts Program and Facilitator Lead for the Digital Photography Cornell Certificate Program. Podlesnik exhibits his photographs singly and in group shows, nationally and internationally. He resides in Phoenix, AZ. For Podlesnik, the camera lens depicts perspective too easily, which is why he captures and makes photographs which often frustrate readable perspectival space. For him, the photographic image is not only a window through which to see the visible world, but also a maker of flat surfaces which stunt or block logical space. He sees photography and pictures not only as documentation, but as commenting on or reenacting perception itself. The Pain, Boredom and Euphoria of Looking For the “The Pain, Boredom and Euphoria of Looking” exhibition, my intent is to select color and black and white photographs which involve some personal physical discomfort (while capturing the photographs), degrees of boredom (tolerating, organizing, and capturing a world full of redundant visual information) and the thrill and euphoria I experience while capturing photographs and exploring their effects in post- processing. The intent is to arrive at formal order, unity, mood, complexity, ambiguity, and in many cases engage the viewer in frame edge-to-frame edge visual activity.

Matthew Portch

United Kingdom
1970

I was born and raised in Bristol, England through the '70s and '80s in a typical suburb. As a child, television and movies were my favourite distraction, especially anything from the United States. The backdrop of the North American scenery felt like an exotic antidote to the humdrum of the English city suburbs and countryside. I was a keen illustrator spending hours pouring over the minutia of the subject matter. I wanted my drawings to feel as close to reality as possible. This work saw me enrolled in college at a young age where I studied Photography and Graphic Design. Drawing on my childhood memories, the visuals of the American landscape remained a major influence on my photography. I became inspired by North American photographers of the '60s and '70s who were prevalent in using large format film. This laborious system of capture enhanced these seemingly ordinary looking street scenes and vistas with fastidious detail. I discovered a more modern process in the form of a technical camera, digital back, and precision optics, then proceeded to cast my own journey. I like my pictures to be aesthetically simple, clean and graphic, which resonates with my background in design. I prefer the images to retain an air of perplexity, so keeping them free of people and any notable present-day object helps suspend them in a moment in time. As with most large format photography techniques, when I photograph a scene I capture everything across the frame in complete focus. This can lend a heightened sense of reality. Given each picture is deliberately simple and mundane – the detail of the capture is just as important as the subject matter and becomes a character of the image in itself. I use the full size of the sensor and prefer not to crop. Restricting myself to this discipline is almost a digital reverence to large format film. My creative vision is to capture a calm and melancholic disposition in the landscape and create a scene of discernible simplicity to evoke an emotional and response from within. About Lost America Lost America examines a quiet stillness in a forgotten landscape that is, in a sense: 'on-pause'. Backwater towns and rural corners are juxtaposed with the ambiguity of detached suburbia. Places appear frozen in time, their inhabitants absent or long since departed. Ardently stagnant in their appearance, the images aim to unlock a moment of reflective contemplation and instil a melancholic feeling of familiarity. One might not notice or acknowledge these spaces, especially when viewed within the vast stretch of America's panorama. Yet, when framed as a single vignette, the places can appear to echo a moment of mournful reverie. Or, for some, they might behold an alluringly sombre, everlasting impression.

Jorge Pozuelo

Spain
1977

Born in León in 1977, he began his photographic career in the 90s. He quit his job as a telecommunications technician to devote himself to photography where he did an MA in photography from the University of Canterbury. He always wanted to find the human side in all his photographs, playing with visual aggression and silence of space. In 2009 he took an year off and traveled the world and published “Picture Easy”, a book for all rules of photography, affordable for anyone to start in the world of photography. He worked for an year as a digital photographic technician, where he met all professional teams and medium format digital market issues resolved color management studies like Ricky Dávila and Isabel Muñoz. He has done work for companies like Unidental photographic, Silken Hotels, Tinkle, Adecco, AD, Truhko Make Up, FX Magazine, Life Smile or artistic bodies festival in Spain. In October 2011 he traveled to Doha for several editorials for the magazine “Qultura” for the government of Qatar. He has done several photo exhibitions, “BodyArt”, “TattooArt” or “walls of silence”, joint exhibition of great impact in the press and on TV Carabanchel prison. He has made a joint project with the photojournalist Ervin Sarkisov titled “Back to Life” where they follow up drug abusers. His presentation was in the 2011 grenade Alandaluz Photofestival double pass and very well received. In the course of months he has now approached to teaching, he runs a photography school in Madrid and tries to instill his passion for photography. He has given seminars on photographic lighting as both white and black, making the latter a small obsession in Madrid, Cordoba and Barcelona for different associations, municipalities and companies like Elincrom and Fotocasión.Source Artphotofeature.com

Hannah Price

United States
1986

Raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, Hannah Price (b. 1986) is a photographic artist and filmmaker primarily interested in documenting relationships, race politics, social perception and misperception. Price is internationally known for her project City of Brotherly Love (2009-2012), a series of photographs of the men who catcalled her on the streets of Philadelphia. In 2014, Price graduated from the Yale School of Art MFA Photography program, receiving the Richard Benson Prize for excellence in photography. Over the past eight years, Price's photos have been displayed in several cities across the United States, with a few residing in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Currently, Ms. Price lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.Source: www.hannahcprice.com Born in Annapolis, Maryland; raised in Fort Collins, Colorado; and now based in Philadelphia, photographer and documentary filmmaker Hannah Price has spent years capturing the nuances of racial identities and societal perceptions. Her work is a critique of the negative and destructive powers of visual representation in determining the realities of black people and other racialized groups. For Price, image-making also offers a strategy of recuperating different ways of relating to other people and the world around us. To date, her projects have included: the internationally-renowned City of Brotherly Love— a visual survey of catcallers she encountered in Philadelphia; Resemblance— a series of portraits of inner-city high schoolers in Rochester New York; Cursed By Night, made in 2012-2013, on the perceived threat of black masculinity; and 2018’s Semaphore, exploring how individuals signal their identities. Price’s photos evince a rare attention to the subjectivities of those she photographs, even as she probes the validity and significance of the social constructs that operate around them. She has previously exhibited in several cities across the United States, with solo shows at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and the Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, while several of her photographs reside in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Now, as a 2020 Magnum nominee, Price discusses the political and aesthetic concerns that inform her work, as well as some of the problems and possibilities to be found in using visual communication as a means of fighting racism.Source: Magnum Photos Price moved to Philadelphia in 2009 from Colorado and noticed for the first time that she was getting catcalled. The photographer, who's currently working toward an MFA in photography at Yale, decided to turn the camera on the people who approached her on the Philly streets. This resulted in the series City of Brotherly Love (Philly's nickname). Ambiguity might be one of this project's most prevalent themes. It's been mistakenly referred to as "My Harassers" on some blogs, which Price does not like. Her series doesn't take an aggressive stance on catcalling; it's not meant to incite social action, she says. Rather, it's an observation, a way to react behind the camera lens. Price's portraits leave much to interpretation. Not only do we not know the situations in which she crossed paths with these men, but we also have no idea of their relationship. The photos are framed in a variety of ways; the lighting, composition and even positioning of the subjects themselves vary so much that viewers have plenty of freedom to interpret them.Source: npr

Tom Price

Wales
1985

Tom Price is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker and writer based in east London, with over a decade of experience working on commercial, editorial and not-for-profit projects for organisations such as the NHS, Airbnb and Save the Children. His work focuses on telling important stories and highlighting social phenomena - previous short-form projects have ranged from documenting the largest dance festival in the world to critical humanitarian crises, such as food insecurity in South Sudan and typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. His work has been exhibited in Latin America, Europe and the USA; projected onto the side of the Tate Modern in London and presented at the UN headquarters in New York. Recently, he has exhibited at Helsinki Photo Festival 2021, Berlin Photo Week 2021, and was awarded first place and 'photographer of the year' at All About Photo awards 2021, 1st place International Photo Awards 2021 and longlisted for the BBA Photography Prize, Berlin. Exclusive Interview with Tom Price The Stunning Winning Images of All About Photo Awards 2021

Alessandro Puccinelli

Alessandro Puccinelli

Italy

My earliest professional experience dates from 1993 when I moved to Australia, as an assistant in advertising photography. Returning to Italy a few years later, I chose to concentrate my attention on commercial photography and personal work. At the age of 16 I had the great good fortune, especially living in Italy, a country not widely known for big waves, of discovering the joy of surfing. From that moment forward was born a strong link with the sea that still today profoundly influences my life choices, both professionally and personally. The presence of the sea in my daily life represents something extremely important to me onto which I project fear, dreams, hope and receiving in return inner strength and mental clarity. The choice of placing the sea centre stage in my life positively affects my personal work which, in truth, is born from this choice. In short, it is the place above all other places where I prefer to be. In an entirely natural way, in my personal work there has evolved a current of romanticism, reflected above all others in my love of the work of J.W Turner. This does not surprise me as with the sea I co habit with the virtues of force, elegance and simplicity. I recognise the sea in front of me as my ancestral home, it’s force and vastness make me feel small and vulnerable, yet, at the same time, it indicates to me a pathway, an example to follow or even a point of arrival. In 2008, motivated by the desire to remain in close contact with the ocean, I decided to divide my time between Italy and Portugal. Attracted by this country, bathed by a stupendous and vigorous sea, I found a good balance between a European lifestyle and a strong contact with nature. Today, I principally divide my time between Tuscany, Lisbon and the southern coast of Portugal where frequently I take refuge in my motorhome hideaway in search of intimacy with the ocean. My works have been recognized in many photography awards including, Sony World Photography Awards, International Photography Awards, Black and White Photography Awards, Hasselblad Masters and others.

Marlou Pulles

Netherlands
1965

Marlou Pulles is an Amsterdam City photographer, who explores themes of stillness and awareness. She studied Art History at the University of Utrecht, with a specialization in Dutch paintings of the 17th century. Inspired by the classical beauty of the food still-lifes of the famous painter Adriaen Coorte, she wanted to create images herself. She graduated in 2012 from Photography School Statief in Utrecht. Her still-lifes are aesthetic explorations of daily life objects. Placing the objects in an unconventional way, they become alive. About Shaping Blocks The abstract compositions she created consist of handmade wooden blocks from India, which are usually used as craft pieces for printing on textiles. Hit by the geometric beauty of these so called 'blockprints', which were designed by Nathalie Cassee , she searched in this series for balanced compositions. Playing with shapes, lines, colors and depth she wants to make still-lifes, that forces you to take your time and to see the individual elements in a different way. The compositions seem to float, and are constructed like collages. The movement that arises connects the blocks and the new aesthetic shapes radiate tranquility.

Graeme Purdy

Northern Ireland
1971

Born and raised in Northern Ireland and now based in London, England. I've always loved the outdoors. Hiking, camping and being in nature have always been at the heart of fond memories and friendships. Statement For me, great images are always driven by going the extra mile. Looking at the world from a different perspective, following the beat of my own drum. Increasingly, I've fallen in love with Black & White photography, it has become a very big part of how I shoot, where I shoot and when I shoot. It has provided the creative dimension I needed. My ambition is to find fresh images. I embrace and relish the challenge of doing things differently and creating genuinely unique content. This has real-life consequences, but I am highly driven to make new and distinctive images. I am prepared to forfeit 500 good images for one that is great - and I often forfeit 500 good images for no results at all.

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