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James Peaslee
James Peaslee
James Peaslee

James Peaslee

Country: United States
Birth: 1952

James M. Peaslee (Jim) is an art photographer living in New York City. He grew up in New York City and its suburbs, Los Angeles, and France. He has been taking pictures for 50 years. His formal photography education started at age 17 in 1970, in a course taken in the Yale Art Department from the venerable Walker Evans. Peaslee has a substantial portfolio of black and white pictures (taken with a medium format camera) from that time. The need to earn a living then put a temporary damper on artistic endeavors. He went to law school, and was a tax lawyer for many years with the international law firm Cleary Gottlieb. Good tax lawyers are known for their creativity, but admittedly the artistry is light on color, tones, and shapes. In 2018, Peaslee retired from the law and attended the Rocky Mountain School of Photography Summer Intensive Program. Much of his time since the beginning of 2018 has been devoted to photography, and his portfolio is growing.

Statement
Peaslee admits to having a dark side. Many of the pictures he takes are stark or consciously simplified. A picture that is stark or simple offers the viewer a chance to ask what is missing, or what happens next. Many images show individuals who seem isolated. Pictures of buildings usually show no people, or only figures in silhouette or shadow. One artist Peaslee cites as an influence is Edward Hopper. Walker Evans, his first photography teacher, also helped set the tone.

Gallery

The Commotion

Websites

www.jamesmpeaslee.com

@jamesmpeaslee

 

Inspiring Portfolios

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Michel Daumergue
Michel Daumergue
France
1953
I studied visual arts which allowed me to discover the range of possibilities in this field and I made it my career. Since then, I have tried to adopt a photographic and artistic approach that is as open as possible. I have exhibited alone and in groups my photographs, paintings and installations throughout France (for the most recent, see the News/Exhibitions section on my site). Focused first on a classical approach, I also try other visual experiences to broaden my research. The flexibility and adaptability of photography continues to amaze me, especially since the advent of digital technology. I do not favor any photographic genre and give importance to chance which allows discoveries.
Marie Sueur
Marie Sueur
France
1979
Born in 1979, Marie Sueur experienced a nomadic childhood. Her sister was born in Chad, her brother in Morocco, and she herself in Cameroon. These multicultural beginnings awakened in her a taste for discovery, encounters, and the unexpected ; nourishing both her imagination and her passion for storytelling. She now lives and works in Paris. Self-taught, Sueur uses photography to explore emotions, the unconscious, and subjects that are, by nature, elusive. Her work does not seek to deliver a strict representation of reality, but rather to suggest what lies beneath the visible : the poetic, the metaphorical, the mysterious. Experimentation is at the heart of her practice, which could be described as that of a “visual artist.” She often feels compelled to introduce physical éléments (embroidery, cardboard, ink…) perhaps as a way of lending greater materiality to works whose very subjects remain intangible. Her photographs have been exhibited in Paris, Arles, Aix-en-Provence, London, and Athens. In 2025, she was named Fine Art Photographer of the Year (non-professional) at the IPA International Photography Awards. She is also a finalist for the QPN Quinzaine Photographique de Nantes and the VIF Vincennes Image Festival Grand Prize. Statement "In a world that watches, analyzes, measures, and controls everything, I am fascinated by what still escapes all forms of control. Among these untamed territories where our instinctive desire for freedom remains unconstrained: the unconscious , a vast continent of ambiguities and vertigo, whispering its truths in the language of symbols and dreams. I wanted to explore this inner space where reason gives way, where the instinctive, the impulsive, the chaotic reclaim their place. These are territories where words falter and images take over. A visual wandering made up of fragments of memory, blurred intuitions, silent revolts , attempts not to grasp a fixed truth, but to capture a vibration, a breath, a fragile light at the heart of our most secret parts. This project is an invitation to feel what within us longs to break free: from imposed limits, from imprisoning gazes, from the frameworks that confine us. Through these sensitive projections, it is perception itself that trembles: what we believe we desire, what we repress, what draws us inward without our knowing. And what if this were the ultimate freedom? A space where nothing is decided, where nothing is controlled. An indomitable place where we stop appearing and simply exist: confused, incoherent, alive." Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 39, 2025
Jennifer Carlos
Jennifer Carlos
France
1987
Freelance photojournalist based in Paris, graduated in photojournalism from the DU Photodocumentaire et écritures numériques of the University of Perpignan and a DNSEP (Master II) of the ENSA of Bourges and a first year at the ENSA of Nice (Villa Arson). Alongside these trainings, she has worked for 18 years as a social worker. During these experiments, the impact of the hospital practice instinctively pushed him to make photography and opened his interest in the documentary form. Her work lies between art and information. Through her photos, she wants to tell stories about social exclusion and lived territories. She has worked for Le Monde, published in La Croix, Lens Magazine, L'Oeil de la Photographie, Vice, News From Photographers, Equal Times, Reporterre, Libération, Slate, Géo Ado, Axelle Mag, Géographical, NRC, le Vif, Afrique XXI/6 mois, Médiapart and Der Spiegel.
Maja Strgar Kurecic
Maja Strgar Kurecic
Croatia
1972
Maja Strgar Kurecic is a fine art photographer and an Associate Professor of photography at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She has been involved in photography for over 25 years. At the beginning of her career, Maja engaged mostly in advertising and journalistic projects. The last few years she devoted to projects that fall within the field of abstract photography. She earned international recognition for her recent projects: Other Worlds, Escape Landscapes and Floating Garden that won many international awards. She exhibited photographs on over 50 group and 20 independent exhibitions, held in country and abroad. OTHER WORLDS (2018) In the intimacy of my room, I immerse myself in an unpredictable, hidden world of colors and liquids. I create abstract motives from scratch. With the camera, I approach the subject and stop the moment of the dynamic process of their interaction. What is elusive to the eye in real time becomes visible in photographs... Although these photographs look like an abstract expression of colors and shapes, for me they mean much more. They represent symbolic landscapes - places where I escape from everyday worries and the real world, symbolize my inner world. What drives me in creation is the eternal search for wider horizons, unfettered spaces that transcend the boundaries of where we are physically standing and transcend into the infinite space of the imagination. For me, creation is a journey to freedom, to an open flow of pure ideas.
Michael Light
Michael Light
United States
1963
Michael Light is a San Francisco-based photographer focused on the environment and how contemporary American culture relates to it. He has exhibited globally, and his work has been collected by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Getty Research Institute, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, among others. For the last fifteen years, Light has aerially photographed over settled and unsettled areas of American space, pursuing themes of mapping, vertigo, human impact on the land, and various aspects of geologic time and the sublime. A private pilot and Guggenheim Fellow in photography, he is currently working on an extended aerial survey of the arid Western states. Radius Books published the first of a multi-volume series of this work, Bingham Mine/Garfield Stack, in 2009. The second, LA Day/LA Night, was released in 2011. The third, Lake Las Vegas/Black Mountain, was published in 2015. The fourth, Lake Lahontan/Lake Bonneville, was released in September 2019. Light is also known for his globally published archival works. His first, FULL MOON (1999), used lunar geological survey imagery made by the Apollo astronauts to show the moon both as a sublime desert and an embattled point of first human contact. 100 SUNS (2003), focused on the politics and landscape meanings of military photographs of U.S. atmospheric nuclear detonations from 1945 to 1962.
Eugene Ellenberg
Eugene Ellenberg
United States
1983
I'm an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in the southeast. My practice navigates acceptance, contention, and failure with what it means to be present. I shift between using a large-format view camera for documentary style storytelling and a wooden pinhole box camera exposing film for the duration of a gesture, ritual, or natural occurrence. My non-photographic media sometimes incorporates ready-made, labor related objects such as parachutes, flashlights, and reflectors to explore parallels of search and rescue with mental illness and recovery. As someone who has lost loved ones to substance abuse, and who is personally now on my own path of recovery, I embrace my art practice as a means of self inquiry, healing, and reconciling with the human condition. When I’m not making new work, or spending time with my animals, I split my days between teaching, volunteering at recovery treatment centers, and working on a second masters degree in Art Therapy. These days I’m grateful for good rest, the light that finds us, and shared time with others. In My Father’s House: While visiting my parents during my college years, I photographed a napkin on which my father had written two Elvis song titles, ‘In My Father’s House’ and ‘I Was the One.’ This small note along with others gave me insight to the private introspections of my father, the intimacy of which motivated me to investigate our relationship through the medium of photography. I expounded upon this by documenting various elements of our home and eventually asking others in my family to sit for portraits and to participate in constructed narratives. The majority of these images were captured using a large-format camera, requiring a slower, more meditative process of photographing my family members while also conveying the quiet tone of our relationships at that time. I had unknowingly started a project with an ending already in motion. Three years later, my father would be diagnosed with terminal cancer of the liver and lungs which had already spread to his bones. He was with us for seven days after the diagnosis. In his last days of consciousness, my father began to lose touch with the world and as a family we leaned into a rare embrace of vulnerability and affection. We played his favorite songs on the radio and whispered words in his ear we hadn’t said in such close proximity before. In those final hours, I grappled with my own disconnect as I slipped between the roles of active participant and documentarian. These images blur the lines of what I recall, what I want to admit and perhaps what I wanted to see.
Gautam Narang
Gautam Narang
United Kingdom
1984
I found photography by mistake, when doing my GCSE, I was sitting in the study room, then heard a teacher describe the subjects they taught at the school. As he was going through the subjects, he mentioned photography. I thought to myself was this a subject? Photography! It's so easy, all you do is click (How, wrong I was, how very wrong) *sigh*. As a child I used to play around with cameras. I always looked through them as was interested In them. So I sat in the lesson and was very enthusiastic to start a creative art. The journey had begun. One of the first subjects I started to picture was boats .....mmm yes boats. I lived near a canal and started to photograph boats. I don't know why I picked boats, it's quite sad when I look back, but that was one of my subjects. I took thousands of photographs, trying to make the subjects look Interesting. I remember one day I took all my photographs and filled up a whole table. The obsession had started but I hadn't known. Pictures now filled my room. From the start I always wanted to show my best. I would keep a box of my best photographs and then throw away all the one's I didn't like. I always feel the next picture is my favorite picture, wanting to create new work. As I progressed through my studies, I became distracted. There were so many subjects to do and I tried them all. One week I was doing art of history, then chemistry. I then dropped them all and just focused on photography. To this day, I follow photography. I have learned a lot but I am still confused on what to do next. I love what I do, but everybody tells me go into other things. Photography is more than clicking a button. From my first trip In India I have learned more about life then I would from anything. It teaches you to look, understand and observe rather then just walk away.All about Gautam Narang:AAP: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?Well after high school, I pretty much knew that is something that I’ve wanted to do, and it’s pretty much all that I’ve pictured myself doing. I’ve tried office jobs, but they usually don’t work, for example being an assistant was not a great experience. Order wold be forgotten and i’m not a office type or person, the stress kills me. So i’ve always gratiated to something creative.AAP: Where did you study photography?I studied at HND Photography at City and islington. Was the youngest student, out of the program my closet friend was Robert Harper who does amazing fashion photography. We used to chill and take pictures, it was really nice experience. Education to me, especially in the arts isn’t what i’ve expected it to be. The real learning happens when your out of school, and making friends with like minded pepole, finding who you are, I know it sounds like a really simple question, but you get asked “Who are you? What is your favorite movie? Favorite Artist and etc.” These days things are getting competitive and to really stand out is to have strong connections with people. AAP:Do you have a mentor?Yes, the teacher at my school. He was in 60’s and was my best friend, he taught me a lot on business, being an artist, encouraged me, let me use his studio and gave experience in the studio with while doing still life photography. He would also make all his own equipment, was really cool learning from him. My other mentor was Jasper James, he introduced me to style. He showed me that movies could be arty, before that I didn’t really watch any arty stuff. We also traveled around the UK on projects and that was a lot of fun. AAP: How long have you been a photographer?12 years.AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?They were pictures of cannel boats, in England I used to live near a cannel.AAP: What or who inspires you?Well Edward Hooper is a great inspiration. His images feel like movie scenes, they have such a powerful mood to them. Artist have always inspired me. William Eggleston is someone would really inspires me.AAP: How could you describe your style?As simple and bold. I’m a huge fan of bold colors and like to keep things simple.AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film?I use the Canon 5D Mark II and my iPhone 4, it’s great, you can take it anywhere and pepole aren’t imitated by it, you look like a tourist. The iPhone has a look, in 20 years when we have images that are so sharp that you can’t tell if your looking at something real. Images from are primitive cameras and mobile devices will be called “Retro” they come with a time stamp, the actually medium is a time capsule. It’s not about the quality, it’s about the message, that will last longer.AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images?I’m not a fan of editing, i’ve never liked it, only the darkroom.AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?Steve McCurry, Willam Eggleston, Dorothea Lange. AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?Go out and find your own vision, and all this likes and things mean nothing. It’s hard putting yourself out there, and pepole don’t usually respond. You start to want to appeal to others and worry if you posting to much. Do it for yourself, who cares about all this fame? Who knows if these websites will be around, this data? One day, you might be recognized.AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid?Don’t point fingers, point them at yourself first. Don’t blame others, really look at yourself first.AAP: An idea, a sentence, a project you would like to share?My work is constantly changing and I like that. To keep evolving you need to keep changing.AAP: Your best memory has a photographer?Working on location in India, working in a old Indian palace, documenting Indian folk singers. It’s an experience the kings once enjoyed.AAP: Your worst souvenir has a photographer?A broken camera lens.AAP: If you could have taken the photographs of someone else who would it be?Steve McCurry he has my dream jobAAP: Anything else you would like to share?I’m into film making now, really want to be a DOP or camera operator. Currently i’m based in Toronto.
Mariëtte Aernoudts
Mariëtte Aernoudts
Netherlands
1956
My name is Mariëtte Aernoudts and since 9 years I am a self thought photographer/ imagemaker. Most of my portraits are from children or young people and always in colour. I work very intuitive and during a shoot my ideas are becoming unstoppable. Except my portraits I create my own imaginary world using my storytelling images. I try to soften the realistic life. I am always looking for renewal, with my own feelings which I want to connect in my photos. I received several dutch prizes and in 2018 I won an award in SIPA contest Siena Italy. Last February one of my photos was nominated for the Sony World Photography awards. My Statement: 'What I see is what you get'
Kirill Akishkin
Kirill Akishkin
Russia
1985
I came to photography from film directing. In 2013, I graduated from a prestigious film school in Moscow and continued to master visual arts independently. While shooting various commercial works and honing my technique, like any artist, I wanted to go beyond the ordinary. Over the years of work, inspired by directors such as Wong Kar-Wai and David Lynch, I developed my own unique style. Now you can see my works in various publications worldwide. I enjoy sharing my feelings through visual creations because it’s an expression that everyone can interpret in their own unique way. For different viewers, a photograph can be both a question and an answer at the same time. This is its uniqueness, its power, which is why I love it. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 10
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