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Win the First Solo Exhibition of 2026! Submit your best project now. Open Theme
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Maja Strgar Kurecic
Maja Strgar Kurecic
Maja Strgar Kurecic

Maja Strgar Kurecic

Country: Croatia
Birth: 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.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Alvaro Ybarra Zavala
Alvaro Ybarra Zavala, is based in Spain. He took up a career in photography while at university, aged 19, focussing on issues of social conflict. He has now exclusively joined the Reportage by Getty Images roster, having previously worked with Agence Vu (December 2005 - March 2009), and as a freelance photographer before that. His key bodies of work to date have included conflict coverage in Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burma/Myanmar, Sudan, Georgia, and the Central African Republic, post-conflict coverage in the Balkans, HIV/AIDS in Southeast Asia (India, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma/Myanmar) and Africa (Malawi, Gambia, Senegal, Kenya), the tsunami in Banda Aceh & Sri Lanka, indigenous peoples in Bolivia, Brazil and Ecuador, presidential elections in Bolivia, Paraguay & Serbia, and cancer in the third world (Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Uganda, Iraq and Morocco), all of which are topics close to his heart. As well as working on his own personal projects, he has worked on assignment for Time Magazine, Newsweek, the New York Times, the The Times magazine, Le Monde, Liberation, Vanity Fair, XLsemanal & ABC, L'Espresso, Stern, Geo, EPS, EIGHT, etc. Alvaro has published four books to date, with a fifth scheduled for release in 2010, Apocalipsis. He has exhibited his work internationally, including in the UK (The Voices of Darfur at the Royal Albert Hall), in France (Children of Sorrow at the Visa Pour l'Image festival in Perpignan), China, Colombia, at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and in other cities across the US and Spain.Source: www.alvaroybarra.com
Pierrot Men
Malagasy
1954
At first, I wanted to be a painter, and I pursued this path for 17 years. In my third year of middle school, a painter came to present his profession, and I decided to leave school to follow this path. My father, who was a merchant, would have preferred me to become a grocer like him. He cut oA my financial support, so I left home for the “big city,” Antananarivo, with my childhood friend Léon Fulgence. In a coAee plantation, we made a blood pact, promising each other to become artists—he as a painter and I as a photographer. We experienced poverty and hunger in Antananarivo. After returning to my hometown following the political events of 1972, I worked in the family grocery store. After some time, to show my determination to my father, I drew a counterfeit banknote that he mistook for a real one. He was furious, but he also realized I had artistic potential. After doing various small jobs, I was able to buy an enlarger and, in 1974, opened my first photo lab. I worked on weddings, baptisms, and family portraits to support my family. I used a Soviet Zenit E camera with a 50mm lens, a gift from my sister. My first camera was my father’s old Kodak 6x9, which I used for a long time. I also used contact sheets as models for my paintings, and sometimes even postage stamps, as magazines and books rarely reached the provinces. At the same time, I developed my personal photography, following in the footsteps of my African colleagues Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibé. Today, I have achieved my dream and have been a photographer for nearly 50 years. Statement My name is Pierrot Men, and I'm a Madagascan artist-photographer with a passion for my country, Madagascar, which is rich in human and natural diversity. Photography is not just my job, it's my life. I was born here, I grew up here, and the whole essence of my being is deeply rooted in the culture and landscapes of this fascinating island. My passion for photography finds its purest essence in capturing people in their environment, at the heart of the everyday lives of the people who live in my country. My artistic approach stems from an intimate connection with the people of Madagascar. Every click of my camera is an act of love and a testimony to the Malagasy soul, an immersion in the everyday experiences that shape our lives. By photographing the people of my country, I feel as if I am photographing myself, frozen in situations that I have experienced myself. It's an act of personal exploration as much as it is a visual testimony to the richness of our culture. My favourite tool is a 35mm lens, which allows me to get closer to their intimacy, to feel the warmth of their smiles, the depth of their eyes and the sincerity of their gestures. Each shot becomes a moment frozen in time that reveals the very essence of their existence. When I set out to find my subjects, I don't have any predefined themes in mind. I let my emotions guide me. I photograph everything that evokes a deep feeling in me, whether it's the bright joy of a bustling market, the melancholy of a gaze lost in the horizon or the palpable inspiration of a craftsman creating his art with passion... Each image I capture is imbued with the vital energy of Madagascar, with the love I have for this country and its people. Beyond the lens of my camera, there's communication. I like to immerse myself in the daily lives of the people I photograph. I take the time to get to know them, to listen to their stories, to understand their dreams and struggles. These conversations, often fleeting but always meaningful, allow me to create a bond, a connection that transcends the camera lens. It is in these moments of sharing that I discover the true essence of my subjects, which makes each image even more precious. I admit that writing is not my strong point. My photographic language finds its true expression through my camera. Each image I capture speaks for me, tells a silent story. In conclusion, my images are born of this fusion between my love for Madagascar, my deep connection with its people and my ability to capture the essence of the human being through my lens. Each photograph is the result of a passionate exploration, a total immersion in the daily life of my country. Each one tells a story, not only of those I have photographed, but also of myself, of my own experience as a Malagasy individual. This is how my images come to life, through the prism of my lens, freezing the Malagasy soul in eternal moments.
Richard Dweck
United States
Photography has been Richard Dweck's vehicle for expressing what he sees and feels when he moves through the world. He has been through some extraordinarily difficult experiences in life but has been able to use them to see and feel the world more acutely. For him there is no greater pleasure than having someone who is looking at his photograph understand the feelings that he felt when he took that photograph. He also enjoys hearing them express very different feelings and show him things in his own photographs that he might never have seen or felt. The Old City of Jerusalem Last year, for the first time, I photographed at the Western Wall and other sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. The impetus for my travel to this area to photograph was the interplay between my Arabian and Jewish roots combined with my own deep self-reflection following a tragic family loss. When I found that so many people were dressed in black and white it only seemed natural that my photographs should be B&W as well. I shot my pictures from the same level as my subjects (or even from below when that was possible) giving me the sense that I could look into them more deeply and imagine their thoughts. The Gaze shows both the deep reflection of the elder along with the reverence of the child. The child's focus and that of my camera are on the elder. The backdrop is the historic 2000+-year old wall. My landscape and architectural photographs tend to the more abstract, while my portraits are more representational. Nonetheless, geometry and textures still play a big part in portraits. The main focus for me is the emotions that I can capture that can resonate deeply within me and very hopefully with the viewers of my work. I definitely look forward to returning for another emotional and introspective journey there one day.
William Eggleston
United States
1939
William Eggleston was born in Memphis, Tennessee and raised in Sumner, Mississippi. His father was an engineer and his mother was the daughter of a prominent local judge. As a boy, Eggleston was introverted; he enjoyed playing the piano, drawing, and working with electronics. From an early age, he was also drawn to visual media, and reportedly enjoyed buying postcards and cutting out pictures from magazines. At the age of 15, Eggleston was sent to the Webb School, a boarding establishment. Eggleston later recalled few fond memories of the school, telling a reporter, "It had a kind of Spartan routine to 'build character'. I never knew what that was supposed to mean. It was so callous and dumb. It was the kind of place where it was considered effeminate to like music and painting." Eggleston was unusual among his peers in eschewing the traditional Southern male pursuits of hunting and sports, in favor of artistic pursuits and observation of the world. Nevertheless, Eggleston noted that he never felt like an outsider. "I never had the feeling that I didn't fit in," he told a reporter, "But probably I didn't." Eggleston attended Vanderbilt University for a year, Delta State College for a semester, and the University of Mississippi for about five years, but did not complete any degree. Nonetheless, his interest in photography took root when a friend at Vanderbilt gave Eggleston a Leica camera. He was introduced to abstract expressionism at Ole Miss by visiting painter Tom Young. Eggleston's early photographic efforts were inspired by the work of Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank, and by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's book, The Decisive Moment. Eggleston later recalled that the book was "the first serious book I found, from many awful books...I didn't understand it a bit, and then it sank in, and I realized, my God, this is a great one." First photographing in black-and-white, Eggleston began experimenting with color in 1965 and 1966 after being introduced to the medium by William Christenberry. Color transparency film became his dominant medium in the later 1960s. Eggleston's development as a photographer seems to have taken place in relative isolation from other artists. In an interview, John Szarkowski describes his first encounter with the young Eggleston in 1969 as being "absolutely out of the blue". After reviewing Eggleston's work (which he recalled as a suitcase full of "drugstore" color prints) Szarkowski prevailed upon the Photography Committee of MoMA to buy one of Eggleston's photographs. In 1970, Eggleston's friend William Christenberry introduced him to Walter Hopps, director of Washington, D.C.'s Corcoran Gallery. Hopps later reported being "stunned" by Eggleston's work: "I had never seen anything like it." Eggleston taught at Harvard in 1973 and 1974, and it was during these years that he discovered dye-transfer printing; he was examining the price list of a photographic lab in Chicago when he read about the process. As Eggleston later recalled: "It advertised 'from the cheapest to the ultimate print.' The ultimate print was a dye-transfer. I went straight up there to look and everything I saw was commercial work like pictures of cigarette packs or perfume bottles but the colour saturation and the quality of the ink was overwhelming. I couldn't wait to see what a plain Eggleston picture would look like with the same process. Every photograph I subsequently printed with the process seemed fantastic and each one seemed better than the previous one." The dye-transfer process resulted in some of Eggleston's most striking and famous work, such as his 1973 photograph entitled The Red Ceiling, of which Eggleston said, "The Red Ceiling is so powerful, that in fact I've never seen it reproduced on the page to my satisfaction. When you look at the dye it is like red blood that's wet on the wall.... A little red is usually enough, but to work with an entire red surface was a challenge." At Harvard, Eggleston prepared his first portfolio, entitled 14 Pictures (1974). Eggleston's work was exhibited at MoMA in 1976. Although this was over three decades after MoMa had mounted a solo exhibition of color photographs by Eliot Porter, and a decade after MoMA had exhibited color photographs by Ernst Haas, the tale that the Eggleston exhibition was MoMA's first exhibition of color photography is frequently repeated, and the 1976 show is regarded as a watershed moment in the history of photography, by marking "the acceptance of colour photography by the highest validating institution" (in the words of Mark Holborn). Around the time of his 1976 MoMA exhibition, Eggleston was introduced to Viva, the Andy Warhol "superstar", with whom he began a long relationship. During this period Eggleston became familiar with Andy Warhol's circle, a connection that may have helped foster Eggleston's idea of the "democratic camera", Mark Holborn suggests. Also in the 1970s Eggleston experimented with video, producing several hours of roughly edited footage Eggleston calls Stranded in Canton. Writer Richard Woodward, who has viewed the footage, likens it to a "demented home movie", mixing tender shots of his children at home with shots of drunken parties, public urination and a man biting off a chicken's head before a cheering crowd in New Orleans. Woodward suggests that the film is reflective of Eggleston's "fearless naturalism—a belief that by looking patiently at what others ignore or look away from, interesting things can be seen." Eggleston's published books and portfolios include Los Alamos (completed in 1974, but published much later), William Eggleston's Guide (the catalog of the 1976 MoMa exhibit), the massive Election Eve (1977; a portfolio of photographs taken around Plains, Georgia, the rural seat of Jimmy Carter before the 1976 presidential election), The Morals of Vision (1978), Flowers (1978), Wedgwood Blue (1979), Seven (1979), Troubled Waters (1980), The Louisiana Project (1980), William Eggleston's Graceland (1984; a series of commissioned photographs of Elvis Presley's Graceland, depicting the singer's home as an airless, windowless tomb in custom-made bad taste), The Democratic Forest (1989), Faulkner's Mississippi (1990), and Ancient and Modern(1992). Some of his early series have not been shown until the late 2000s. The Nightclub Portraits (1973), a series of large black-and-white portraits in bars and clubs around Memphis was, for the most part, not shown until 2005. Lost and Found, part of Eggleston's Los Alamos series, is a body of photographs that have remained unseen for decades because until 2008 no one knew that they belonged to Walter Hopps; the works from this series chronicle road trips the artist took with Hopps, leaving from Memphis and traveling as far as the West Coast. Eggleston's Election Eve photographs were not editioned until 2011. Eggleston also worked with filmmakers, photographing the set of John Huston's film Annie (1982) and documenting the making of David Byrne's film True Stories (1986). In 2017 an album of Eggleston's music was released, Musik. It comprises 13 "experimental electronic soundscapes", "often dramatic improvisations on compositions by Bach (his hero) and Haendel as well as his singular takes on a Gilbert and Sullivan tune and the jazz standard On the Street Where You Live." Musik was made entirely on a 1980s Korg synthesiser, and recorded to floppy disks. The 2017 compilation Musik was produced by Tom Lunt, and released on Secretly Canadian. In 2018, Áine O'Dwyer performed the music on a pipe organ at the Big Ears music festival in Knoxville. Source: Wikipedia William Eggleston assumes a neutral gaze and creates his art from commonplace subjects: a farmer's muddy Ford truck, a red ceiling in a friend's house, the contents of his own refrigerator. In his work, Eggleston photographs "democratically"--literally photographing the world around him. His large-format prints monumentalize everyday subjects, everything is equally important; every detail deserves attention. A native Southerner raised on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta, Eggleston has created a singular portrait of his native South since the late 1960s. After discovering photography in the early 1960s, he abandoned a traditional education and instead learned from photographically illustrated books by Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Frank. Although he began his career making black-and-white images, he soon abandoned them to experiment with color technology to record experiences in more sensual and accurate terms at a time when color photography was largely confined to commercial advertising. In 1976 with the support of John Szarkowski, the influential photography historian, critic, and curator, Eggleston mounted "Color Photographs" a now famous exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. William Eggleston's Guide , in which Szarkowski called Eggleston's photographs "perfect," accompanied this groundbreaking one-person show that established his reputation as a pioneer of color photography. His subjects were mundane, everyday, often trivial, so that the real subject was seen to be color itself. These images helped establish Eggleston as one of the first non-commercial photographers working in color and inspired a new generation of photographers, as well as filmmakers. Eggleston has published his work extensively. He continues to live and work in Memphis, and travels considerably for photographic projects. Source: The Getty Museum
Kelly O’Leary
United States
Charlie Lieberman
United States
1945
Charlie Lieberman is a photographer and cinematographer based in Southern California. Best known for his work on the TV show, Heroes, Lieberman has also been developing a body of photographic work since the 1960s. His current practice seeks out humble landscapes, avoiding the iconic in an effort to impart a sense of memory, contemplation, and awe. Lieberman is currently an Active Member of The American Society of Cinematographers. He has been represented by Freed Gallery since 2014 in Lincoln City, Oregon. Statement Whenever I take a photograph, I want you to feel like you are there with me. Whether it is looking through a windshield blurred by rain or standing beside a stretch of weathered, empty highway, I want to impart a sense of memory, even if you have never been to that particular place before. Photographs, like memories, have an elusive power to document experiences that approach each of us in different ways. My work is an attempt to reconsider the preconceptions one might have about landscapes and how we move through them, to direct your eye to experiences that often go unnoticed or taken for granted. By avoiding the iconic, I try to reconnect with a past beyond my own, to a kind of humble, primordial existence where one can converse with the world in solitude. When I do enter the urban landscape, it is always through the impact of light and weather, reminding us of the nature we all inhabit. I document what I consider to be a shy world, a world where stillness and contemplation enable us to walk together and share a common experience imprinted upon the landscape even if the human figure is absent in these photographs. It is this absence I hope to capture with my photography, to allow room for our memories-both real and imagined—to inhabit us with renewed appreciation and awe. Exclusive Interview with Charlie Lieberman
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Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
Photographer Maureen Ruddy Burkhart brings a quietly attentive and deeply human sensibility to her exploration of the world through images. Shaped by a life immersed in photography, film, and visual storytelling, her work is guided by intuition, observation, and an enduring interest in the emotional undercurrents of everyday life. With a practice rooted in both fine art traditions and documentary awareness, she approaches her subjects with sensitivity, allowing subtle moments to emerge naturally rather than be imposed. Her series Til Death, selected as the Solo Exhibition for February 2025, reflects this long-standing commitment to photography as a space for reflection rather than spectacle. Drawn to moments that exist just outside the expected frame, Burkhart’s images suggest narratives without resolving them, leaving room for ambiguity, humor, and quiet connection. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Peter Ydeen
Winner of AAP Magazine #45 Travels, his series reflects this unique vision—capturing the spirit of place through subtle layers of light, color, and emotion. Whether traveling abroad or observing the rhythms of his own surroundings, Ydeen creates images that feel both grounded and enchanted, inviting viewers into a world where reality and reverie meet.
Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
Chinese-born photographer Julie Wang brings a poetic, contemplative sensitivity to her visual exploration of the world. Having lived for nearly equal parts of her life in China, Europe, and the United States, she approaches her subjects with the nuanced perspective of someone shaped by many cultures. This blend of distance, curiosity, and emotional resonance infuses her work with a quiet depth, allowing her to reveal the fragile beauty and subtle tensions that often pass unnoticed.
Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
American photographer Ghawam Kouchaki brings a sharply observant and introspective gaze to the streets of Japan’s capital. Based in Los Angeles, he approaches Tokyo with the distance — and curiosity — of an outsider, allowing him to uncover the city’s subtle contradictions, quiet tensions, and fleeting gestures that often go unnoticed. His series Tokyo no no, selected as the Solo Exhibition for December 2024, explores the hidden undercurrents of urban life: the unspoken rules, the small ruptures in routine, the poetic strangeness found in everyday moments. Through muted tones, instinctive timing, and meticulous framing, Kouchaki reveals a Tokyo that exists somewhere between reality and imagination — both intimate and enigmatic. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Tommi Viitala
Tommi Viitala, winner of AAP Magazine #44: Street, is a Finnish photographer celebrated for his striking and cinematic street photography. With a keen eye for atmosphere and composition, he captures fleeting urban moments that reveal the poetry of everyday life. His work often explores the tension between solitude and connection within contemporary cityscapes, blending documentary realism with artistic sensibility. Viitala’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized for their strong visual storytelling and emotional depth. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
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Robert Mack is a California-based visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker. His fine art photography and films have been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, with major shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany. Both institutions hold his work in their permanent collections. Working across different media, Mack has built a career exploring the complexities of human presence and representation. In 1981, while living in Baltimore, he produced The Perkins Project: Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, a rare photographic and film study inside Maryland’s hospital for the criminally insane. These stark yet compassionate black-and-white portraits remain one of his most powerful and controversial bodies of work.
Exclusive Interview with Alan Schaller About Irys
Alan Schaller is a London-based photographer best known for his striking black-and-white street photography and as co-founder of Street Photography International, one of the largest online communities dedicated to the genre. With years of experience both behind the camera and in building platforms that give visibility to photographers, Schaller has now turned his focus to creating a new digital space for photography itself. His latest venture, Irys, is a photography app designed by photographers, for photographers, with the aim of offering a dedicated platform where images are respected as works of art rather than treated as disposable content.
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With his latest book Paradise, Inc., celebrated documentary photographer Guillaume Bonn takes us deep into the heart of East Africa, where the promises and failures of wildlife conservation collide. Far from offering a romanticized vision of nature, Bonn’s work confronts us with urgent realities: the tensions between local communities and conservation policies, the sacrifices of rangers on the frontlines, and the long-lasting impact of human activity on fragile ecosystems. Spanning more than two decades of fieldwork, the project blends powerful imagery with investigative depth, raising difficult but necessary questions about transparency, accountability, and the Western-led models that dominate conservation. Enriched by the voices of those too often left out of the conversation—including a preface by Maasai leader Ezekiel Ole Katato and an introduction by journalist Jon Lee Anderson—Paradise, Inc. is both a stunning visual journey and a call to action. In the following interview, Guillaume Bonn reflects on the making of Paradise, Inc., the ethical dilemmas at the heart of his work, and the urgent need to rethink our approach to conservation in East Africa and beyond.
Exclusive Interview with Sander Vos
Sander Vos is a fine art photographer based in London whose work seamlessly blends elements of Surrealism with portraiture. Drawing inspiration from his background in design, Vos embraces light and contrast to sculpt striking, graphic compositions. His photographs invite the viewer into a world where revelation and concealment coexist, leaving space for imagination and interpretation.
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