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Win a Solo Exhibition in June 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
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Victor Moriyama
Photo © Isadora Brandt
Victor Moriyama
Victor Moriyama

Victor Moriyama

Country: Brazil
Birth: 1984

Victor Moriyama is a freelance Brazilian photographer based in São Paulo that covers the region of South America and the problems concerning the Amazon Rainforest for the international press, mainly for The New York Times. His work discloses an humanist kind of photography, committed to document the processes of violence that prevail in social and environmental relations in Brazil and the Amazonian region. Agrarian Conflicts, the deforestation and conservation of the Amazon Rainforest, the genocide of the indigenous populations, the acceleration of climate change and the violation human rights have been guiding themes of his career in the last few years. Victor also collaborates regularly with NGOs, such as Greenpeace, Instituto Socioambiental, iCRC and UNHCR.

Concerned with the shortage of reported on the conflicts in the Amazon, Victor has created, in 2019, the project @historiasamazonicas a community of Latin American photographers committed to document the current processes that are taking place in the Amazon, with the objective of defining and changing the present. The idea is to expand the world's knowledge concerning the conflicts that surround the Amazon and to engage the global society into thinking and fighting the deforestation of the greatest rainforests in the world.

Victor is also a member of the @everydayclimatechange, a group of photographers from the five continents engaged and committed to climate change. Mr. Moriyama is also a photography columnist for the Brazilian edition of the Spanish Newspaper El País.

About Amazon Deforestation
"'Nature will die in embers', told me Davi Yanomami, one of Brazil's greatest indigenous leaders, during the 70 days I spent doing field work in the Amazon Rainforest. The greatest rainforest in the world is dying. The year of 2019 was the worst in history for the Amazon Forest. The deforestation of the vegetation cover set a record and increased 29.5% in relation to 2018, adding up to a total loss of 9.762km² of forest. However, this process isn't new: the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest has been going on for decades, with the connivance of the rulers of the South American countries, whose actions are utterly inefficient when it comes to trying to reverse this context of destruction. This situation became even more severe, after the elected right-wing government took office in 2019. Stimulated by official speech, deforestation agents set thousands of hectares on fire, with the certainty of impunity. As an immediate reaction, thousands of young people started protesting against the destruction of the rainforest, in dozens of cities worldwide, headed by Greta Thunberg. This series of images is the result of my immersive work in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, where I have documented the advances of the deforestation in a special piece for The New York Times." -- Victor Moriyama
 

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Lillian Bassman
United States
1917 | † 2012
Lillian Bassman (June 15, 1917 – February 13, 2012) was an American photographer and painter. Her parents were Jewish intellectuals who emigrated to the United States from Russia in 1905 and settled in Brooklyn, New York. She studied at the Textile High School in Manhattan with Alexey Brodovitch and graduated in 1933. While there, she met the photographer, Paul Himmel, and they were married in 1935; Himmel died in 2009 after 73 years of marriage. From the 1940s until the 1960s Bassman worked as a fashion photographer for Junior Bazaar and later at Harper's Bazaar where she promoted the careers of photographers such as Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Louis Faurer and Arnold Newman. Under the guidance of the Russian emigrant, Alexey Brodovitch, she began to photograph her model subjects primarily in black and white. Her work was published for the most part in Harper’s Bazaar from 1950 to 1965. By the 1970s Bassman’s interest in pure form in her fashion photography was out of vogue. She turned to her own photo projects and abandoned fashion photography. In doing so she tossed out 40 years of negatives and prints - her life’s work. A forgotten bag filled with hundreds of images was discovered over 20 years later. Bassman’s fashion photographic work began to be re-appreciated in the 1990s. She worked with digital technology and abstract color photography into her 90s to create a new series of work. She used Photoshop for her image manipulation. The most notable qualities about her photographic work are the high contrasts between light and dark, the graininess of the finished photos, and the geometric placement and camera angles of the subjects. Bassman became one of the last great woman photographers in the world of fashion. Bassman died on February 13, 2012, at age 94. Source: Wikipedia Lillian Bassman was born in 1917 into an immigrant family of free-thinking intellectuals, and was brought up with a mindset that allowed her to live as an independent and unconventional woman.She worked as a textile designer and fashion illustrator before working at Harper's Bazaar with Alexey Brodovitch, and ultimately becoming a photographer. Bassman's fashion images are unique, and acheieve their effect through manipulation in the dark room. Appearing in Harper's Bazaar from the 1940's to the 1960's, her work was categorized by their elegance and grace.Bassman had transformed these photographs into original works of art through her darkroom techniques in which she blurs and bleaches the images, investing them with poetry, mystery, and glamour. Source: Staley-Wise Gallery Lillian Bassman is one of the great 20th century fashion photographers along with Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. She began her career not as a photographer but as a painter at the WPA and then took courses at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. In 1945, Bassman was appointed Art Director at Junior Bazaar, giving projects to photographers such as Richard Avedon, Robert Frank and Paul Himmel (her husband). Later in 1947, she became the Art Director at Harper’s Bazaar, and her work appeared in Harper’s Bazaar throughout the 1940’s and 50’s. Her work was nearly destroyed in the 70’s by a water leak in her studio, and it was not until the 1990’s that her work was revived. With this new spotlight, Bassman received the Agfa Life Time Achievement Award and the Dem Art Directors Club Award in 1996. During the same year, Bassman began photographing again when she was asked to photograph the Haute Couture collection for New York Times Magazine, the Autumn Collection for Neiman Marcus, as well as work for German Vogue. Her work has been exhibited worldwide. Source: Peter Fetterman Gallery
Lauren Semivan
United States
1981
Lauren Semivan (b. 1981) was born in Detroit, Michigan. She received a BA in studio art from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and an MFA in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Hunterdon Art Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, Paris Photo, and The AIPAD Photography Show among others. She has taught photography at College for Creative Studies, The Ohio State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Wayne State University. Semivan has received numerous awards for her work including Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50, and The Griffin Museum of Photography’s Griffin Award. In 2014, she was a finalist for The John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, and SF Camerawork’s Baum Award for Emerging Photographers. Her work was recently published in Series of Dreams (Skeleton Key Press, 2018) and has appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, Interview Magazine, The Village Voice, and Photograph magazine. Semivan’s work is part of permanent collections at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, The Wriston Art Galleries at Lawrence University, and The Elton John Photography Collection. She lives in Appleton, WI and is represented by Benrubi Gallery in New York, and David Klein Gallery in Detroit, Michigan. Artist Statement "The staged photograph exists as a document of a pre-conceived, imagined event. It can be compared to a scientific apparatus, utilizing both control and the unknown. My ongoing body of work, Observatory, combines drawing, an archive of objects, and the human presence as a narrative tool. In scientific disciplines, a line is classified as an event. Something as primitive as a scrawl on a surface reveals an aggregate of events, intersecting and changing course. Drawings made on the seamless backdrop describe an emotional space. Science is inherently experiential, as is art making. Knowing and feeling are not separate, and the whole of the environment can be used as a pedagogic instrument. Observatory elegantly draws upon a tension that exists between irrational and physical worlds. Within each image, ghosts of previous drawings create a sense of time suspended, evoking gesture, atmosphere and memory. Photographs allow me to access the extraordinary, to keep a record of dreams, and to employ the unknown. My interest in photography is interdisciplinary and synergistic, informed by the written word, painting, drawing, sculpture, and the raw material of human experience. All images are made using an early 20th century 8x10" view camera. Large format negatives are scanned and printed without digital manipulation in editions of 5 (40"x50") and 10 (24"x30")."Source: www.laurensemivan.com Her ongoing body of work, Observatory, combines drawing, an archive of objects, and the human presence as a narrative tool. Within each image, ghosts of previous drawings create a sense of time suspended, evoking gesture, atmosphere and memory. "Photographs allow me to access the extraordinary, to keep a record of dreams, and to employ the unknown. Science is inherently experiential, as is art making. Knowing and feeling are not separate, and the whole of the environment can be used as a pedagogic instrument. Observatory elegantly draws upon a tension that exists between irrational and physical worlds". Semivan’s work resides in the collections of the Nelson Atkins Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, and the Wriston Art Center at Lawrence University, and has been featured in Wall Street International Magazine, the New Yorker, Artforum, and Photograph magazine.Source: Benrubi Gallery
Iris Brito Stevens
United States
I was born and raised in Salinas, California (U.S.), a farming community known for its lettuce. As a daughter of Mexican immigrants, I became aware of, and sensitive to, the differences between the immigrant and non-immigrant communities and their perspectives, which at times felt narrow and somewhat limiting. Growing up surrounded by family grounded me deeply, yet an insatiable curiosity and passion for learning about the world beyond me, called out. I spread my wings and traveled to destinations that were completely foreign, often under the auspices of humanitarian and educational endeavors. The lens through which I saw the world opened-up and expanded my perspective, just like a camera. Through first-hand experience, I became aware of the lives and conditions of marginalized and oppressed peoples globally. This new dimensionality helped me to confront certain realities, to grow, and to self-reflect on what it means to be human. It also led me toward activism and social documentary photography, which enabled me to blend visual narrative with the stories of other people through projects or partnerships in Uganda, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Spain, San Francisco and more. My photographic work is my passion, and it serves to create awareness and a more intimate human connection, by encouraging a path that looks beyond our limited and inherent perceptions and conditioning. Statement In America, we place so much value on individuality and independence, that we forget how truly interdependent we are on one another, both on a local and global scale. We have become hyper-focused on the self and are losing our ability to empathize and see the intense vulnerability around us—though considering recent events, this appears to be shifting. As a social documentary photographer, I am drawn towards people and the conditions that are relevant in their lives, as individuals and as members of a family, community, or society. Our perception of the world can be limited to our own multi-faceted forms of conditioning; I utilize the impact of visual narrative to bring awareness of the human condition worldwide. There is so much beauty in diversity. I want to validate that diversity through photography, to help others grow in that appreciation, to demonstrate that we are all a part of something collectively - that life's experience doesn't begin and end with us, as individuals. Dominance consciousness is so pervasive in society; it's like a box with thick walls and nothing to see, nowhere to go, devoid of any inspiration. It kills curiosity and ideas. I want us all to be inspired and curious by the diversity we see and experience in everyday life. Diversity is beautiful.
George Dian Balan
George Dian Balan is a multi-award winning fine art wildlife photographer, scientist, author, inspirational speaker and world records discoverer, specialised in world record and world class individuals in iconic megafauna species. He creates timeless images by using an immersive approach, portraying as never seen before giants that have captured our imagination. The resulting frames are cinematic, of the kind that one expects from a Jurassic Park opening scene. He pays much attention not only to the subject selection, perspective and composition, but also to body postures. The artistic question he asked himself is: “if a Statue, a Monument were to be raised to a species, what would that look like?” Dian innovates a lot and uses a plethora of photography techniques, including remotes and camera traps. He is the first to take several award-winning images of elephants as seen from inside a baobab tree. He was a member of the jury of the Golden Turtle Photography Awards (2023) and the Jackson Wild Film Festival (2022) and the curator of the exhibition Europe's Wild Heart (Brussels, 2019). He also was a three-time contributor to Prints for Wildlife, the world’s most financially successful fundraising of its kind, and one of his Asian Super Tusker images was a lead visual for the 2025 campaign. Dian has over 11 years of artistic, scientific and conservation experience working with big-tusked African and Asian elephants. About 35 of his images with big-tusked elephants were distinguished in prestigious photography competitions (usually multiple times) such as the Mono Awards Australia (Winner, 2025), Fine Art Photography Awards London (Second Prize, 2025), Memorial Maria Luisa (Honourable Mention, 2025), Monochrome Awards (Highly Honoured, 2025), MontPhoto (Second Prize, 2024), GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Highly Commended, 2024), Nature’s Best Washington (Highly Honored, 2014), reFocus Awards (Nominee, 2024), MonoVisions Awards (Honourable Mention, 2024), Monochromatic Awards (Finalist, 2024), Black and White Awards (Finalist, 2024), HIPA (Dubai, Finalist, 2024), Px3 Paris (Silver Medal, 2023) or again FAPA (Finalist, 2018). In addition, Dian won Photographer of the Year: Wildlife in reFocus Awards (New York, 2024), he was a First Prize Winner (Montier-en-Der, 2020) and Grand Winner (Untamed, 2018). His pictures are standard-setting, exquisite and compelling. They were published among others by Australian Photography, Nat Geo, BBC Earth, GEO, Forbes, Geographical, It’s Colossal, Luxury Travel, Professional Photo, Wanderlust Travel, Wild Planet Photo Magazine, Asian Geographic, Africa Geographic, Cranium, Ancient Origins, Nat'Images, Peta Pixel and Pachyderm, including several times as covers. Furthermore, Dian is the author of the award-winning book The World As It One Was (2020), which combines arresting visuals with solid science, and of the seminal study The World Records in Asian Elephants (2024). Dian is an accomplished speaker on biodiversity and environmental issues at events in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. For him, a thorough research is key when choosing his photographic subjects or deciphering the megafauna science. This is how he became the world leading expert in big tusked elephants, discovering for the first time in more than 100 years two New World Records: the longest Asian elephant tusk (almost 3.3 m) and thickest Asian elephant tusk (58 cm). AAP Magazine AAP Magazine 54 Nature
Steve Toole
United States
1957
"I have enjoyed photography and art since I was young. I was fortunate to have traveled with my family throughout the United States as I was growing up. Taking pictures during those trips was an exciting and rewarding experience. Being semi-retired from teaching, I now have more time to rekindle my artistic pursuits. Much of my work depicts life outdoors, because that is where I spend a significant amount of my time. Capturing moments through photography, whether magnificent or understated, is more fulfilling now than ever. My wife Kim and I live in Ashton, Illinois where we foster rescued dogs, volunteer, teach part time, and enjoy small town life." About Back Roads: "There is a sense of timelessness when I travel the back roads of America. Two-lane blacktops and meandering gravel roads are the capillaries that carry me to those places that modernity has mostly ignored. For me, in these places, the sky is bigger, the earth is closer, and the air smells fresher. A feeling of tranquility exists there. Whether a bucolic scene, a sylvan setting or an alpine view, I am transported to a time and place that previous generations might have experienced. Black and white images contribute to that feeling of timelessness, whether depicting a leafless tree, a grazing horse, or an abandoned pick-up truck in a pasture. I hope my photos transport the viewer, even for a few moments, to these out-of-the-way places – sometimes beautiful, sometimes gritty, sometimes simple, sometimes unique, but always real." Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 14
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