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

Jacque Rupp

Country: United States

Jacque Rupp is a humanist photographer residing in Silicon Valley. She picked up her first camera, a Rollei, in her teens, and immediately fell in love with the entire process- but especially how the camera connected her to others. Because she moved extensively as a child, Jacque learned quickly how to walk into new situations and build trust with people. She draws on these early experiences when creating a rapport with her photographic subjects.

Jacque was an executive in the technology industry, responsible for recruiting top talent for many years. Interviewing and learning about people's stories fits directly into her style of photography. Jacque goes deep, looking to capture the human spirit by using layers, complexity, and emotion in her work.

She received her MBA from Santa Clara University. She is on the Advisory Board for the United Nations Affiliated Film Festival at Stanford University and for the Weston Collective in Carmel. She has exhibited at the Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel, Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, The Daily Photograph and numerous on-line venues.

Statement
It's always about the people. Curiosity and connection. It's very personal for me. I'm drawn by intensity, intimacy and authenticity in my subjects.

I am curious about different cultures, here and abroad, and search for stories about everyday people in everyday life. I look for a face that is lived in, a spirit I can connect with, a truth that is shared and a story to tell. I am seeking a sense of identity and place. When I engage with my subjects, this moment shared between us is an honor. In my photographs, I strive to show the humanity and universal spirit that binds all of us together.

Spirit of India
India, and especially its religious spirit, has always held a special place in my heart. My first visit was during a very vulnerable time in my life, my husband was terminally ill, and I found the calming spirit to be very healing. These images are a collection of my favorites over years. I love the spirit, the orderly chaos and the warmth of its people. As a visual artist, I see and very much appreciate the theatre and cast of characters.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Rodney Smith
United States
1947 | † 2016
Rodney Smith was a New York-based fashion and portrait photographer. Smith primarily photographed with a 35mm Leica M4 before he transitioned to a 120/6x6 (medium format) Hasselblad with an 80mm lens. He preferred natural light to illuminate his subjects, but occasionally used continuous lighting. Smith shot predominantly in black and white, until 2002, when he first began to experiment with color film. His work is commonly referred to as classic, minimalistic, and whimsical. Rodney Smith was born December 24, 1947 in Manhattan, New York. His father, Sanford Smith, was president of fashion industry giant. Smith recalls, "A sense of style, a sense of proportion and a sense of beauty and a sense of grace – all of those things were very important in my upbringing." After he studied English Literature and Religious Studies at University of Virginia in 1970, Smith went for his graduate degree in Theology at Yale University in 1973. Smith said in an interview with Kodak, "I absolutely knew I wanted to be a photographer, but I didn't feel that studying in an art school or a photography department full time was the way to address the issues that were interesting to me – so I sort of entwined the two." While at Yale, he also studied under photographer, Walker Evans. In 1976 Mr. Smith spent 100 days photographing the people of the Holy Land, in Jerusalem. From the 88 Rolls of film shot, Smith ended up compiling two portfolios, which later became his first book: In the Land of the Light: Israel, a Portrait of Its People (1983). Published by Houghton Mifflin Company in Israel. After returning from Jerusalem, Smith spent a short time as an adjunct professor of photography at Yale University. As Smith continued his career into the nineties he slowly shifted from corporate executives to fashion photography. "My feelings about photography are exactly the same today as when I was 20. That is, I have a love/hate relationship with making pictures." Looking at pictures is one thing, he qualifies, "But making pictures – making pictures for me is hard, hard work." Rodney Smith's work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal to Martha Stewart, from Time to Bloomingdales. In addition to his work as a photographer, Smith lectured and gave workshops. Rodney Smith lived and worked in New York City, with his wife, Leslie Smolan, and daughter, Savannah, and son Jonah Smith. His wife, Leslie, is co-founder of graphic design and branding firm, Carbone Smolan Agency. He is currently represented by a number of galleries both in the US and internationally; acte2galerie of Paris, France, The PhotoGallery AB of Halmstad, Sweden, FOST Gallery of Singapore, Fahey Klein Gallery of Los Angeles, California, Galerie Greenwich of Greenwich, Connecticut, Galerie Sono of Norwalk, Connecticut, Gilman Contemporary of Ketchum, Idaho, and Staley-Wise Gallery of New York, New York. In the past 25 years, Smith received 50+ awards including First Prize for his book The End from International Photography Awards (IPA). He has also received several Communication Arts and Photo District News (PDN) awards. Smith died in his sleep on December 5, 2016 at the age of 68.Source: Wikipedia
Lesia Maruschak
Canada
1961
Lesia Maruschak is a Canadian artist of Ukrainian descent. She holds a MA from the University of Saskatchewan, and a MBA from the University of Ottawa. She studied Fine Art in the US and Romania. Maruschak creates narrative-specific installations that include static and moving images and hard and soft sculptural elements. They explore the histories of colonized peoples and their manifestations of geopolitical shifts. These organic systems pivot on historic atrocities, creating immersive spaces facilitating audience engagement. This offering explores how the spaces between and within us—lived experience, memory, and perception—are mediated and reverberate. Her series often include intricate and highly coveted limited edition art books, fine art photographs and touring exhibitions. Maruschak current project Poems of Our Children explores the plight of children impacted trauma funded by the Canada Council of the Arts. She is also currently completing two books concerning Canada’s first world war internment operations funded by the Canada First World War Internment Recognition Endowment Council. Select Collections The National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum Thomas Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Maison Européenne de la Photographie Boston Athenaeum City of Ottawa Art Collection David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University Green Library-Special Collections at Stanford University Rare Books & Special Collections at the Library of Congress Butler Library-Special Collections at Columbia University About Project MARIA Project MARIA memorializes the millions of victims of the 1932-33 genocide-famine in Soviet Ukraine. It functions as a mobile multimedia installation and includes artwork, film, and performance, inspired by a single vernacular photograph of a young girl, Maria F., who survived the Holodomor and currently resides in Canada. Holodomor refers to the genocide manufactured by Stalin and the Politburo in Soviet Ukraine during 1932-1933. Despite an estimated death toll of over four million by forced starvation the Holodomor, remains largely ignored in the context of global genocides. Project MARIA has been shortlisted for numerous awards and won over 13 including 12th Pollux Award Human Rights and Segregation (2018), Director’s Choice CENTER Review Santa Fe (2019), Landskrona Foto (2020), 16th Julia Margaret Cameron Segregation and Human Rights (2021), and FORMAT22 Director’s Review (2022). Its exhibition record includes 11 solo and more than 15 group exhibitions, in seven countries (2018-2023). Project MARIA recognized by the National Holodomor Genocide Museum, Kyiv, as the most important exhibition on the Holodomor premiered there in 2020. Its multi-city tour of Ukraine which included the LVIV History Museum and the Henryk Siemiradzki Art Gallery, Karazin University, Kharkiv, was interrupted by Russia’s aggression. The tour will recommence this Fall at the Vinnytsia Regional Museum. Other international solo exhibitions include Musée Ukraina Museum, Saskatoon; Turchin Centre for the Visual Arts, Boone; Objectif Femmes, Paris; and the Embassy of Ukraine in the Kingdom of Sweden, Stockholm.
Kerry Mansfield
United States
Kerry Mansfield is a San Francisco based photographer whose work explores time and how it affects our perceptions of what we see and the world it envelops. Born in New Jersey in 1974, Kerry graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography from UC Berkeley and did further studies at CCA (California College of the Arts). Her work has been exhibited globally and garnered numerous honors including LensCulture’s Single Image Award, multiple PX3, World Photography Organization and IPA Awards, and as a Critical Mass Finalist for three years. A host of press and publications, ranging from Time Magazine's Lightbox to the New York Times LensBlog, have featured several bodies of her work. Kerry’s Expired series monograph was released in spring 2017 receiving high praise from The Guardian UK, Architectural Digest, BuzzFeed News, Hyperallergic and and winning the PX3 Bronze Book Award. She's now currently creating a new body of work focused on tidal shifts as a metaphor for how time alters memories. About Aftermath "As a photographer, I've spent most of my career looking deeply into the spaces we inhabit. The idea of Home - what it meant and how it felt, preoccupied my thinking. Almost all my pictures were of the spaces we live in or the things we live with. But at the age of 31, a diagnosis of breast cancer forced me to redefine my ideas of home. Needless to say it came as quite a shock. I had exercised and eaten correctly, and like many of my age, I felt indestructible, never thinking the most basic of dwellings could be lost. Faced with the nihilistic process of radical chemotherapy and surgery, my ideas of "where" I exist turned inward. As the doctors, with their knives and chemistry broke down the physical structure in which I lived, the relationship between the cellular self and the metaphysical self became glaringly clear. My body may not be me, but without it, I am something else entirely. I knew that my long held image of myself would be shattered. What would emerge would be a mystery. It was in that spirit of unknown endings, that I picked up my camera to self document the catharsis of my own cancer treatment. No one was there when these pictures were made, just my dissolving ideas of self and a camera. And what began as a story that could have ended in many ways, this chapter, like my treatment, has now run its course. While I can't say everything is fine now, I will say, "These are the images of my Home - as it was then", and with a little luck, there will be no more to come." -- Kerry Mansfield
Vik Muniz
Brazil
1961
Vik Muniz is a Brazilian artist and photographer. Initially a sculptor, Muniz grew interested in the photographic representations of his work, eventually focusing completely on photography. Primarily working with unconventional materials such as tomato sauce, diamonds, magazine clippings, chocolate syrup, dust, dirt, etc., Muniz creates works of art, referencing old master's paintings and celebrity portraits, among other things, and then photographs them. His work has been met with both commercial success and critical acclaim and has been exhibited worldwide. He is currently represented by Galeria Nara Roesler based in New York and Brazil. In 2010, Muniz was featured in the documentary film Waste Land. Directed by Lucy Walker, the film highlights Muniz's work on one of the world's largest garbage dumps, Jardim Gramacho, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. The film was nominated to the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 83rd Academy Awards. Vik Muniz was born in 1961 in São Paulo, Brazil, as the only child of Maria Celeste, a telephone operator, and Vincente Muniz, a restaurant waiter. Muniz’s grandmother, Ana Rocha, taught him how to read at an early age. In his memoir, Muniz recalled struggling with writing in school which is why he turned to visuals to communicate his thoughts. At the age of 14, his math teacher recommended him to enter an art contest. He won and was awarded a partial scholarship to an art studio. At the age of 18, Muniz got his first job working in the advertising industry in Brazil, redesigning billboards for higher readability. While on the way to his first black-tie gala, Muniz witnessed and attempted to break up a street fight, where he was accidentally shot in the leg by one of the brawlers. He was paid by the shooter to not press charges and used the money to travel to Chicago in 1983. In Chicago, Muniz worked at a local supermarket cleaning the parking lot while he attended night school to study English. In the English class, he learned Polish, Italian, Spanish, and Korean without any improvements to his English vocabulary. Later, Muniz attended culinary and carpentry classes where he learned most of his English. Muniz took his first trip to New York in 1984. There, he visited the Museum of Modern Art and met a woman who changed his thoughts on Jackson Pollock’s paintings. This also influenced Muniz to move to New York just two months after his first visit. Muniz's friend lent him a studio where he started his career as a sculptor. He was 28 when he had his first solo exhibit in 1989. Inspired by works of Man Ray and Max Ernst, Muniz executes simple imagery intricately. Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media encouraged Muniz to explore perception in the media through abstraction and manipulating the components of the image. He cites the mosaics in a church in Ravenna as one of his influences and is also a self-proclaimed student of Buster Keaton. He decided to become an artist after seeing the works of the Postmodernists Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons. Muniz, like both of these artists, reworks popular imagery in his work. Muniz says that he does not believe in originals, but rather believes in individuality. Muniz works to re-purpose themes and showcase them in a different light for the viewer. Muniz is best known for recreating famous imagery from art history and pop culture with unexpected, everyday objects, and photographing them. For example, Muniz's Action Photo, After Hans Namuth (From Pictures of Chocolate), a Cibachrome print, is a Bosco Chocolate Syrup recreation of one of Hans Namuth's photographs of Jackson Pollock in his studio. The monumental series Pictures of Cars (after Ruscha) is his social commentary of the car culture of Los Angeles utilizing Ed Ruscha's 60's Pop masterpieces rendered from car ephemera. Muniz often works on a large scale and then he destroys the originals of his work and only the photo of his work remains. Muniz has spoken of wanting to make "color pictures that talked about color and also talked about the practical simplification of such impossible concepts." He also has an interest in making pictures that "reveal their process and material structure," and describes himself as having been "a willing bystander in the middle of the shootout between structuralist and post-structuralist critique." Muniz says that when he takes photographs, he intuitively searches for "a vantage point that would make the picture identical to the ones in my head before I’d made the works," so that his photographs match those mental images. He sees photography as having "freed painting from its responsibility to depict the world as fact." In Muniz's earthworks series, Pictures of Earthworks, show a strong resemblance to the 1970s Earthworks movement. However, unlike the Earthworks movement, that were influenced by ancient cultures, Muniz's series shows distinct human impact on nature. In addition to sculpting, Muniz experiments with drawing and photography, which is seen in the series Sugar Children, featured in the Museum of Modern Art's New Photography 13 show, alongside Rineke Dijikstra, An-My Le, and Kunié Sugiura, in 1997. In Sugar Children, Muniz photographed the families that worked on sugar plantations on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Beginning with Polaroids of several of the children of plantation workers, Muniz "drew" the images by sprinkling sugar on black paper and rephotographed these compositions. This series was met with criticism, where scholars have pointed out that he photographs of subjects continuing to live in poverty and yet can make upwards of 5 figures on these works at auction. After his Pictures in Garbage series, Muniz donated the profits, close to $50,000, from the Marat (Sebastiao) to the workers collective after it was auctioned in the UK. He also tries to make art more accessible through the use of common materials, because of his belief that the art world should not be just for the elite. Muniz stated in the documentary Waste Land, "I'm at this point in my career where I'm trying to step away from the realm of fine arts because I think it's a very exclusive, very restrictive place to be. What I want to be able to do is to change the lives of people with the same materials they deal with every day."Source: Wikipedia Originally trained as a sculptor, Muniz’s work began to take on its mature form with The Best of LIFE; he drew from memory pictures of Life magazine photographs included in the coffee table book The Best of Life after losing the book in a move. He then photographed his drawings and kept only the photographs, thereby establishing his signature working style. Muniz subsequently applied this methodology to works in the art history canon, reproducing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as well as iconic photographs of Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe using chocolate syrup and replicating a Donald Judd sculpture by using dust taken from the Whitney Museum’s halls and galleries. To make the series Pictures of Garbage, Muniz spent two years working with garbage pickers at Jardim Gramacho, an open-air dump site near Rio. He photographed several of the pickers as subjects of classical portraits, with the background details supplied by the garbage they scavenged. This effort was captured in the documentary Waste Land, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Muniz’s photographs are in many collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art; the Tate Gallery; and the Victoria and Albert Museum.Source: International Center of Photography
Zied Ben Romdhane
Zied Ben Romdhane (b. 1981, Tunisia) started his career as a commercial photographer. In 2011 he switched to documentary photography and photojournalism. His work has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post His recent exhibitions include Views of Tunisia (Arles 2013), After the Revolution (White Box, NY 2013), and Zones d’Attente (Clark House, Bombay 2013), Kushti (Maison de la Tunisie, Paris 2013), Fotofest Biennial in Houston Center for Photography (Houston , USA 2014), Sahel (1×1 Gallery, Dubai 2014), Trace (MUCEM, Marseille 2015) , Afrotopia African biennale of photography (Bamako , Mali 2017), and the Biennale of the photographs of the contemporary Arab world (France , Paris 2017). Romdhane published his first book West of Life in 2018 with Red Hook Editions. Prizes and awards include, selection for the Prize 6X6 Global Talent Program 2018 with World Press Photo Foundation, participant of Joop swart masterclass with World Press Photo, winner of the POPCAP award (Africa Image, Basel, 2015). He is the Director of Photography of Fallega (2011), a documentary film about the Arab Spring in Tunisia. Ben Romdhane was a participant in World Press Photo’s 2013 Reporting Change initiative, member of the collective “Rawiya” and “Native”. Zied Ben Romdhane joined Magnum as a nominee in 2019.Source: Magnum Photos “Zied is a documentary photographer who is using aesthetics in a tasteful way to invite the audience to his stories. His work is not pushing facts but instead he uses careful compositions that leaves room for the viewer to reflect on the images and their content.” - Rebecca Simons, Finland, independent curator, editor, educator and 6x6 nominator. Zied Ben Romdhane is a Tunisian photographer. He won the POPCAP award in 2015, and his work has been featured in Irada and Dégage. He is the Director of Photography of Fallega (2011), a documentary film about the Arab Spring in Tunisia. Romdhane was also a participant in World Press Photo’s 2013 Reporting Change initiative.Source: World Press Photo
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AAP Magazine #54 Nature
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