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Enter AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Enter AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Jacopo Maria Della Valle
Jacopo Maria Della Valle
Jacopo Maria Della Valle

Jacopo Maria Della Valle

Country: Italy
Birth: 1979

I was born in Rome in 1979. When I was 6 years old I received my first camera and I fell in love with it at once.
The camera has always been the means to get in touch with everything around me, savor it, store it and make it mine.
As a child my dream was to become a director, I studied scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and I worked as a Digital Artist at Cinecittà, but it's through photography that I found the best way to express myself.
I'm not a great lover of technique and rules, for me it's fundamental to train the eye and the heart (as Cartier-Bresson quoted) to capture moments, looks and gestures that contain stories, experiences, sensations and can communicate some emotion.
The real keystone was when I put together my two great passions: photography and traveling. Traveling with the aim to photograph and photographing with the aim to travel, made me snap like a spring, every trip became an outlet to get out of the monotony of everyday life and makes me feel alive.
I started traveling around Europe, in the United States, Africa and Cuba. I traveled around Asia accompanied by Terzani's reading and I was fascinated by the different Asian cultures. My main interest is the knowledge and the discovery of the authenticity of different populations which still live in respect of their particular cultural traditions. I undertake long journeys to reach the populations that still survive globalization and I always try to get in close contact with local people and live their own customs and traditions.
I use the camera to connect with the other and with my shot I try to represent who I am in front of, with all his cultural and emotional baggage.
This is why I prefer to take portraits, to reproduce the essence of who I meet. I hope with my photos to convey the same emotions that these meetings arouse in me.
 

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Nanci Milton
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1957
Nanci Milton is a primarily self-taught photographic artist. Her experience with the camera, film and image making began at an early age with the gift f an Instamatic from her father for whom photography was his passion though not his profession. Subsequent Christmas gifts of cameras followed, as well as access to his own various cameras. She was smitten. As the only child of artistic parents, both teachers as well, she was continually exposed to writing, image making, art viewing and inquiring into the creative process. As an only child of older parents, she also was included in many adult events, dinners, lectures, visits with artists of many arenas and backgrounds and absorbed the many layers of inspiration and process they possessed. She found it a gift to be an only child as it allowed her the access to a larger world early on and also left her to her own devices to imagine and make without the comparison or competition with a sibling. Everything was available and potent. The ''legacy'' of artists can be heavy though, and even as she continued to make images and write, she struggled to find a form that was her own. That form led to a detour into the performing arts, modern dance and theater which were her university studies. Ultimately, these fell short of what she had been immured in all her life, and the turn back o the photographic arts and writing was undeniable. The detour however undeniably informs her work with a sense of narrative and staging, in addition to a conceptual approach that pushes the images beyond the static. In a world that is in such flux, Milton is attracted to empty, vacated or in some way, disrupted spaces and how our intimately personal or common and archetypal experience layer on and stain that space, be it exterior or interior; she finds a landscape of both body and mind to reveal. There is redemption in that effort and the rescuing of the lost, and in both the symmetry and the chaos found there. Methodology and materials are less important and she utilizes any and all that will support the idea. Milton has been included in domestic and international exhibits at Praxis gallery, LA Noble Gallery, A Smith Gallery, The 9th Annual Koblenzanalog portfolio and exhibit, and was an Honorable Mention in the Fine Art category for the 17th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards.
Laurence Leblanc
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1832 | † 1898
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United States
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Ed Kashi is a photojournalist, filmmaker and educator dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times. A sensitive eye and an intimate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his work. As a member of the prestigious photo agency VII, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition. “I take on issues that stir my passions about the state of humanity and our world, and I deeply believe in the power of still images to change people’s minds. I’m driven by this fact; that the work of photojournalists and documentary photographers can have a positive impact on the world. The access people give to their lives is precious as well as imperative for this important work to get done. Their openness brings with it a tremendous sense of responsibility to tell the truth but to also honor their stories.” Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. Another of Kashi’s innovative approaches to photography and filmmaking produced the Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook with MediaStorm, which premiered on MSNBC.com in December 2006. Using stills in a moving image format, this creative and thought-provoking form of visual storytelling has been shown in many film festivals and as part of a series of exhibitions on the Iraq War at the George Eastman House. Also, an eight-year personal project completed in 2003, Aging in America: The Years Ahead, created a traveling exhibition, an award-winning documentary film, a website and a book which was named one of the best photo books of 2003 by American Photo. Along with numerous awards, including Second Prize Contemporary Issues Singles in the 2011 World Press Photo contest, UNICEF’s Photo of the Year 2010, a Prix Pictet 2010 Commission and honors from Pictures of the Year International, Communication Arts and American Photography, Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide, and his editorial assignments and personal projects have generated six books. In 2008, Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta was published, and June 2009, saw the publication of Kashi’s latest book THREE, based on a series of triptychs culled from more than 20 years of image making. In 2002, Kashi and his wife, writer/filmmaker Julie Winokur, founded Talking Eyes Media. The non-profit company has produced numerous short films and multimedia pieces that explore significant social issues. The first project resulted in a book and traveling exhibition on uninsured Americans called, Denied: The Crisis of America’s Uninsured. “Ed Kashi is intelligent, brave and compassionate. He always understands the nuances of his subjects. He fearlessly goes where few would venture. And he sympathetically captures the soul of each situation. Ed is one of the best of a new breed of photojournalistic artists.” -- David Griffin, Visuals Editor, The Washington Post Articles Ed Kashi talks about Climate Change 1 in 6 by 2030 Books Abandoned Moments A Period in Time
Cao Luning
China
1990
Cao Luning is a street photographer who lives in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China, a city of 8 million people. He only started to do photography 3 years ago and all learnt by himself. For Cao Luning, photography is a means of getting to know and expressing himself. Just like the saying "You are what you read", he also believes "You are what you shoot". He's extremely crazy about Street, Travel and Documentary photography, and the uncertainty and infinite possibilities of them fascinate him. They are just similar to life, you never know what you are going to get tomorrow. You may capture some nice shots, or you might come back empty-handed. Street photographer is his identity. Cao Luning is a street wanderer and likes to watch people. He can linger on the streets all day long without feeling tired or fed up. When he shoots, he focuses on the serendipity of specific colors, light and shadows, gestures and the implied humor of scenes. Cao Luning reckons framing is crucial to a good photograph, and he's been greatly influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson and his "The Decisive Moment Theory", which He thinks is something that every photographer should pay attention to. His mentors are Mangum Photographer Alex Webb and his wife Rebecca Norris Webb, and they both helped him a lot in developing his own vision. In his opinion, given different situations and scenarios, a good street photographer should swiftly apply different compositions that best suit the scenes, instead of using one or two methods for all situations, because that's not a creative process, it's just mechanical repetitions. Statement I'm a street photographer who started to do photography 3 years ago. For me, photography is a means of getting to know and expressing myself. Just like the saying "You are what you read", I also believe "You are what you shoot". I'm extremely crazy about Street, Travel and Documentary photography, and the uncertainty and infinite possibilities of them fascinate me. They are just similar to life, you never know what you are going to get tomorrow. You may capture many nice shots, or you might come back empty-handed. I'm a street wanderer and I like to watch people. I can linger on the streets all day long without feeling tired or fed up. When I shoot, I focus on the serendipity of specific colors, light and shadows, gestures and the implied humor of scenes. I reckon framing is crucial to a good photograph, and I've been greatly influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson and his "The Decisive Moment Theory", which I think is something that every photographer should pay attention to. In my opinion, given different situations and scenarios, a good street photographer should swiftly apply different compositions that best suit the scenes, instead of using one or two methods for all situations, because that's not a creative process, it's just mechanical repetitions. Most of the works I submitted were shot during the pandemic in China.. On January 2020, The New Coronavirus Pneumonia (or COVID-19) outbroke in Wuhan, Hubei Province in China and soon spread all over the country. As a result, the Chinese government locked down the whole country, stopped all production activities, restricted intercity transportation, and people were advised not to go outside. I live in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, a city of 8 million people, and when it was shut down, it was a bit like a ghost town in the beginning, not completely empty, but hard to find people on the streets. However, I found out by the Yangtze River and some parks, there are some citizens. People would go fishing, do sports, exercise or simply relax. So I often go to those places with my camera, trying to capture their life under the influence of Coronavirus. The virus has pressed the pause button for most of us, though it's not a good thing, objectively speaking, it gives us a good opportunity to look inside and review our living states. It offers us a window to slow down and appreciate all the good and beautiful things around us as well. In the meantime, we are also given the possibility to do the things that we always wanted to do. We should cherish it and live in the moment, despite how dreadful the epidemic situation might be, life has to go on. I hope you'll enjoy my works and get to know me better by them.
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AAP Magazine #54 Nature
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