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Sudabe Vatanparast
Sudabe Vatanparast
Sudabe Vatanparast

Sudabe Vatanparast

Country: Iran
Birth: 1983

Sudabe Vatanparast is an Iranian famale photographer who was born in 1983 in Tehran. Sudabe is a graduate photography.
Social concerns centered on the problems of women in iranian society are evident in Sudabe projects.
Sudabe considers herself a freelance photographer whose photos are inspired by the nightmares, problems and experiences of her life and that of her community.
Her first solo exhibition was held in 2015.
In addition to holding exhibitions in prestigious galleries in Iran, Garibaldi Gallery in Modica, Italy and Bioçkecmac Gallery in Turkey have also hosted his works separately and as a group.
Sudabe has been praised many times at various festivals under the auspices of the World Photography Federation (FIAP) and has been one of the top members of these festivals. Her latest solo exhibition is a reflection of the fear, insecurity and anxiety of Iranian women in the home environment, which has been welcomed by critics and activists in this field.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Yuyang Liu
China
1991
Yuyang Liu, b.1991, graduated from Department of History, East China Normal University. He is a freelancer photographer based in Guangzhou, China. When he was a high school student, he started to love taking photos and decided to be a photographer. His images focus on the change and connection of people in the changing society. He had won Magnum Foundation Human Rights & Photography Fellowship, Abigail Cohen Fellowship in Documentary Photography and Ian Parry Scholarship. His work was published on TIME, New York Times, the Guardian, NPR and BBC World Service. Awards Ian Parry Scholarship, 2015 Abigail Cohen Fellowship in Documentary Photography (Magnum Foundation/ChinaFile, 2015 National Geographic Photo Contest China, Honorable Mention, 2014 Magnum Foundation: The Human Rights & Photography Fellowship, 2014 ND Scholarship, 3rd Prize, 2014 2013 Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition, Shortlisted, 2013 5th Foundation of OFPiX Photo Agency, Shortlisted, 2012 Exhibitions & Events Magnum Foundation Human Rights & Photography Fellowship Program Forum: Inter Art Center and Gallery, Beijing, China, 2014 Home of Youth: High School No.7 Chengdu (multimedia):PhotoChina Original International Photographic Exhibition, Confucius’ Hall, Guiyang, China, 2014 Neither Here Nor There (multimedia): LOOKbetween 2014, Virginia, USA, 2014 Auspicious Things: Lishui International Photography Festival Hand-made Books Workshop, Pump Factory, Lishui, China, 2013 Auspicious Things: 2013 Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition, China Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2013 About the project: At home with mental illness: In 2014 there were reportedly 16 million people in China living with severe mental illness. 80% of patients diagnosed did not receive sufficient or necessary treatment due to China’s flawed health care system. Most people who suffer from these illnesses are forced to live at home with their families or on their own. They are overlooked or often not recognized at all within society, they are invisible. So I decide to film these patients and families who have mental illness such as psychosis or dysgnosia. I’ve been to several towns and villages in Guangdong Province which is the richest region in southern China and filmed some mental illness at home. This project aims to explore the unique relationship between the mentally ill, their families, and society at large.
Alamsyah Rauf
Indonesia
1982
Alamsyah Rauf was born in a small district in south sulawesi precisely in Kab.Sinjai, maybe that's why this photographer is less known among photographers in Indonesia but his work has won dozens of world-class photo contest. After graduating high school, this man married in 2001 on the will of his parents, this makes him unable to continue college. After married Alamsyah worked in his parents' photo studio. Alamsyah Learning DSLR cameras just look at the camera manual and learn self-taught to techniques of composition, tone, and lighting via internet. In 2004 Alamsyah Rauf set up his own Photo Studio and hire 3 photographers. As a freelance photographer, Alamsyah takes part in various photography communities, photo exhibitions and participate in various national and international photo contest. Awards: 2nd Place (Best of Show) 2012 Photoshare Photo Contest (Baltimore USA) 2nd Price Sony WPO 2013 category National Award Best in Action at Australian Art Sales (Australia) FIAP GOLD MEDAL in Photo Salon Soul 2013 (Macedonia) FIAP Silver Medal 4th International Photo Exhibition Photo Focus 2013 (Russia) PAM Gold Medal at 2nd International exhibition of art photography SOUL 2014 (Macedonia) Second Winner General category HIPA 2014 Dubai 1st Place Portrait at 7th Annual Masters Cup 2014 (Beverly Hills USA) 1st Place (Portrait category) the 7th Annual International Color Awards 2014 FIAP Gold Medal at 38th EX HIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHY "CHILD 2014" Serbia SALON praise 38th EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHY "CHILD 2014" Serbia FIAP Gold medal, FIAP Silver medal, PSA Gold Medal, PSA Ribbon in 2nd Cairo Int. Photographic Art Exhibition - CIPAE 2014 Awards (Cairo, Egypt) Ozone zone Gold Medal (Happiness), FIAP Ribbon (monochrome) Ozone zone International Photo Contest 2014 (Canada) RPS Gold Medal, 2nd Photovivo Singapore International Photography Award (PIPA) 2014 FIAP Silver Medal (Open Color) 1St GIFSAD INTERNATIONAL PHOTO CONTEST 2014 (TURKEY) Champaign 1 colorful alfaink photo contest nusantara 2015. "Grand Prize" Winner at The Shutterview International Photography Competition 2015 (Australia ) 2nd Place (people category) Fine Art Photography Award 2015 Grand Winner Xposure International photo contest 2016 (Sharjah UAE) First Place Proify Annual International Photography Awards 2016 Merit Medal Recipient "THE CHALLENGE" HIPA 2017 UAE 5th Place All About Photo Awards 2018
Marilyn Silverstone
United States
1929 | † 1999
Marilyn Silverstone, who has died of cancer in Kathmandu aged 70, was one of only five women members of the Magnum Photos co-operative. Yet after more than 20 years of freelancing for publications such as Life and Paris Match, she gave up the glamour of photo-journalism to become a Buddhist nun in Nepal.Source: The Guardian Marilyn Rita Silverstone (9 March 1929 – 28 September 1999) was the eldest daughter of Murray and Dorothy Silverstone was born in London. Her father, the son of Polish immigrants to America, rose to become managing director, and president, international, respectively, of United Artists and 20th-Century Fox, working with Charlie Chaplin and other early film stars in London. The family returned to America just before the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. Silverstone grew up in Scarsdale, New York. After graduating from Wellesley College, she became an associate editor for Art News, Industrial Design and Interiors in the early 1950s. She moved to Italy to make documentary art films. Marilyn Silverstone became a working photojournalist in 1955, traveling and capturing the range of images that her vision led her to find in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In 1956, she travelled to India on an assignment to photograph Ravi Shankar. She returned to the subcontinent in 1959; what was intended to be a short trip became the beginning of a fascination with India which lasted for the rest of her life. Her photographs of the arrival in India of the Dalai Lama, who was escaping from the Chinese invasion of Tibet, made the lead in Life. In that period, she met and fell in love with the journalist Frank Moraes. Moraes was then editor of The Indian Express. The couple lived together in New Delhi until 1973, socializing with politicians, journalists and intellectuals, and diplomats. A number of Moraes' editorials had earned the ire of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the situation deteriorated to the point that a retreat to London became the best course. Over the years, Silverstone's reputation as a photographer grew. In 1967, she joined Magnum Photos, in which she was only one of five women members. Silverstone's work for Magnum included photographing subjects ranging from Albert Schweitzer to the coronation of the Shah of Iran. Silverstone's conversion to Buddhist nun was said to have begun when she was a teenager suffering from the mumps. She later explained that during this conventional childhood illness, she read Secret Tibet by Fosco Maraini and she said the book provided a key she long carried in her subconscious. In the late 1960s, Marilyn Silverstone had worked on a photography assignment about a Tibetan Buddhist lama in Sikkim named Khanpo Rinpoche and, when the lama came to London for medical treatment in the 1970s, Rinpoche stayed with the couple. At this point, Silverstone decided to learn Tibetan in order to study Buddhism with him. After Moraes's death in 1974, Silverstone decided to join the entourage of another celebrated lama, Khentse Rinpoche, who left London for a remote monastery in Nepal. In 1977, she took vows as a Buddhist nun. Her Buddhist name was Bhikshuni Ngawang Chödrön, or Ani Marilyn to her close friends. In her new life in Kathmandu, she researched the vanishing customs of Rajasthan and the Himalayan kingdoms. In 1999, Ngawang Chödrön returned to the United States for cancer treatment and she learned that she was terminally ill. She was clear that she wanted to die in Nepal, her home for the past 25 years. However, no airline would carry a passenger in her fragile condition. She resolved the impasse by persuading a doctor on vacation to accompany her on the return to Kathmandu. The journey was fraught with difficulties. She was barely conscious during the trip and a stopover was necessary in Vienna. She died in 1999 in a Buddhist monastery near Katmandu where she had worked to establish and maintain. At the time of Silverstone's death, the preparation of an exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery featuring her work and that of other Magnum photographers was nearing completion. The University of St Andrews hosted a seminar in conjunction with this exhibition, and as Silverstone had just recently died, the seminar became an opportunity for her peers to celebrate her life and career. Source: Wikipedia Born in London in 1929, Marilyn Silverstone graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, then worked as an associate editor for Art News, Industrial Design, and Interiors during the 1950s. She also served as an associate producer and historical researcher for an Academy Award-winning series of films on painters. In 1955 she began to photograph professionally as a freelancer with the Nancy Palmer Agency, New York, working in Asia, Africa, Europe, Central America and the Soviet Union. In 1959, she was sent on a three-month assignment to India, but ended up moving to New Delhi and was based there until 1973. During that time she produced the books Bala Child of India (1962) and Ghurkas and Ghosts (1964), and later The Black Hat Dances (1987), and Ocean of Life (1985), a journey of discovery that aims to take the reader to the heart of a complex and compassionate Buddhist culture. Kashmir in Winter, a film made from her photographs, won an award at the London Film Festival in 1971. Silverstone became an associate member of Magnum in 1964, a full member in 1967, and a contributor in 1975. Marilyn Silverstone, whose photographs have appeared in many major magazines, including Newsweek, Life, Look, Vogue and National Geographic, became an ordained Buddhist nun in 1977. She lived in Kathmandu, Nepal, where she practiced Buddhism and researched the vanishing customs of the Rajasthani and Himalayan kingdoms. She died in October 1999 at the Shechen monastery, near Kathmandu, which she had helped to finance. Silverstone’s photographic estate is managed by Magnum Photos under the direction of James A. Fox, a former Magnum Editor-in-Chief, and present Curator.Source: Magnum Photos
Emmet Gowin
United States
1941
Emmet Gowin (born 1941) is an American photographer. He first gained attention in the 1970s with his intimate portraits of his wife, Edith, and her family. Later he turned his attention to the landscapes of the American West, taking aerial photographs of places that had been changed by humans or nature, including the Hanford Site, Mount St. Helens, and the Nevada Test Site. Gowin taught at Princeton University for more than 35 years. Gowin was born in Danville, Virginia. His father, Emmet Sr., was a Methodist minister and his Quaker mother played the organ in church. When he was two his family moved to Chincoteague Island, where he spent much of his free time in the marshes around their home. At about age 12 his family moved back to Danville, where Gowin first showed an interest in art by taking up drawing. When he was 16 he saw an Ansel Adams photograph of a burnt tree with a young bud growing from the stump. This inspired him to go into the woods near his home and draw from nature. Later, he applied what he learned from his early years wandering in the woods and marshes to his photography. A student of his said "Photography, with Emmet, became the study of everything." After graduating from high school he attended the Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University). During his first year in college he saw a catalog of the Family of Man exhibit and was particularly inspired by the works of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. About this same time he met his future wife, Edith Morris, who had grown up about a mile away from Gowin in Danville. They married in 1964, and she quickly became both his muse and his model. Later they had two sons, Elijah Gowin (also a photographer in his own right) and Isaac. Some of his earliest photographic vision was inspired by Edith's large and engaging family, who allowed him to record what he called "a family freshly different from my own." He said "I wanted to pay attention to the body and personality that had agreed out of love to reveal itself." In 1965, Gowin attended the Rhode Island School of Design. While earning his MFA, Gowin studied under influential American photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Three years later he was given his first solo exhibition at the Dayton Art Institute. In 1970 his work was shown at the George Eastman House and a year later at the Museum of Modern Art. About this same time he was introduced to the photographer Frederick Sommer, who became his lifelong mentor and friend. Emmet Gowin was invited by Peter Bunnell in 1973 to teach photography at Princeton University. Over the next 25 years, he both taught new students and, by his own admission, continually learned from those he taught. At the end of each academic year he asked his students to contribute one photograph to a portfolio that was open to critique by all of the students; he intentionally included one of his own photographs as a reminder that, while a teacher, "he was just another humble student of art." Gowin received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974, which allowed him to travel throughout Europe. He was also awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1979 and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 1994. In 1980 Gowin received a scholarship from the Seattle Arts Commission which provided funding for him to travel in Washington and the Pacific Northwest. Beginning with a trip to Mount St. Helens soon after it erupted, Gowin began taking aerial photographs. For the next twenty years, Gowin captured strip mining sites, nuclear testing fields, large-scale agricultural fields and other scars in the natural landscape. In 1982 the Gowins were invited by Queen Noor of Jordan, who had studied with Gowin at Princeton, to photograph historic places in her country. He traveled there over the next three years and took a series of photographs of the archaeological site at Petra. The prints he made of these images were the first time he introduced photographic print toning in his work. Gowin retired from teaching at Princeton University at the end of 2009 and lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Edith. Gowin has acknowledged that the photographs of Eugene Atget, Bill Brandt, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Alfred Stieglitz, and especially Harry Callahan and Frederick Sommer have influenced him. Most of his early family pictures were taken with a 4 X 5 camera on a tripod, a situation in which he said "both the sitter and photographer look at each other, and what they both see and feel is part of the picture." These photos feel both posed and highly intimate at the same time, often capturing seemingly long and direct stares from his wife or her family members or appearing to intrude on a personal family moment. Gowin once said that "the coincidence of the many things that fit together to make a picture is singular. They occur only once. They never occur for you in quite the same way that they occur for someone else, so that in the tiny differences between them you can reemploy a model or strategy that someone else has used and still reproduce an original picture. Those things that do have a distinct life of their own strike me as being things coming to you out of life itself." In an essay for the catalog for an exhibition of his work at Yale University, writer Terry Tempest Williams said "Emmet Gowin has captured on film the state of our creation and, conversely, the beauty of our losses. And it is full of revelations."Source: Wikipedia Following his marriage to Edith Morris in 1964, Gowin began taking portraits of his wife and extended family in Virginia. Capturing the ordinary yet intimate moments of everyday life, these photographs often resemble personal snapshots: his niece Nancy in the grass with dolls; Edith in their living room on Christmas morning; Edith and her two sisters in the backyard. Apart from their domestic setting and familial subjects, however, Gowin's pictures transcend documentation. Gowin's sensitivity to the nuances of daily events coupled with formally elegant compositions imbue his photographs with particular gravity. Honest, tender, spontaneous, and humorous in tone, they are personal yet universal reflections on the close bond shared between relatives. Some of Gowin's photographs feature images within a circular frame, a visual device discovered by chance in 1967. Allowing the camera lens to dictate the shape of the image, Gowin invites viewers to take a privileged glimpse, as if through a peephole, into his private world. An influential figure in the history of photography, Emmet Gowin (b. 1941, Danville, VA) received an MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1967. While at RISD, he studied with photographer Harry Callahan, who, along with Frederick Sommer, became one of his mentors and greatest influences. Since 1973 Gowin has been on the faculty at Princeton University, where he is currently a professor of photography in the Visual Arts Program. Gowin is the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1974), two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships (1977, 1979), a Pew Fellowship in the Arts (1993), the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University (1997), and the Princeton Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities (2006). For nearly four decades, Gowin's work has been widely exhibited in the U.S. and abroad, with solo shows and retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1971); the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1983); the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1990-93); the Espace Photographie Mairie de Paris (1992); the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (2002); the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City (2003); the El Paso Museum of Art (2004); and the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge (2004). His photographs can be found in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Tokyo Museum of Art.Source: Pace/MacGill Gallery
Peter Harlow
Australia
1948
Peter was born and educated to first degree standard in the UK. He gained a private pilot license in 1970. His career spans aerial photography, corporate communication and management development. After emigrating to Australia in 2001 he ran his own company providing small light aircraft to farmers, flying schools and private clients. Recently he took up commercial drone flying – which combines his love of photography and views from the sky. He currently lives in Melbourne with his artist partner. As a photographer, I have always been fascinated by the interplay of light, shadows and shapes that exist in both the natural and human-made world. For many years, as a pilot I saw the landscape from a small aeroplane. With the advent of drone technology, which enables the camera platform to remain static and fly much closer to the surface, I can now explore the landscape from new angles and perspectives, capturing images that were impossible from an aeroplane. Artist statement: One of the key elements of abstract art is the process of abstraction, where artists take familiar objects and break them down into their essential components. Similarly, my photographs capture landscapes from above, abstracting the natural world into a series of shapes, colours and textures that are sometimes quite different from their original form. By removing the context of the wider landscape, I want to encourage the viewer to see the world in a new light, as a collection of abstract forms that are both beautiful and intriguing. In abstracting the landscape, my aim is to create a body of work that challenges your perceptions and invites you to see the beauty and charm that exists all around us.
Sean Gallagher
United Kingdom
1979
Sean Gallagher is a British photographer and filmmaker, who has been in Asia for over 15 years. Based out of Beijing, China, he specialises in covering issues surrounding the climate crisis and other global environmental issues for some of the world's leading news outlets. He creates innovative photographic, video and multimedia projects that highlight individual's stories from communities that are affected by issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, desertification and deforestation. He is a 8-time recipient of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting travel grant, his images are represented by the National Geographic Image Collection and he is a Fellow of the UK Royal Geographical Society. He graduated in Zoology from university in the United Kingdom and it is his background in science that has led to much of his work being focused on communicating environmental issues through visual storytelling. His selected awards include; Environmental Photographer of the Year - Changing Environments Prize (2019), Resilience Science Journalism Fellow - Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University New York (2019), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Science Journalism Fellow (2017), Environmental Film of the Year - Winner - 'The Toxic Price of Leather', Environmental Photographer of the Year Competition (2014), Published 'Meltdown', a multimedia eBook documenting China's environmental crises in the early 21st Century (2013). Photography and Climate Change Awareness
Erich Hartmann
Germany / United States
1922 | † 1999
Erich Hartmann was a German-born American photographer. Hartmann was born July 29, 1922 in Munich, Germany, the eldest child of Max and Irma Hartmann who lived in Passau, a small city on the Danube near the Austrian border in which they were one of a five Jewish families. Erich Hartmann's family belonged to the middle class, and his father, a social-democrat who served during World War I and been imprisoned by the British, was highly respected. In 1930, only eight years old, Erich took his first photographs. Life became increasingly difficult after the Nazi takeover in 1933, including personal, financial, business, and family restrictions and the beginning of deportations of Jews to the first so-called 'labor camp' in the village of Dachau. The Hartmann family moved to Munich that year, in search of a more tolerant and cosmopolitan environment. The situation only worsened, however, and the family determined that they had to leave Germany. In August 1938, they accepted the opportunity to emigrate to the United States, having received the necessary affidavit of support from distant relatives there. They sailed from Hamburg to New York, staying initially in Washington Heights, before settling outside Albany, New York. The only English speaker in the family, Erich Hartmann worked in a textile mill in Albany, New York, attending evening high school and later taking night courses at Siena College. On December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US entered the war, and Erich enlisted in the US Army. Trained in Virginia and at Ohio State University, he had to wait until 1943 before serving in England, Belgium (Battle of the Bulge) and France, and with the liberating forces as a court interpreter at Nazi trials in Cologne, Germany. At the end of the war he moved to New York City where, in 1946, he married Ruth Bains; they had two children, Nicholas (born in 1952) and Celia (born in 1956). During these years, he worked as an assistant to portrait photographer George Feyer, and then as a freelancer. He studied at the New School for Social Research with Charles Leirens, Berenice Abbott, and Alexey Brodovitch. His portrait subjects over the years included architect Walter Gropius, writers Arthur Koestler and Rachel Carson, musicians Leonard Bernstein and Gidon Kremer, actor Marcel Marceau, fellow photographer Ed Feingersh, and many other literary and musical personalities. Music played a great role in his life and work: "Music captured me before photography did," he recalled. "In my parents' house there was not much music except for a hand-cranked gramophone on which I surreptitiously and repeatedly played a record of arias from Carmen. This was before I could read!″ In the 1950s Erich Hartmann first became known to the wider public for his poetic approach to science, industry and architecture in a series of photo essays for Fortune magazine, beginning with The Deep North, The Building of Saint Lawrence Seaway and Shapes of Sound. He later did similar essays on the poetics of science and technology for French, German and American Geo and other magazines. Throughout his life he traveled widely on assignments for the major magazines of the US, Europe and Japan and for many corporations such as AT&T, Boeing, Bowater, Citroën, Citibank, Corning Glass, DuPont, European Space Agency, Ford, IBM, Johns Hopkins University, Kimberly-Clark, Pillsbury Company, Nippon Airways, Schlumberger, TWA, and Woolworth, for all of which he used color. In 1952 he was invited to join Magnum Photos, the international photographers’ cooperative founded in 1947 by Robert Capa, David Seymour, George Rodger and Henri Cartier-Bresson, he served on the board of directors from 1967 to 1986, and as President in 1985–1986. For more than eight weeks in 1994, Erich and Ruth Hartmann undertook a winter journey to photograph the remains of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps, and places of deportation, throughout Europe. He was determined to take only black and white photographs and to capture only what he saw, immediately when arriving, no matter whether days looked like nights. He returned to New York with 120 rolls of film, from which he made a first edit of 300 photographs and a final selection of only 74 frames. These, together with text by Ruth Bains Hartmann, formed the book and exhibition In the Camps, published in 1995 in English, French, and German and exhibited in more than twenty venues in the US and Europe in the years since. In all of his travel, for work and pleasure, Hartmann carried a small camera with a few rolls of black and white film, prepared for every visual opportunity. He also deliberately pursued a series of imaginative projects including experiments with ink in water, stroboscopic light effects, beach pebbles constrained in boxes, and others. In the late 1990s, with an eye to a future retrospective exhibition, Hartmann began making a definitive selection from fifty years of this personal work in black and white. Just a few months before his death he began discussions with a gallery in Austria about organizing an exhibition called Where I Was. On February 4, 1999 Erich Hartmann died unexpectedly from a heart attack in New York. Source: Wikipedia In the late 1960s and 1970s he lived in London. He documented the construction of the Britannia aircraft for the Bristol Aeroplane Company and he photographed for the leading colour magazines: the Sunday Times, the Observer and the Telegraph, notably on such stories as Shakespeare's Warwickshire and The Norman Conquest Descendants. For the Weekend Telegraph he made sensitive colour pictures of Styles of English Architecture, in a series of photo-essays for which Sir John Betjeman wrote the words, and he also travelled with Betjeman to the Faeroe Islands. Later Hartmann returned to Germany where he had lived in the shadow of the Nazis until he was 16, and chose a project for himself: the death camps. He made an unforgettable book, In the Camps (1995). He said, "I simply felt obliged to stand in as many of the camps as I could reach, to fulfill a duty that I could not define and to pay a belated tribute with the tools of my profession." The book is a magnificent tribute. There is hardly a person in it. So solitary is it, so desolate, that we people the pages with our own ghosts, we bring to it our own fears and imagery. These imaginings have the feeling of poetry. We see a room full of broken shoes; another room of battered satchels; another of torn children's clothes; the windowless barracks in four tiers in which multitudes tried to survive; or a square in which a gallows hangs in the wind. The railway tracks which many took into the camp; a single gas chamber in Auschwitz. It is hard to go from examining the book to describe all Erich Hartmann did for the Magnum co-operative when he served on the board or was vice-president (1975 and 1979) or president (1985). Burt Glinn describes how he and Hartmann came to Magnum at the same time, almost 47 years ago: "We have photographed together and met together and consulted together about ethics and journalism, and we have attended 46 Magnum General Meetings, the first with only eight other photographers and the last with more than 50, but all of them passionate, contentious and personal." He goes on: "Through all these years Erich, more than anyone else, has been my moral compass. No matter how knotty the problem he never settled for the facile compromise. He was always wise, judicious, and ferocious to find the right answer rather than the easy one. When I suspected that I was pursuing my self-interest rather than the common good I would glance over at Erich and if I encountered his quizzically cocked eyebrow I would shut up."Source: Independent
David Johndrow
United States
David Johndrow is a fine art photographer living in Austin, Texas. After studying photography the University of Texas, he began shooting commercial work as well as pursuing his more personal fine art photography.David’s continuing series, Terrestrials, combines his passion for gardening and photography and features macro nature photographs of animals and plants that inhabit his Hill Country, Texas garden. To realize his vision, he prints with silver gelatin, platinum/palladium, gum-bichromate and gumoil.His photographs are part of the Wittliff Collection of Southwestern and Mexican Photography, as well as in many private collections.All about David Johndrow:AAP: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?I took a darkroom class in art school and fell in love with the process. The first roll of film I shot I processed and printed myself.AAP: Where did you study photography?I learned photography at The University of Texas, but I built my own darkroom and started working on my own. I really honed my printing skills working as a printer in a photo lab. Just the shear volume of work I printed during that time made me a better printer.AAP: Do you have a mentor or role model?I can’t say I had any mentors except for photographers like Irving Penn who I loved and was inspired by.AAP: How long have you been a photographer?I’ve been a photographer for 30 years.AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?My first shot was of my friends who were in a band. I had other friends who were actors and comedians, so I started taking lots of portraits for peoples publicity shots.AAP: What or who inspires you?I am inspired creatively by many different kinds of artists, but my biggest inspiration is the natural world. Rarely do I go in search of photographs; rather things just appear to me when I spend enough time outdoors. Gardening is my biggest obsession next to art.AAP: How could you describe your style?I have lots of styles but my most well know work is done in macro. I guess the one common thing in all my work is a simple graphic composition.AAP: Do you have a favorite photograph or series? I love Matt Mahurin, especially his portraits of Tom Waits. AAP: What kind of gear do you use?I shoot with a Hasselblad on 120 film.AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images?Although I shoot on film, I edit my images on the computer. It helps me group images in a series or arrange them for exhibition.AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?My favorite photographer is Irving Penn.AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?I would tell young photographers to shoot a lot of images, do a lot of experiments, and try to learn some different printing processes.AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid?Don’t try and shoot photos of things you think others would like but shoot subjects you are most interested in. Every subject has been done before, so try and put your own spin on it.AAP: What are your projects?The project I’m working on is close-ups of natural textures.AAP: Your best memory as a photographer?My best memory is of shooting the pyramid at Chichen Itsa. It was at the solstice and I wanted a photo of the serpent shadow on the steps, but it was a cloudy, rainy day. Suddenly, right before closing, the sun burst out and I got some great shots.AAP: Your worst souvenir as a photographer?Don’t knowAAP: The compliment that touched you most?“Every time I look at your photograph I see something different”.AAP: If you were someone else who would it be?No one else.AAP: Your favorite photo book?Irving Penn: Passages
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Marijn Fidder is a Dutch documentary photographer whose work powerfully engages with current affairs and contemporary social issues. Driven by a deep sense of social justice, she uses photography to speak on behalf of the voiceless and to advocate for the rights of those who are most vulnerable. Her images have been widely published in major international outlets including National Geographic, CNN Style, NRC Handelsblad, Volkskrant, GUP New Talent, and ZEIT Magazin. Her long-term commitment to disability rights—particularly through years of work in Uganda—culminated in her acclaimed project Inclusive Nation, which earned her the title of Photographer of the Year 2025 at the All About Photo Awards. She is also the recipient of multiple prestigious honors, including awards from World Press Photo and the Global Peace Photo Award. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Josh S. Rose is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, film, and writing. His practice bridges visual and performing arts, with a strong focus on movement, emotion, and the expressive potential of the image. Known for his long-standing collaborations with leading dance companies and performers, Rose brings together authenticity and precise composition—a balance he describes as “technical romanticism.” His work has been commissioned and exhibited internationally, appearing in outlets such as Vogue, at the Super Bowl, in film festivals, and most recently as a large-scale installation for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. A sought-after collaborator, he has worked with major artists, cultural institutions, and brands, following a previous career as Chief Creative Officer at Interpublic Group and the founder of Humans Are Social. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
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.
Exclusive Interview with Robert Mack
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.
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