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Enter AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Enter AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
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.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Kevin Lyle
United States
1951
I am, for the most part, self taught. I first became interested in art around the age of 12. Art class became the most interesting part of school. After high school I attended the Cleveland Institute of Art for one semester before realizing that art school was not for me at that time. After moving to Chicago my first job turned into a career in computers and systems management and I did little or no art for many years. I've always had an inclination to collect. Collecting African masks and the process of photographing them for documentary purposes led to a broader interest in photography. When I began going for long walks to search for photographic material I soon realized the exercise and fresh air were an added bonus to this pursuit of collecting images. Artist Statement As long as I can remember, I've been curious about incidental objects and environments and their potential for a sort of extraordinary/ordinary beauty. I find this quality in the work of photographer Eugene Atget, composer Erik Satie and singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie. These great artists are a constant source of inspiration. My process is fueled by an innate hunter/gatherer impulse. Most of my images are collected within walking distance of my home on Chicago's north side. Contemplative wandering in the urban analog world, away from the preponderance of drama delivered digitally via television and the Internet, reveals evidence of real life - evidence of what may be, may have happened or may yet occur. Sometimes mundane, sometimes oblique, askew or atypical. Mostly overlooked, until documented.
Joanna Borowiec
Poland
1971
Joanna Borowiec, a graduate of the European Academy of Photography in Warsaw, diploma thesis in the Creative and Expressive Photography Workshop, Dr Izabela Jaroszewska. Member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF). Scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage 2020. Photography Workshop. Enthusiast of medium- and large-format analogue photography. Uses historic photographic processes like ambrotype – wet collodion technique, cyanotype e.c.t. The main topic of her photos is humanistic photography, human. Winner International Photography Awards IPA 2021- category Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year. She was also awarded the third place in Photographer of the Year category of the Black& White Spider Awards competition. Prize-winner of the Portfolio Black + White Photography UK, the Portfolio Black & White for Collectors Of Fine Photography Canada, the Portfolio 2012 Shot Magazine USA. Her works and interviews with her were published in many magazines, i.a. the Black+ White Photography UK (the cover), the Shot Magazine USA, the Black and White Magazine Canada and in national magazines. Her photographs can be found in public and private collections at home and abroad, i.a. in Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, USA e.c.t. She has participated in individual and collective exhibitions at home and abroad, i.a. in Poland, Germany, Spain, Singapore, Canada, USA e.c.t. Blue Story Many of my cyanotypes are created by layering a combination of objects and film imagery with carefully timed light exposures for a depth of blue/indigo colors. Inspired by nature and how we interact with it, I arrange natural objects such as leaves, flowers and vines with human made objects or images of objects. I choose to work with cyanotypes "live", in sunlight for the spontaneity of arranging the objects and often have a general idea of what I want to do allowing for of-the-minute additions and subtractions of objects and timing of exposures. I sometimes add acryl paint, or colored pencil to a washed and dried print. Cyanotype is a contact print process using treated, UV light sensitive paper. It results in a Prussian blue final print. Also known as photogram, sun print. The English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel discovered this procedure in 1842. (...) Due to the coating and printing process Cyanotypes are always non reproducible unique items in itself. Dreams Unfinished It is a story about pain, love and longing. The photos were taken after the death of my father. He passed away suddenly in his sleep. I could not understand what happened, to come to terms with the loss. I looked for him everywhere and imagined he was asleep and dreaming. As a result, I have contact with him in the dream world he is with me. Works depict dreams, motifs, shards of memories which probably appear in everyone's dreams. Dreams - eternal companions of human life - encourage us to analyse our own experiences and understand our fate. They enable us to bring to surface deeply hidden secrets and go beyond the earthly matters. These records are born out of imagination and perishable ephemeral memory. They are not meant to be unambiguous; they should leave the door open for free interpretation and free reading to enable everyone to supplement them with their own story. Glass Faces "The eyes and faces all turned themselves towards me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room" Sylvia Plath Glass Faces present unique, enchanting, climatic and hypnotising portraits. Bewitching with natural beauty and somewhat unreal, mysterious, silent and oozing various emotions. Faces of friends and people we have just met. Ambrotypes - positive images created on a sheet of glass using the 19th century wet collodion process - are the vital element of the project. The ambrotype is inimitable. You may try to reproduce it, but a piece created on black glass remains unique. Ambrotype - Ambrotos means immortal... I was born in a camp The story of Jan Chmiel, who was born in the Waltrop forced labor camp - a city in western Germany. According to a record issued by a German official, he was born in 1944. , according to information provided by the mother in 1942. Of the 143 children captured in the Waltrop camp, three survived, including Jan.
Mathilde Pettersen
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.
Manuela Thames
German
1975
Manuela Thames is a photographic artist based in Saint Paul, Minnesota where she lives with her husband and two children. Born and raised in Germany, she moved to the US in 2004 after marrying her American husband. Her background is in nursing and alternative health, but around 2008 she began to focus solely on photography after two life changing events happened within one year, the birth of her first son and the death of her brother. Manuela uses various photographic techniques to explore themes around loss and grief, her personal experience with generational trauma, as well as the notions of belonging, connection and what it means to be human. Within that she continues to explore human ways of coping, the strength that evolves out of suffering and our common desire for healing and journey towards wholeness. Much of her work consists of black and white, conceptual self-portraits. Manuela’s photography has been described as contemplative, evocative, and cinematic and has been widely exhibited nationally as well as internationally. Her “Trauma” series won 1st place conceptual series of the year in the Monovisions Award in 2019, and in the same year she won the 13th Julia Margaret Cameron Award in the Self-Portrait Category. In addition, her work has been published online and in print in such places as Black and White Magazine, Sun Magazine, Dohdo Magazine and Shots Magazine. She teaches workshops privately and through various places such as Santa Fe Workshops, LA Center of Photography, SE Center of Photography, and offers mentoring services as well.
Niki Feijen
Netherlands
1977
Dutch photographer Niki Feijen immortilizes an astonishingly intact glimpse into the past. This autodidact specializes in documenting and capturing historic architecture and abandoned buildings. Each photo fuses together the conflicting notions of beauty and decay and corresponds with his desire to capture and silently communicate with his audience about the subject's very essence. Niki wants to recreate the exact same scene as he sees while standing in a location but the lightspectrum your eye can capture is much, much wider than a camera can capture. Photographing a dark setting with extreme highlights like a window causes the highlights to wash out into white or dark areas can become obscure black blobs. It's impossible to shoot a photo that captures both ends of this spectrum. Since Niki does not use any artificial lighting he uses different exposures to capture a much wider light spectrum than a traditional photograph. The result is a hyper realistic photo which would replicate the exact same thing you would see standing inside the location yourself. In 2010 Feijen visited the quintessential location of desertion: the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. After a catastrophic nuclear accident occurred in 1986 the entire city of Pripyat, all 50,000 inhabitants, were evacuated within 48 hours. Most of the belongings of the evacuated inhabitants were left behind and never returned to again. The incredible deafening silence of this location, in its absence of the living, permeates the senses and mind of visitors who venture to there to this day. Feijen is currently travelling around the globe looking for more hidden gems tucked away behind 'Do Not Enter' signs. Curious about what lies on the other side, he goes in search of the hidden world that is often in plain sight. When Feijen comes across impressive yet eerie locations, such as homes located in ghost towns, asylums, decaying hospitals, abandoned castles and long forgotten hotels, he intends to preserve the what is left of the past by encapsulating these forgotten masterpieces' ethos in a photo before they crumble and collapse. The impressions left from these places are represented in visual form for the public in three separate books. All works, 'Disciple of Decay' (April 2013) 'Frozen' (September 2014) and 'Tempus Fugit' (December 2017), have been independently published. The first sold out in six months. On top of these publications, Feijen's photographs are exhibited at art galleries and international art fairs several times a year. His works have been featured by NBC, BBC, The Huffington Post, ABC News, The Daily Mail and Chase Jarvis, among a variety of others. As of 2014 Feijen's work is part of the Sir Elton John Photography Collection where his name is among legendary photographers as ; Edward Weston, David LaChapelle, Diane Arbus and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Ruth Orkin
United States
1921 | † 1985
Ruth Orkin was an American photographer, photojournalist, and filmmaker, with ties to New York City and Hollywood. Best known for her photograph An American Girl in Italy (1951), she photographed many celebrities and personalities including Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, Ava Gardner, Tennessee Williams, Marlon Brando, and Alfred Hitchcock. Ruth Orkin was born on September 3, 1921 in Boston, Massachusetts to Mary Ruby and Samuel Orkin. Ruth grew up in Hollywood, due to her mother's career as a silent film actress. In 1931, she received her first camera, a 39-cent Univex, and soon began experimenting by taking photographs of her friends and teachers at school. At the age of 17, she decided to bike across America, beginning in Los Angeles, and ending in New York City for the 1939 World's Fair. She completed the trip in three weeks' time, taking photographs along the way. She briefly attended Los Angeles City College for photojournalism in 1940, prior to becoming the first messenger girl at MGM Studios in 1941, citing a desire to become a cinematographer. She left the position after discovering the union's discriminatory practices that did not allow female members. She joined the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps during World War II, in 1941 in an attempt to gain filmmaking skills, as advertisements promoting the group promised. The attempt was not fruitful, however, and she was discharged in 1943 without any filmmaking training. In 1943, Orkin moved to New York City in pursuit of a career as a freelance photojournalist. She began working as a nightclub photographer and received her first assignment in 1945 from The New York Times to shoot Leonard Bernstein. Shortly after, her freelance career grew as she traveled internationally on assignments and contributed photographs to Life, Look, Ladies' Home Journal, and others. Orkin is credited with breaking into a heavily male field. Orkin's most celebrated image is An American Girl in Italy (1951). The subject of the now-iconic photograph was the 23-year-old Ninalee Craig (known at that time as Jinx Allen). The photograph was part of a series originally titled Don't Be Afraid to Travel Alone. The image depicted Craig as a young woman confidently walking past a group of ogling Italian men in Florence. In recent articles written about the pair, Craig claims that the image was not staged, and was one of many taken throughout the day, aiming to show the fun of traveling alone. In 1952 Orkin married photographer, filmmaker and fellow Photo League member Morris Engel. Orkin and Engel collaborated on two major independent feature films, Little Fugitive which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1953, and Lovers and Lollipops (1955). After the success of the two films, Orkin returned to photography, taking color shots of Central Park as seen through her apartment window. Ruth photographed marathons, parades, concerts, demonstrations, and the beauty of the changing seasons. These photographs were the subject of two widely acclaimed books, A World Through My Window (1978) and More Pictures from My Window (1983). Orkin taught photography at the School of Visual Arts in the late 1970s, and at the International Center of Photography in 1980. After a long struggle with cancer, Orkin passed away in her apartment, surrounded by her wonderful legacy of photographs with the view of Central Park outside her window, on January 16, 1985.Source: Wikipedia Ruth Orkin was an award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker. Orkin was the only child of Mary Ruby, a silent-film actress, and Samuel Orkin, a manufacturer of toy boats called Orkin Craft. She grew up in Hollywood in the heyday of the 1920s and 1930s. At the age of 10, she received her first camera, a 39 cent Univex. She began by photographing her friends and teachers at school. At 17 years old she took a monumental bicycle trip across the United States from Los Angeles to New York City to see the 1939 World’s Fair, and she photographed along the way. Orkin moved to New York in 1943, where she worked as a nightclub photographer and shot baby pictures by day to buy her first professional camera. She worked for all the major magazines in 1940s, and also went to Tanglewood during the summers to shoot rehearsals. She ended up with many of the worlds’ greatest musicians of the time including Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, Aaron Copland, Jascha Heifitz, Serge Koussevitzky and many others. In 1951, LIFE magazine sent her to Israel with the Israeli Philharmonic. Orkin then went to Italy, and it was in Florence where she met Nina Lee Craig, an art student and fellow American, who became the subject of American Girl in Italy. The photograph was part of a series originally titled Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone about what they encountered as women traveling alone in Europe after the war.Source: Ruth Orkin Photo Archive Boston-born Ruth Orkin grew up in Los Angeles, and the movie industry and music were both formative influences. She attended Los Angeles City College briefly in 1940 before becoming the first female studio messenger ever hired at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the early 1940s; but with no hope for promotion, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, tempted by the promise (empty, as it turned out) that she would be taught cinematography. After completing her service in 1943, she moved to New York and worked as a nightclub photographer. Orkin honed her skills in portraiture by spending the summer of 1946 documenting the Tanglewood Music Festival; later that year, LOOK published her first major photo essay, Jimmy, the Storyteller. She sent the series to Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, and he subsequently included her in every group photography show at the museum until his retirement, including the great 1955 exhibition, The Family of Man. Orkin married photographer Morris Engel in 1952, and the couple collaborated on a prize-winning film, Little Fugitive. Their filmmaking endeavors continued through the mid-1950s, and while Orkin continued to photograph, she admitted that still photography "held little interest" after her experience of making a film. Her views of Central Park, taken from her apartment, were published in the 1978 book A World Outside My Window. Orkin's photography is a celebration of fearlessness and vitality. While she accepted specific assignments from The New York Times and various magazines, she also had the freedom to work independently, creating photo essays and photographing famous people with the knowledge that she would be able to sell the resulting work. Like a film director, Orkin created images that appear to be private moments, and lends a Hollywood-style personality to her subjects and landscapes.Source: International Center of Photography
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