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Robert Virga
Robert Virga
Robert Virga

Robert Virga

Country: United States

Robert Virga is a photographer residing in the New York City metropolitan area. Though largely self-taught, he has taken Master Classes with Mary Ellen Mark and Bruce Davidson. Working with film and the traditional darkroom, his street photography portrays a social landscape of extremes, capturing reality at its most expressive. Richly emotional, lyrical and untainted by interference or staged detail. A tableau of relationships, the human condition, life and death. Reminding us of how large a fraction of what we see won't exist in its present form only a moment from now.

A humanist portrayal...candid and without comment or sentimentality, un-selfconscious in its theatricality and self-presentation. Displaying ourselves with grace and self-confidence, a sense of timelessness...and a little humor. In solitude and freed from any mystery.

Social documentary and romanticism combined in the same instant. Our lives, in a matter of seconds, are caught in the act... where the obvious and mundane transition into something more provocative.

His work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Italy and Spain. In addition, he has been published and reviewed in, among others, Black and White Magazine, Photography Gala Awards, FotoNostrum Gallery, Urban Photo Awards, and winner of the 14th Pollux Street Photography Award.

Gallery

Soho Photo

Website

www.robertvirgaphoto.com

 

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Raghu Rai
Raghu Rai
India
1942
Raghu Rai (born in December 1942) qualified as a civil engineer, started photography at the age of 23 in 1965. He joined The Statesman newspaper as their chief photographer (1966 to 1976), and was then Picture Editor with Sunday—a weekly news magazine published from Calcutta (1977 to 1980). In 1971, impressed by Rai’s exhibition at Gallery Delpire, Paris, the legendary photographer Henri Cartier Bresson nominated him to Magnum Photos, the world’s most prestigious photographer’s cooperative which Rai could start only in 1977, Rai took over as Picture Editor-Visualiser- Photographer of India Today, India’s leading news magazine in its formative years. He worked on special issues and designs, contributing trailblazing picture essays on social, political and cultural themes of the decade (1982 to 1991). He was awarded the "Padmashree" in 1972 for the body of works he produced on Bangladesh refugees, the war and its surrender. In 1992 he was awarded “Photographer of the Year” in the United States for the story “Human Management of Wildlife in India” published in National Geographic. In 2009 he was conferred Officier des Arts et des Lettres by French Government. His photo essays have appeared in many of the world’s leading magazines and newspapers - including Time, Life, GEO, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Die Welt, The New York Times, Sunday The Times-London, Newsweek, Vogue, GQ, D magazine, Marie Claire, The Independent and The New Yorker. He has been an adjudicator for World Press Photo contest, Amsterdam and UNESCO’s International Photo Contest for many times. Currently, Raghu Rai lives in New Delhi and is working on his 57th book.Source: raghuraifoundation.org Rai has specialized in extensive coverage of India. He has produced a lot of books, including Raghu Rai's Delhi, The Sikhs, Calcutta, Khajuraho, Taj Mahal, Tibet in Exile, India, and Mother Teresa. His photo essays have appeared in many magazines and newspapers. For Greenpeace, he has completed an in-depth documentary project on the chemical disaster at Bhopal in 1984, which he covered as a journalist with India Today, and on its ongoing effects on the lives of gas victims. This work resulted in a book, Exposure: A Corporate Crime and three exhibitions that toured Europe, America, India and southeast Asia after 2004, the 20th anniversary of the disaster. Rai wanted the exhibition to support the many survivors through creating greater awareness, both about the tragedy, and about the victims – many who are still uncompensated – who continue to live in the contaminated environment around Bhopal. In 2003, while on an assignment for Geo Magazine in Bombay City, he switched to using a digital Nikon D100 camera "and from that moment to today, I haven't been able to go back to using film." In 2017, Avani Rai, his daughter followed her father on one of his trips to Kashmir to get an insight into his life and know him better. She documented this journey and released a documentary on it called Raghu Rai: An Unframed Portrait. It depicts a historical narrative through Raghu Rai's photographs through time, as he tells some of his unique experiences that not only affected him deeply but also important landmarks in the young yet crucial history of India. It was executive produced by Anurag Kashyap.Source: Wikipedia Rai was awarded the "Padmashree" in 1971, one of India’s highest civilian awards ever given to a photographer. In 1992, his National Geographic cover story Human Management of Wildlife in India won him widespread critical acclaim for the piece. Besides winning many national and international awards, Rai has exhibited his works in London, Paris, New York, Hamburg, Prague, Tokyo, Zurich and Sydney. His photo essays have appeared in many of the world’s leading magazines and newspapers. He has served three times on the jury of the World Press Photo and twice on the jury of UNESCO’s International Photo Contest. Raghu Rai lives in Delhi with his family and continues to be a correspondent of Magnum Photos.Source: Magnum Photos
Don Jacobson
Don Jacobson
United States
The world of photography and the world of the natural wonders of the Sierra Nevada opened to Don Jacobson simultaneously. The photographs he took with his little Kodak Brownie were woefully inadequate to express the grandeur of the Range of Light. Within a week of his first backpack trip into the high country, he bought his first SLR, a Pentax Spotmatic and began to take photography classes. His degree is in electrical engineering and he worked in that field for three years. Working for the defense industry became more of a contradiction with his political views initiating a search for a desperately needed a creative outlet. For the next twenty-eight years he worked as a glassblower. His work was shown in galleries across the United States, and the Corning Museum included a piece of his in their 1986 collection of 200 international glassblowers. Although glassblowing was his "day job*," he continued to practice the art of photography, studying photography with Edmund Teske at UCLA for a year. The two different mediums, are connected by light. The magic of glass is in its ability to transmit and reflect light while photography is the capturing of light. During the years he lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1973 through 1976, he amassed 135 images of owner decorated vehicles. He is currently a member of the Portland Photographers Forum and the Interim Group, a critique group originally formed by the influential photographer Minor White. Statement I see the world differently now. The camera, which narrows the field of vision, has actually expanded my vision. When I realized I was viewing reality as if it were a series of photographs, I initially questioned that perspective. Now, I know my perception is enhanced and enriched from my pursuit of photography. An already dynamic and interesting world has become more so. I am delighted by quality of light, vibrancy of color, unexpected and often unnoticed detail. The stunning structure of an orchid, the intricate ornamentation on an older building, or dishes stacked in a dish drainer are fascinating to me. Abstractions and patterns are richer and invite investigation. My subject matter is limitless. Anything that appeals to my eye is fair game for my camera.
Robin Hammond
Robin Hammond
New Zealand
1975
Robin Hammond is the recipient of the W.Eugene Smith Fund for Humanistic Photography, a World Press Photo prize, the Pictures of the Year International World Understanding Award and four Amnesty International awards for Human Rights journalism. He has dedicated his career to documenting human rights and development issues around the world through long-term photographic projects. Robin won the FotoEvidence Book Award for Documenting Social Injustice which resulted in the publication of his long term project on mental health in Africa, Condemned. The same body of work was exhibited at the photojournalism festival Visa Pour l'Image in France, and in New York, Italy, Belgium. Winning the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award allowed him to continue his long-term photo project on life in Zimbabwe under the rule of Robert Mugabe. The work culminated in an exhibition in Paris and the publication of his first book 'Your Wounds Will Be Named Silence'. The work went on to be exhibited at Le Recontres in Arles, France and in Milan, Rome, and Cologne and was featured in National Geographic Magazine. Robin has made a wide variety of other photographic bodies from the impact of climate change on Pacific Island communities to rape used as a weapon of war in Congo and Bosnia, to the poisoning of ecosystems by multi-nationals in developing countries, to the rise of Africa's middle class. Born in New Zealand, Robin has lived in Japan, the United Kingdom, South Africa and France.
Aleksander Rodchenko
Aleksander Rodchenko
Russia
1891 | † 1956
Aleksander Rodchenko was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer who emerged following the Russian Revolution. He was one of the founders of Russian Constructivist and a Productivist artist, married to artist Varvara Stepanova. He began his career as a painter and graphic designer before moving on to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially involved, formally creative, and anti-painting. Concerned about the necessity for analytical-documentary picture series, Aleksander Rodchenko frequently shot his subjects from unusual angles—usually high above or low below—in order to shock the viewer and delay recognition. "One has to shoot several distinct photos of a subject, from diverse points of view and in varied settings, as though one viewed it in the round rather than looking through the same key-hole over and over," he wrote. Only the camera seems to be really capable of describing modern life. -- Aleksander Rodchenko Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was born in St. Petersburg to a working-class family that relocated to Kazan when his father died in 1909. He became an artist without any prior exposure to the art world, relying mostly on art periodicals for inspiration. Aleksander Rodchenko began studies at the Kazan Art School in 1910, under Nicolai Fechin and Georgii Medvedev, when he met Varvara Stepanova, whom he eventually married. The critic Osip Brik, 1924© Aleksander Rodchenko Following 1914, he continued his artistic education at the Stroganov Institute in Moscow, where he created his first abstract drawings in 1915, influenced by Kazimir Malevich's Suprematism. The following year, he took part in The Store, an exhibition organized by another formative influence, Vladimir Tatlin. Rodchenko's work was influenced heavily by Cubism and Futurism, as well as Malevich's Suprematist compositions, which featured geometric forms deployed against a white background. Aleksander Rodchenko was Tatlin's student and assistant, and the interest in figuration that characterized Rodchenko's early work faded as he experimented with design elements. He created his paintings with a compass and ruler, with the goal of eliminating expressive brushwork. Rodchenko worked for Narkompros and was one of the RABIS organizers. RABIS was founded between 1919 and 1920. In 1920, the Bolshevik government appointed Rodchenko as Director of the Museum Bureau and Purchasing Fund, with responsibility for the reorganization of art schools and museums. He became the secretary of the Moscow Artists' Union, established the Fine Arts Division of the People's Commissariat for Education, and assisted in the establishment of the Institute for Artistic Culture. From 1920 to 1930, he was a teacher at the Higher Technical-Artistic Studios, a Bauhaus organization with a "checkered career." It ceased operations in 1930. In 1921, Aleksander Rodchenko joined the Productivist group, along with Stepanova and Aleksei Gan, to advocate for the incorporation of art into everyday life. He abandoned painting to focus on graphic design for posters, books, and films. He was profoundly influenced by the ideas and practice of filmmaker Dziga Vertov, with whom he collaborated extensively in 1922. Impressed by the German Dadaists' photomontage, Rodchenko began his own experiments in the medium, first using found images in 1923, and then shooting his own photographs from 1924 on. In 1923, his first published photomontage illustrated Mayakovsky's poem About This. Rodchenko created his most famous poster in 1924, an advertisement for the Lengiz Publishing House titled Books, which features a young woman with a cupped hand shouting "Books in all branches of knowledge," printed in modernist typography. Photography has all the rights, and all the merits, necessary for us to turn towards it as the art of our time. -- Aleksander Rodchenko Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 1924© Aleksander Rodchenko From 1923 to 1928, Rodchenko worked closely with Mayakovsky (of whom he took several portraits) on the design and layout of LEF and Novy LEF, Constructivist artists' publications. Many of his photographs were published in or used as covers for these and other publications. His images were concerned with the placement and movement of objects in space, as well as the elimination of unnecessary detail. During this time, he and Stepanova painted the well-known panels of Moscow's Mosselprom building. Varvara Rodchenko, their daughter, was born in 1925. Rodchenko's work was very abstract throughout the 1920s. He joined the October Group of artists in 1928, but was expelled three years later after being accused of "formalism," an accusation first leveled in the pages of Sovetskoe Foto in 1928. In the 1930s, as the Party's guidelines governing artistic practice shifted in favor of Socialist realism, he focused on sports photography and images of parades and other choreographed movements. In the late 1930s, Aleksander Rodchenko returned to painting, stopped photographing in 1942, and produced abstract expressionist works in the 1940s. Throughout these years, he continued to organize photography exhibitions for the government. In 1956, he died in Moscow.
Chris Killip
Chris Killip
United Kingdom
1946 | † 2020
Born in Douglas, Isle of Man in 1946, he left school at age sixteen and joined the only four star hotel on the Isle of Man as a trainee hotel manager. In June 1964 he decided to pursue photography full time and became a beach photographer in order to earn enough money to leave the Isle of Man. In October 1964 he was hired as the third assistant to the leading London advertising photographer Adrian Flowers. He then worked as a freelance assistant for various photographers in London from 1966-69. In 1969, after seeing his very first exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he decided to return to photograph in the Isle of Man. He worked in his father's pub at night returning to London on occasion to print his work. On a return visit to the USA in 1971, Lee Witkin, the New York gallery owner, commissioned a limited edition portfolio of the Isle of Man work, paying for it in advance so that Killip could continue to photograph. In 1972 he received a commission from The Arts Council of Great Britain to photograph Huddersfield and Bury St Edmunds for the exhibition Two Views - Two Cities. In 1975, he moved to live in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on a two year fellowship as the Northern Arts Photography Fellow. He was a founding member, exhibition curator and advisor of Side Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as well as its director, from 1977-9. He continued to live in Newcastle and photographed throughout the North East of England, and from 1980-85 made occasional cover portraits for The London Review of Books. In 1989 he was commissioned by Pirelli UK to photograph the workforce at their tyre factory in Burton-on-Trent. In 1989 he received the Henri Cartier Bresson Award and in 1991 was invited to be a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University. In 1994 he was made a tenured professor and was department chair from 1994-98. He retired from Harvard in December 2017 and continues to live in the USA. His work is featured in the permanent collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; George Eastman House; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Source: chriskillip.com Skinningrove 1982 - 84 The village of Skinningrove lies on the North-East coast of England, halfway between Middlesbrough and Whitby. Hidden in a steep valley it veers away from the main road and faces out onto the North Sea. Like a lot of tight-knit fishing communities it could be hostile to strangers, especially one with a camera. "Now Then" is the standard greeting in Skinningrove; a challenging substitute for the more usual, "Hello". The place had a definite 'edge' and it took time for this stranger to be tolerated. My greatest ally in gaining acceptance was 'Leso' (Leslie Holliday), the most outgoing of the younger fishermen. Leso and I never talked about what I was doing there. but when someone questioned my presence, he would intercede and vouch for me with, 'He's OK'. This simple endorsement was enough. I last photographed in Skinningrove in 1984, and didn't return for twenty-six years. I was then shocked by how it had changed, as only one boat was still fishing. For me Skinningrove's sense of purpose was bound up in its collective obsession with the sea. Skinningrove fishermen believed that the sea in front of them was their private territory, theirs alone. Without the competitive energy that came from fishing, the place seemed like a pale reflection of its former self. Common Market and Health and Safety rules and regulations, coupled with increasing insurance costs, brought an end to the Skinningrove I'd known. When you're photographing you're caught up in the moment, trying to deal as best you can with what's in front of you. At that moment you're not thinking that a photograph is also, and inevitably, a record of a death foretold. A photograph's relationship to memory is complex. Can memory ever be made real or is a photograph sometimes the closest we can come to making our memories seem real. Chris Killip Remembering: Richard Noble (18) and David Coultas (34) drowned off Skinningrove on March 31 1984 Leslie Holliday - 'Leso' (26) and David Hinton (12) drowned off Skinningrove on July 29 1986 Source: Howard Yezerski Gallery
Jürgen Schadeberg
Jürgen Schadeberg
South Africa
1931 | † 2020
Jürgen Schadeberg was a German-born South African photographer and artist. He photographed key moments in South African history, including iconic photographs such as Nelson Mandela at Robben Island prison. He also lived, worked and taught in London and Spain, and photographed in many African countries. Jürgen Schadeberg was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1931 where he grew up during the Nazi regime and World War II. In the aftermath of the war, his mother began a relationship with a British officer in the army of occupation and emigrated with him to South Africa in 1947. Schadeberg learned to be a photographer at the Deutsche Presseagentur (German Press Agency). He moved to South Africa to rejoin his family in 1950 and, the following year, found employment on Drum magazine as an official photographer and layout artist. Schadeberg became the senior figure of the group and a teacher and mentor to some of the most creative South African photographers of his time, including Bob Gosani, Ernest Cole, and later Peter Magubane. As one of the few white photographers who photographed daily life among the black community, he became knowledgeable about black life and culture. As a result, he captured on film the beginnings of the freedom movement, the effects of apartheid, and the vibrancy of township life. Schadeberg photographed many historic and pivotal events in the 1950s among them the Defiance Campaign of 1952, the 1956 Treason Trial, the Sophiatown removals of 1955, the Sophiatown jazz and social scene, the Sharpeville funeral of 1960, and pictures of Robben Island inmates. Some of the famous people he photographed include Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Trevor Huddleston, and Govan Mbeki. He also documented 1950s jazz legends such as Thandi Klaasen, Hugh Masekela, Kippie Moeketsi and Miriam Makeba. He made documentation of everyday life. When Drum wanted the singer Dolly Rathebe to be the cover girl for one of their issues, Schadeberg took her to a Johannesburg mine dump and photographed her in a bikini. The two were arrested for contravening the Immorality Act which forbade interracial relationships. In 1959, Schadeberg left Drum to become a freelancer. He was part of an expedition led by Professor Phillip V. Tobias from the University of the Witwatersrand to study the Bushmen, publishing images in The Kalahari Bushmen Dance in 1982. Schadeberg felt forced by increasing civil unrest to leave South Africa, and in 1964 went to London, where he was picture editor of Camera Owner magazine (forerunner of Creative Camera), into which he incorporated a stronger sense of design and increased its pictorial content, and from April to July 1965 he was its editor. He also taught and curated photographic exhibitions in England, notably for the Whitechapel Art Gallery. He then moved to Spain where he focused on a career as an artist. In 1972, he returned to Africa where he accepted a position as a photographer for Christian Aid in Botswana and Tanzania. In 1973 he traveled to Senegal, Mali, Kenya, and Zaire, taking photographs. In 1985, Schadeberg returned to South Africa, where he lived with his wife Claudia. He continued to work as a photojournalist, and also made documentaries about the black community until 2007 when he returned to Europe. Schadeberg died from a stroke at his home in La Drova [ca], Valencia, Spain, on 29 August 2020, aged 89. His work is held in the collections of the UK Arts Council, National Portrait Gallery, Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.Source: Wikipedia Jurgen has edited and published over 30 photographic books including The Finest Photos from the Old Drum, The Fifties People of South Africa, Mandela & The Rise of the ANC, Voices from Robben Island, Sof’town Blues, The Black & White Fifties, The San of the Kalahari & Soweto Today 2002, Witness - 52 years of pointing lenses at Life 2004, Voices from the Land 2006. Jazz, Swing & Blues – 56 years of SA Jazz and Tales from Jozi 2007– Six decades of documentary photography in Europe, Africa and America published by Hatje Cantz 2008, Great Britain 1964/84 , 2011 Jurgen Schadeberg visits Germany – 6 decades 2012, and Six decades of South African Photography 2014. Together with his producer wife Claudia, Jurgen established The Schadeberg Movie Company to produce a series of some 15 documentaries and dramas about South African social, cultural and political history. Jurgen Schadeberg, sometimes known as “The Father of South African Photography”, is a principle figure in South African and World Photography. His major body of work, which spans 70 years and incorporates a collection of some 200,000 negatives, captures a wealth of timeless and iconic images.Source: www.jurgenschadeberg.com
Spiro Bolos
Spiro Bolos
United States
1967
Spiro Bolos is a Chicago-based street photographer who spends an inordinate amount of time on public transportation, especially since casting off his former minivan-centered life in suburbia. His chosen career is that of a social studies teacher and he became interested in American photography while teaching an American Studies course, first focusing on the documentary images of the Civil Rights era and then becoming preoccupied with the more artistic efforts of photographers such as Gordon Parks and William Eggleston. As a historian, he had an initial impulse to record a vision of the present era through the human characters surrounding him. But he had also seen the intriguing BBC documentary of Vivian Maier and attended a lecture by street photographer Brian Sokolowski, who demonstrated that an image of a complete stranger could function as a self-portrait. And so, with his phone ever-presently in hand, he started making photographs long before he was acquainted with Szarkowski's famous reference to "mirrors" and "windows". His subjects are usually blind to his stealthy process, perhaps because of the ubiquity of smartphones, as well as his desire to capture, as Strand put it, a "quality of being". But in a society increasingly surveilled, a moment of recognition occasionally surfaces in the subject’s eyes.
Stanley Greene
Stanley Greene
United States
1949 | † 2017
During the early years of his career, Stanley Greene (USA, 1949-2017) produced The Western Front, a unique documentation of the San Francisco’s punk scene in the 1970s and 80s. An encounter with W. Eugene Smith turned his energies to photojournalism. Stanley began photographing for magazines, and worked as temporary staff photographer for the New York Newsday. In 1986, he moved to Paris and began covering events across the globe. By chance, he was on hand to record the fall of the Berlin Wall. The changing political winds in Eastern Europe and Russia brought Greene to a different kind of photojournalism. He soon found himself photographing the myriad aspects of the decline of communism and the break-up of the Soviet Union. Stanley was a member of the Paris-based photo agency Agence VU from 1991 to 2007. Beginning in 1993, he was based in Moscow working for Liberation, Paris Match, Time, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Le Nouvel Observateur, as well as other international news magazines. In October 1993, Stanley was trapped and almost killed in the White House in Moscow during a coup attempt against Boris Yeltsin. He was the only western journalist inside to cover it. Two of his resulting pictures won World Press Photo awards. In the early 1990s, Stanley went to Southern Sudan to document the war and famine there for Globe Hebdo (France). He traveled to Bhopal, India, again for Globe Hebdo, to report on the aftermath of the Union Carbide gas poisoning. From 1994 to 2001, Stanley covered the conflict in Chechnya between rebels and Russian armed forces. His in-depth coverage was published in the monograph Open Wound: Chechnya 1994-2003 (Trolley 2003) and in the 1995 publication Dans Les Montagnes Où Vivent Les Aigles (Actes Sud). The work also appeared in Anna Politkovskaya’s book, A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya (2001). In 1994, Stanley was invited by Médecins sans Frontières to document their emergency relief operations during the cholera epidemic in Rwanda and Zaire. He has covered conflict and aftermath in Nagorno-Karabakh, Iraq, Sudan, Darfur, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Lebanon. Stanley was awarded a Katrina Media Fellowship from the Open Society Institute in 2006. In 2010, to mark the fifth commemoration of Hurricane Katrina - together with Dutch photographer Kadir van Lohuizen - Stanley made “Those who fell through the cracks”, a collaborative project documenting Katrina's effects on Gulf coast residents. The same year, Stanley’s book Black Passport was published (Schilt). In 2012, Stanley was the guest of honor of Tbilisi Photo Festival and began his project on e-waste traveling to Nigeria, India, China and Pakistan. Stanley has received numerous grants and recognitions including - the Lifetime Achievement Visa d’Or Award (2016), the Aftermath Project Grant (2013), the Prix International Planète Albert Kahn (2011), W. Eugene Smith Award (2004), the Alicia Patterson Fellowship (1998) and five World Press Photo awards. Stanley presented the Sem Presser keynote lecture at the 2017 World Press Photo Award Festival. Stanley Greene is a founding member of NOOR. Stanley passed away in Paris, France on May 19th, 2017. Source: NOOR Greene was born to middle class parents in Brooklyn. Both his parents were actors. His father, who was born in Harlem, was a union organizer, one of the first African Americans elected as an officer in the Screen Actors Guild, and belonged to the Harlem Renaissance movement. Greene's father was blacklisted as a Communist in the 1950s and forced to take uncredited parts in movies. Greene's parents gave him his first camera when he was eleven years old. Greene began his art career as a painter, but started taking photos as a means of cataloging material for his paintings. In 1971, when Greene was a member of the anti-war movement and the Black Panthers, his friend, photographer W. Eugene Smith offered him space in his studio and encouraged him to study photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the San Francisco Art Institute. Greene held various jobs as a photographer, including taking pictures of rock bands and working at Newsday. In 1986, he shot fashion in Paris. He called himself a "dilettante, sitting in cafes, taking pictures of girls and doing heroin". After a friend died of AIDS, Greene kicked his drug habit and began to seriously pursue a photography career. He began photojournalism in 1989, when his image ("Kisses to All, Berlin Wall") of a tutu-clad girl with a champagne bottle became a symbol of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While working for the Paris-based photo agency Agence Vu in October 1993, Greene was trapped and almost killed in the White House in Moscow during a coup attempt against President Boris Yeltsin. He has covered the war-torn countries Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Somalia, Croatia, Kashmir, and Lebanon. He has taken pictures of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the US Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since 1994, Greene is best known for his documentation of the conflict in Chechnya, between rebels and the Russian armed forces, which was compiled in his 2004 book, Open Wound. These photos have drawn attention to the "suffering that has marked the latest surge in Chechnya's centuries-long struggle for independence from Russia". In 2008, Greene revealed that he had hepatitis C, which he believed he had contracted from a contaminated razor while working in Chad in 2007. After controlling the disease with medication, he traveled to Afghanistan and shot a story about "the crisis of drug abuse and infectious disease". Greene has lived and worked in Paris since 1986. He said: "My wife has left me but instead of becoming an alcoholic, I would go and shoot war." Source: Wikipedia Wars and Victims February 18, 2008 "It remains essential for journalists to scour the ground, unimpeded, using the only weapons we know. Our cameras, notebooks and voices make us the unwelcome pests of aggressors around the world. Witnesses are inconvenient. Yet as most of my colleagues will agree, countries such as Irak, Chad, The Caucasus, and Chechnya, are becoming harder to cover. In the world of spot news, publications don't want to pay for long engagements in complicated zones because its getting much harder to afford it. Authorities block access. And the lack of access, infrastructure and personal security makes logistics a nightmare. Despite the odds, sometimes the effort can make a difference, and those rare moments never cease to satisfy in a profession that is otherwise lonely, demanding and thankless. Journalism rewards you with long days and even longer nights. There is no such thing as taking pictures from a place of safety, and you often pack your feelings in a suitcase until you can return to ‘reality.’ Some colleagues living in this perpetual emotional yo-yo are able to maintain a relationship, money in the bank, and perhaps even their sanity. If you're like the rest of us not born under that star, you never stop trying to find it. For the last fifteen years I have bore witness to long histories of invasions, mass migrations, conflicts, wars and destructions. This group of images is to provide a body of work that is about war and victims but also, it's about photojournalism and the importance of those photo-correspondents that are passionate about shining the light in dark places. The resultant series of black and white and color photographs are more than a mere documentation of the darkness which exists in the world. Journalists today are like disaster tourists going from one hot place to the next. It has never been my intention to be such a photographer. I think it is better to build a full body of work which demonstrates the longevity of a working photojournalist, today and yesterday. I think that this should be taken into consideration when looking at this work. It is a fragment, taken from longer and larger photo-essays." -- Stanley Greene (Sometimes We Need Tragedies) Source: fragments.nl
Parisa Azadi
Parisa Azadi
Iran/Canada
1986
Parisa Azadi is an Iranian-Canadian visual journalist whose work is grounded in themes of systematic violence, social injustice, and radical resistance within historically oppressed communities. Parisa has reported across the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Canada, covering civil unrest and state repression—including the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan, missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, and religious extremism in Bangladesh. Since 2017, Parisa has been working in Iran, examining the nuanced dynamics of communities living in the aftermath of political violence. Parisa’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions across Europe and the U.S., including Cortona On The Move, Belfast Festival, the American Center For Photographers, Melike Bilir Gallery, among others. Her work has been recognized by the World Press Photo 6×6 Global Talent Program and the Chris Hondros Fund Award. In 2023, Parisa was named one of the British Journal of Photography’s Ones to Watch, received the Magnum Foundation Mobility Grant, and joined the South Asia Incubator Program. Her photographs have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Courrier International, Annabelle Magazine, among others. Article: Ordinary Grief
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Interview
Exclusive Interview with Frank Meo
In our latest exclusive feature for All About Photo, I speak with veteran photography representative Frank Meo about what it truly takes to build a sustainable creative career today. Frank brings decades of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, major agencies, and documentary photographers to the table. We dive into the critical business skills often left out of art school curriculums, the power of mentorship, and the inspiring evolution of PROJECTIONS—his international salon platform for visual storytellers. It’s an essential read for anyone navigating the commercial or editorial photography landscape today.
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Exclusive Interview with Carolyn Moore
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Carolyn Moore
American photographer Carolyn Moore explores the inner landscape of emotion, memory, and personal transformation through a deeply intuitive photographic practice. Her work unfolds as a quiet dialogue between artist and viewer, where images become a space for reflection, vulnerability, and connection.
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Exclusive Interview with Luca Desienna and Laura Estelle Barmwoldt
Interview
Publication
Exclusive Interview with Luca Desienna and Laura Estelle Barmwoldt
For over seven years, Of Lilies and Remains has explored the depths of the goth and darkwave underground, unfolding in Leipzig—a city long associated with a vibrant and enduring subcultural scene. Moving between iconic gatherings such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen and more intimate moments on the fringes, the project offers a rare and immersive glimpse into a world often misunderstood, yet rich in expression and community. Created by Luca in collaboration with Laura Estelle Barmwoldt, the work embraces a cinematic and deeply personal approach. Rather than documenting from a distance, it moves within the scene itself, capturing its atmosphere, its codes, and its quiet contradictions. The title Of Lilies and Remains hints at this duality—where beauty and darkness, fragility and strength coexist. As the book prepares for its release, we spoke with both artists about the origins of the project, their process, and what it means to document a subculture that continues to evolve while remaining true to its spirit.
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Exclusive Interview with Matthew Finley
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Matthew Finley
American photographer Matthew Finley turns inward, using photography as a way to explore identity, memory, and emotional truth. Based in Los Angeles, his practice moves between performance, gesture, and found imagery, creating a visual language that is both intimate and deeply personal
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Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Dutch photographer Jan Janssen explores universal human experiences through his long-term project It Matters, winner of the May 2025 Solo Exhibition. Begun in 2016, the series captures intimate moments of everyday life—love, loss, connection, and belonging—across Central and Eastern Europe. Working in countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, Janssen spends extended time within communities, building relationships based on trust and respect. His approach allows him to move beyond observation, revealing deeply human and authentic moments. Rooted in travel and personal discovery, It Matters reflects Janssen’s search for what connects us all in an increasingly divided world. The project is ongoing and will culminate in a photobook scheduled for publication in 2026.
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Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
German photographer Henk Kosche turns his lens toward the streets of Halle an der Saale, capturing everyday life in the late years of the former German Democratic Republic. At the time, Kosche was studying design and exploring the city with his camera, drawn to the atmosphere of its industrial landscape and the quiet rhythms of daily life. His series Street Photography at the End of the 80s, selected as the Solo Exhibition for July 2025, revisits a body of work created just before a period of profound change. Rediscovered decades later in a small box of 35mm negatives, these photographs offer glimpses of a city and its people at a moment suspended between the familiar and the unknown.
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