All about photo.com: photo contests, photography exhibitions, galleries, photographers, books, schools and venues.
Last Call AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Last Call AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
  1. Home
  2. All Photographers
  3. Famous Photographers
  4. Claude Cahun
Claude Cahun
Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun

Country: France
Birth: 1894 | Death: † 1954

Claude Cahun (25 October 1894 - 8 December 1954), born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, was a French Surrealist photographer, sculptor and writer.

Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914 and is best known for their self-portraits, in which they assume a variety of personae.

Cahun's work was both political and personal, and often undermined traditional concepts of static gender roles. In their autobiography, Disavowals, they explained their rejection of gender, "Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me." This declaration is an important consideration when analysing Cahun's photography as they intentionally play with and subvert the viewers' understanding of gender. This quote, together with their unconventional appearance and their gender-ambiguous pseudonym, means that it is not infrequent to see the pronoun 'they' used nowadays in critical studies on Cahun. There is no evidence that they ever adopted 'they' as their preferred pronoun, but one should take into account the cultural and historical context behind this. Given that French pronouns were extremely binary and the use of gender neutral pronouns for nonbinary individuals wasn't common in the European interwar period, it isn't unreasonable to imagine Cahun would have used gender neutral pronouns had it not been for their environment. In any case, the use of the gender neutral pronouns in reference to Cahun is less of an attempt to apply contemporary norms to a historical figure, but rather a way for their gender to remain an open question in academia.

During WWII, Cahun was also active as a resistance worker and propagandist.

Source: Wikipedia

Selected Books on Available on Amazon
Claude Cahun: Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals)
Claude Cahun: Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals)
Claude Cahun
 

Selected Books

Claude Cahun: Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals)
Claude Cahun: Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals)
Claude Cahun

Inspiring Portfolios

Thomas Vijayan
© Thomas Vijayan
Julie Wang
© Julie Wang
Pedro Jarque Krebs
© Pedro Jarque Krebs
Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #54 Nature
Publish your work in AAP Magazine and win $1,000 Cash Prizes
© Hozzography
 
Stay up-to-date  with call for entries, deadlines and other news about exhibitions, galleries, publications, & special events.

More Great Photographers To Discover

Helmut Newton
Helmut Newton
Germany/Australia
1920 | † 2004
Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer. The New York Times described him as a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications." Newton was born in Berlin, the son of Klara "Claire" (née Marquis) and Max Neustädter, a button factory owner. Newton attended the Heinrich-von-Treitschke-Realgymnasium and the American School in Berlin. Interested in photography from the age of 12 when he purchased his first camera, he worked for the German photographer Yva (Elsie Neuländer Simon) from 1936. Any photographer who says he’s not a voyeur is either stupid or a liar. -- Helmut Newton The increasingly oppressive restrictions placed on Jews by the Nuremberg laws meant that his father lost control of the factory in which he manufactured buttons and buckles; he was briefly interned in a concentration camp on Kristallnacht, 9 November 1938, which finally compelled the family to leave Germany. Newton's parents fled to Argentina. He was issued with a passport just after turning 18 and left Germany on 5 December 1938. At Trieste, he boarded the Conte Rosso (along with about 200 others escaping the Nazis), intending to journey to China. After arriving in Singapore, he found he was able to remain there, first briefly as a photographer for the Straits Times and then as a portrait photographer. Newton was interned by British authorities while in Singapore and was sent to Australia on board the Queen Mary, arriving in Sydney on 27 September 1940. Internees travelled to the camp at Tatura, Victoria by train under armed guard. He was released from internment in 1942 and briefly worked as a fruit picker in Northern Victoria. In August 1942, he enlisted with the Australian Army and worked as a truck driver. After the war in 1945, he became a British subject and changed his name to Newton in 1946. In 1948, he married actress June Browne, who performed under the stage name June Brunell. Later she became a successful photographer under the ironic pseudonym Alice Springs (after Alice Springs, the town in Central Australia). In 1946, Newton set up a studio in fashionable Flinders Lane in Melbourne and worked on fashion, theatre and industrial photography in the affluent postwar years. He shared his first joint exhibition in May 1953 with Wolfgang Sievers, a German refugee like himself, who had also served in the same company. The exhibition of New Visions in Photography' was displayed at the Federal Hotel in Collins Street and was probably the first glimpse of New Objectivity photography in Australia. Newton went into partnership with Henry Talbot, a fellow German Jew who had also been interned at Tatura, and his association with the studio continued even after 1957, when he left Australia for London. The studio was renamed Helmut Newton and Henry Talbot. Newton's growing reputation as a fashion photographer was rewarded when he secured a commission to illustrate fashions in a special Australian supplement for Vogue magazine, published in January 1956. He won a 12-month contract with British Vogue and left for London in February 1957, leaving Talbot to manage the business. Newton left the magazine before the end of his contract and went to Paris, where he worked for French and German magazines. He returned to Melbourne in March 1959 to a contract for Australian Vogue. Newton and his wife finally settled in Paris in 1961 and work continued as a fashion photographer. His images appeared in magazines including the French edition of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. He established a particular style marked by erotic, stylized scenes, often with sadomasochistic and fetishistic subtexts. A heart attack in 1970 reduced Newton's output, nevertheless his wife's encouragement led to his profile continuing to expand, especially with a big success, the 1980 studio-bound stark infinity of the Big Nudes series. His Naked and Dressed portfolio followed and in 1992 Domestic Nudes which marked the pinnacle of his erotic-urban style, these series all underpinned with the prowess of his technical skills. Newton also worked in portraiture and more fantastical studies. Newton shot a number of pictorials for Playboy, including pictorials of Nastassja Kinski and Kristine DeBell. Original prints of the photographs from his August 1976 pictorial of DeBell, "200 Motels, or How I Spent My Summer Vacation" were sold at auctions of Playboy archives by Bonhams in 2002. I just had a bellyful and realized I had shot enough nudes to last a lifetime. In fact, although I have no idea of the number, I think I photographed too many naked women. -- Helmut Newton In 2009, June Browne Newton conceptualized a tribute exhibition to Newton, based on three photographers that befriended Newton in Los Angeles in 1980: Mark Arbeit, Just Loomis, and George Holz. All three had been photography students at The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. All three became friends with Helmut and June Newton and to varying degrees assisted Helmut Newton. Each went on to independent careers. The exhibit premiered at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin and combined the work of all three with personal snapshots, contact sheets, and letters from their time with Newton. Since the 1970s Newton regularly used Polaroid cameras and film for instant visualization of compositions and lighting situations, especially for his fashion photography. By his own admission, for the shoot of Naked and Dressed series that started in 1981 for the Italian and French Vogue he used Polaroid film “by the crate”. These polaroids also served as a sketchbook, where he scribbled notes with regard to the model, client or location and date. In 1992 Newton published Pola Woman, a book consisting only of his Polaroids. Over 300 works based on the original Polaroids were shown at 2011 exhibition Helmut Newton Polaroids at the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin. In his later life, Newton lived in both Monte Carlo and Los Angeles, California where he spent winters at the Chateau Marmont, which he had done every year since 1957. On 23 January 2004, he suffered a serious heart attack while driving his automobile down Marmont Lane from the Chateau Marmont to Sunset Boulevard. He was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; doctors were unable to save him, and he was pronounced dead. His ashes are buried at the Städtischer Friedhof III in Berlin.Source: Wikipedia
Michelle Frankfurter
Michelle Frankfurter
United States
1961
Born in Jerusalem, Israel Michelle Frankfurter is a documentary photographer, currently living in Takoma Park, Maryland. A graduate from Syracuse University with a bachelor’s degree in English, Michelle has been recognized, published and exhibited worldwide. Before settling in the Washington, DC area, Frankfurter spent three years living in Nicaragua, where she worked as a stringer for the British news agency, Reuters and with the human rights organization Witness For Peace documenting the effects of the contra war on civilians. In 1995, a long-term project on Haiti earned her two World Press Photo awards. Since 2000, Frankfurter has concentrated on the border region between the United States and Mexico and on themes of migration. She is a 2013 winner of the Aaron Siskind Foundation grant, a 2011 Top 50 Critical Mass winner, a finalist for the 2011 Aftermath Project and the 2012 Foto Evidence Book Award for her project Destino, documenting the journey of Central American migrants across Mexico. Her first book, Destino was published in September 2014 by Foto Evidence. About Destino Meaning both "destination" and "destiny" in Spanish, Destino portrays the perilous journey of undocumented Central American migrants along the network of freight trains lurching inexorably across Mexico, towards the hope of finding work in the United States. It is the odyssey of a generation of exiles across a landscape that is becoming increasingly dangerous, heading towards a precarious future as an option of last resorts. Unlike Mexican migration to the United States that dates back to the 1880's, the unprecedented wave of Central American migration began a full century later, the consequence of bloody civil wars, U.S. Cold War-era intervention in the region and crippling international trade policies. Those regional conflicts left a legacy of drug and gang related violence, a high incidence of domestic abuse, and unrelenting poverty. Migration as an issue is current; the story of migration is timeless. Having grown up on the adventure tales of Jack London and Mark Twain, and then later on Cormac McCarthy's border stories, there is no storyline more compelling to me than one involving a youthful odyssey across a hostile wilderness. With a singularity of purpose and a kind of brazen resilience, migrants traverse deadly terrain, relying mostly on their wits and the occasional kindness of strangers. In documenting a journey both concrete and figurative, I convey the experience of individuals who struggle to control their own destiny when confronted by extreme circumstances, much like the anti-hero protagonists of the adventure tales I grew up reading. About The Island I made five trips to Haiti between 1993 and 1995. During that time, a de facto government held the island nation captive, while an international trade embargo intended to oust the regime made life miserable for Haiti's poor. An American-led military intervention restored exiled president, Jean Bertrand Aristide to power. This series depicts the recycled repression, regional isolation, imprisonment, and liberation throughout Haiti's turbulent history.
Peter Hujar
Peter Hujar
United States
1934 | † 1987
Peter Hujar was an American photographer best known for his black and white portraits. He has been recognized posthumously as "one of the major American photographers of the late twentieth century" and "among the greatest American photographers." Hujar was born October 11, 1934, in Trenton, New Jersey, to Rose Murphy, a waitress abandoned by her husband during her pregnancy. He was raised by his Ukrainian grandparents on their farm, where he spoke only Ukrainian until he started school. He remained on the farm with his grandparents until his grandmother's death in 1946. He moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband. The household was abusive, and in 1950, when Hujar was 16, he left home and began to live independently. Hujar received his first camera in 1947 and in 1953 entered the School of Industrial Art where he expressed interest in being a photographer. He was fortunate to encounter an encouraging teacher, the poet Daisy Aldan (1923–2001), and following her advice, he became a commercial photography apprentice. Apart from classes in photography during high school, Hujar's photographic education and technical mastery were acquired in commercial photo studios. By 1957, when he was 23 years old, he was making photographs now considered to be of museum quality. Early in 1967, he was one of a select group of young photographers in a master class taught by Richard Avedon and Marvin Israel, where he met Alexey Brodovitch and Diane Arbus. In 1958, Hujar accompanied the artist Joseph Raffael on a Fulbright to Italy. In 1963, he secured his own Fulbright and returned to Italy with Paul Thek, where they explored and photographed the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, classic images featured in his 1975 book Portraits in Life and Death. In 1964, Hujar returned to America and became a chief assistant in the studio of the commercial photographer Harold Krieger. Around this time, he also met Andy Warhol, posed for four of Warhol's three-minute "screen tests," and was included in the compilation film The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys. In 1967, Hujar quit his job in commercial photography, and at a great financial sacrifice, began to pursue primarily his own work. What followed was a dramatic expansion of his output. In 1969, with his lover the political activist Jim Fouratt, he witnessed the Stonewall riots in the West Village. In 1973, he moved into a loft above The Eden Theater at 189 2nd Avenue, where he lived for the rest of his life. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he inhabited the small bohemian art world in downtown New York City and made portraits of people such as drag queen and actor Divine, writers Susan Sontag, William Burroughs, Fran Lebowitz, and Vince Aletti. He visited "extremely serious, very heavy S&M bars" and the abandoned West Side Hudson River piers where men cruised for sex. In 1975, Hujar published Portraits in Life and Death, with an introduction by Sontag. After a tepid reception, the book became a classic in American photography. The rest of the 1970s was a period of prolific work. In early 1981, Hujar met the writer, filmmaker, and artist David Wojnarowicz, and after a brief period as Hujar's lover, Wojnarowicz became a protégé linked to Hujar for the remainder of the photographer's life. Hujar remained instrumental in all phases of Wojnarowicz's emergence as an important young artist. Hujar's work received only marginal public recognition during his lifetime. In January 1987, Hujar was diagnosed with AIDS. He died 10 months later at the age of 53 on November 25 at Cabrini Medical Center in New York. His funeral was held at Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village and he was buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. Hujar willed his estate to his friend Stephen Koch. Source: Wikipedia Peter Hujar (born 1934) died of AIDS in 1987, leaving behind a complex and profound body of photographs. Hujar was a leading figure in the group of artists, musicians, writers, and performers at the forefront of the cultural scene in downtown New York in the 1970s and early 80s, and he was enormously admired for his completely uncompromising attitude towards work and life. He was a consummate technician, and his portraits of people, animals, and landscapes, with their exquisite black-and-white tonalities, were extremely influential. Highly emotional yet stripped of excess, Hujar’s photographs are always beautiful, although rarely in a conventional way. His extraordinary first book, Portraits in Life and Death, with an introduction by Susan Sontag, was published in 1976, but his “difficult” personality and refusal to pander to the marketplace ensured that it was one of the last publications during his lifetime.Source: The Peter Hujar Archive Peter Hujar, who died of aids-related pneumonia in 1987, at the age of fifty-three, was among the greatest of all American photographers and has had, by far, the most confusing reputation. A dazzling retrospective, curated by Joel Smith at the Morgan Library & Museum, of a hundred and sixty-four pictures affirms Hujar’s excellence while, if anything, complicating his history. The works range across the genres of portraiture, nudes, cityscape, and still-life—the stillest of all from the catacombs of Palermo, Italy, shot in 1963, when he was there with his lover at the time, the artist Paul Thek. The finest are portraits, not only of people. Some memorialize the existence of cows, sheep, and—one of my favorites—an individual goose, with an eagerly confiding mien. The quality of Hujar’s hand-done prints, tending to sumptuous blacks and simmering grays, transfixes. He was a darkroom master, maintaining technical standards for which he got scant credit except among certain cognoscenti. He never hatched a signature look to rival those of more celebrated elders who influenced him, such as Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus, or those of Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin, younger peers who learned from him. His pictures share, in place of a style, an unfailing rigor that can only be experienced, not described. Hujar needed no introduction to the low. He never met his father, who abandoned his mother, a diner waitress, before his birth, in 1934, in Trenton. She left his raising to her Ukrainian-speaking Polish parents in semirural surroundings in Ewing Township, New Jersey, until, when he was eleven, she took him to live with her and a new husband in a one-room apartment in Manhattan. The home wasn’t happy. Hujar moved out at sixteen, at first sleeping on the couch of a mentoring English teacher at the School of Industrial Arts (now the High School of Art and Design): the fine poet, editor, and translator Daisy Aldan, a free-spirited lesbian who is portrayed in the earliest of his works in the Morgan show, from 1955.Source: The New Yorker
Klemen Razinger
Klemen Razinger
Slovenia
1979
For over 20 years, I’ve been doing what I love: telling stories through photography. But my journey started in an unexpected place — on a snowboard. Chasing adrenaline, precision, and the thrill of competition, I spent years riding in national and world championships. Eventually, I hung up the board and picked up a camera, bringing that same energy and focus into a new passion. I studied photography at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Ljubljana, where I shaped my skills and sharpened my eye. Sports and the outdoors remain at the core of my work — they’re where I feel most alive, and where my creativity flows best. Whether I’m capturing fast-paced action or quiet, emotional moments, I aim to create images that go deeper than the surface — ones that make you feel something. Alongside my professional work, I often pursue personal documentary projects. These stories matter deeply to me. Some have even taken me around the world, with solo exhibitions — including one at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Martin Usborne
Martin Usborne
United Kingdom
Martin Usborne is primarily a portrait and fine art photographer who has had his work published in publications such as The British Journal of Photography, time.com, The Guardian and Das Magazin, as well as being shown in major galleries both in the UK and US. He has recently completed a two-year personal project entitled The Silence of Dogs in Cars. The images are to be published as a large, hand bound, beautifully printed photography book in October this year.
Daido Moriyama
Daido Moriyama
Japan
1938
Daido Moriyama is a major photographer of the 20th century. Born in Osaka in Japan, he continues to work mostly in Tokyo. He studied graphic design before he learned photography with his first mentor Takeji Iwamiya. In 1961 he moved to Tokyo and became the assistant of Eikoh Hosoe and worked also with the writer Yukio Mishima on the series Ordeal by Roses. It is only in 1964 that he became an independent photographer. He gained recognition quickly with his first book Japan a Photo Theatre (1968) and later Farewell Photography (1972), Hunter (1972), Mayfly (1972), Another Country in New York (1974), Light and Shadow (1982), A Journey to Nakaji (1987), Lettre à St Lou (1990)... We will stop there as we cannot list his 200 books! In 1968 Daido Moriyama became a member of the Provoke movement. He describes his work as been "are, bure, boke". He gave birth to a new kind of street photography. His work was shown in 1974 at the MOMA in an exhibition called "New Japanese Photography". Since then we have seen his work all around the world in majors exhibitions and museums. In 2012 he won the ICP Infinity Award. After studying graphic design, Daido Moriyama first explored photography under Takeji Iwamiya. He moved to Tokyo in 1961 to become an assistant to the great Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe while he was working on his famous series Ordeal by Roses with the writer Yukio Mishima. Daido Moriyama began to work independently in 1964. His first monograph, Japan, a Photo Theater (1968), was immediately acclaimed by the artistic community and was followed by several books that became references in the history of photography, such as Farewell Photography (1972), Hunter (1972), Mayfly (1972), Another Country in New York (1974), Light and Shadow (1982), A Journey to Nakaji (1987) and Lettre à St.Loup (1990), to name only a few. Daido Moriyama has published over 180 books to date. As a member of the Provoke movement, which he joined in 1968 for the second issue of the eponymous magazine, Daido Moriyama delivers rich, dense and versatile photographs. His work, often described as raw, blurried and troubled (or, in Japanese, the "are, bure, boke" aesthetics), gave birth to a new street photography practice in which the artist roams the street, confronting and being confronted by public spaces. Daido Moriyama started manipulating silkscreen printing in the seventies, using the technique for his books as well as his exhibition pieces. The Japanese artist also organized interactive events and installations as a way to adapt his discourse to different spaces and situations. Through several autobiographical texts, such as Memories of a Dog (1984 and 1997), he explains how his artistic practice is inspired by the heritage left by the likes of Eugène Atget, Jack Kerouac, William Klein, Nicéphore Niépce, Shomei Tomatsu, Andy Warhol, Weegee, and Garry Winogrand. Daido Moriyama's work has had a radical impact on the artistic communities both in Japan and abroad. In 1974, the MoMA in New York presented his work as part of the first Western exhibition focused on Japanese Photography. His pieces have since been showcased in many major exhibitions: at the TATE in London (William Klein + Daido Moriyam, 2012); at SFMoMa in San Francisco and at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (Stray Dog, 1999); at the National Art Museum in Osaka (On the Road, 2011);l at the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain (Paris, 2003); at FOAM in Amsterdam (2006); and, more recently, at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles (Labyrinth + Monochrome, 2013).Source: Polka Galerie Articles: Book Review: Quartet
Ming Smith
Ming Smith
United States
1973
Ming Smith is an American photographer. She was the first African-American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Smith was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating from Howard University in 1973, she moved to New York City, where she found work modeling. While in New York she met photographer Anthony Barboza, who was an early influence. Smith's approach to photography has included in-camera techniques such as playing with focus, darkroom techniques like double exposure, collage techniques and paint on prints. Her work is less engaged with documentation of events than with expression of experience. It has been described as surreal and ethereal, as the New York Times observed: "Her work, personal and expressive, draws from a number of artistic sources, preeminently surrealism. She has employed a range of surrealist techniques: photographing her subjects from oblique angles, shooting out of focus or through such atmospheric effects as fog and shadow, playing on unusual juxtapositions, even altering or painting over prints." Smith's early work was composed of photos that were shot quickly to produce elaborate scenes, and due to this process many of her photos have double dates. She has used the technique of hand-tinting in some of her work, notably her Transcendence series. Ming Smith has photographed many important black cultural figures during her career, including Alvin Ailey and Nina Simone. In 1973 Smith was featured in the first volume of the Black Photographers Annual, a publication closely affiliated with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Smith had her first exhibition at Cinandre, a hairdressing salon, in 1973 as well. At Cinandre, she met Grace Jones, whom she photographed wearing a black and white tutu on occasion. Smith recalls that she and Jones would talk about surviving as black artists. Smith reflects on the memories by saying: "We came out of Jim Crow. And so just coming to New York and trying to be a model or anything was new." Two years later (1975), Smith became the first female member of the Harlem-based photography collective Kamoinge, under director Roy DeCarava. The Kamoinge Workshop was founded in New York in 1963 to support the work of black photographers in a field then dominated by white men. The collective, which still exists today, has undertaken a range of initiatives, including exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and the publishing of portfolios for distribution to museums. Smith participated with Kamoinge in three groups shows in New York and Guyana. Smith dropped off a portfolio at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), where the receptionist mistook her for a messenger. When she returned, she was taken into the curator's office. Susan Kismaric named a price for Smith's work, which Smith declined due to the price not paying off her bills. Kismaric asked Smith to reconsider, which she eventually did. Shortly after, she became the first Black woman photographer to be included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. In addition to the MOMA, Smith's art has been featured at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Smith has twice exhibited at the Bellevue Hospital Centre in Morristown, New Jersey, through their Art in the Atrium exhibitions. The first was in 1995, for Cultural Images: Sweet Potato Pie, an exhibit curated by Russell A. Murray. In 2008 she contributed as part of the exhibition New York City: In Focus, part of Creative Destinations 2008 Exhibition of African American Art. Smith's photographs are included in the 2004 Ntozake Shange book The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family and Life. In 2010, her work was included in MOMA's exhibition Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography. This exhibition recontextualized Smith's work alongside that of Diane Arbus and marked a growing interest in Smith's work. Organized by curator Roxana Marcoci, it was curated by Sarah Meister through the Department of Photography. In 2017, a major survey exhibition of Smith's work was held at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York. The exhibition featured 75 vintage black-and-white prints that represented Smith's career. Smith has collaborated with filmmaker Arthur Jafa in the Serpentine Sackler Gallery's 2017 show, Arthur Jafa: A Series of Utterly Improbable, yet Extraordinary Renditions (Featuring Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo and Missylanyus). That same year, she was featured in the Tate Modern group exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, curated by Mark Godfrey and Zoé Whitley. The show received international acclaim before traveling to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Broad, the de Young Museum of San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Since then, Smith's work was featured in solo presentations by Jenkins Johnson Gallery both at Frieze New York and Frieze Masters in 2019, the former of which receiving the Frieze Stand Prize. In 2020, Ming's work will be included in the group exhibition Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA. From there, the exhibition will travel to The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.[19] Smith's work is in museum collections including the National Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Some of Smith's work displayed in the Museum of Modern Art depicts motherhood in Harlem. These photos are taken using a documentary style way of photographing these subjects. Ming Smith lives and works in New York City.Source: Wikipedia Ming Smith is known for her informal, in-action portraits of black cultural figures, from Alvin Ailey to Nina Simone and a wide range of jazz musicians. Ming’s career emerged formally with the publication of the Black Photographer’s Annual in 1973. She was an early member of the Kamoinge Workshop, an association of several generations of black photographers. Ming has traveled extensively, showing her viewers a cosmopolitan world filled with famous landmarks and extraordinary landscapes. People continue to be her most treasured subjects. This is most apparent in her series depicting African American life. Ming’s early style was to shoot fast and produce complicated and elaborate images in the developing and post-printing processes, so that many of her pictures carry double dates. She experimented with hand-tinting in My Father’s Tears, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (1977/1979). Ming continues to expand the role of photography with her exploration of image and paint in the more recent, large-scale Transcendence series. Ming’s place in photography’s 175-year history was recognized by her inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art’s groundbreaking exhibition Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography in 2010. Ming Smith's photography is held in collections in the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture, Washington, DC and the AT&T Corporation.Source: Steven Kasher Gallery
Anne Berry
Anne Berry
United States
Anne Berry's photographs investigate the animal world, the domain of childhood, and the terrain of the Southern wilderness. She also explores themes and metaphors from literature. She was recently named to the "Hot 100 of 2021" list by YourDailyPhotograph.com. Berry has just completed her newest publication of photographs of primates in small European zoos, Behind Glass, 2021 Statement I am deeply concerned with conservation and global warming. I photograph children as heroes traveling through a broken land, like the speaker of TS Eliot's The Wasteland; for we will leave them searching for the Grail that will heal the land. I am specifically passionate about Georgia's painfully beautiful coastal wilderness, with its salt marshes that are crucial to the health of our planet. My photographs speak to the heart and the imagination, evoking empathy and a desire to protect. Through art I add my voice to the literal prose of science. Please visit the One Hundred Miles foundation for the facts on the threats and how to help.
Christer Björkman
Christer Björkman
Sweden
1959
Christer Björkman aimed to become a photographer in his early teens but eventually chose another career. Now, 40 years later he has taken up photography again. His photos have been published in several exhibitions and magazines. He works on various projects, many of which involve portraits of people. He collaborates with photographers Kitty de Jong (Amsterdam) and Jane Dee (Glasgow) in the photography collective 'Three Cities Photography'. Statement After a break of 40+ years, I took up photography again some years ago. The feeling of wanting to catch up is strong – I have so many things I want to try, so many projects I would like to complete. That's why my photography tends to be ’all over the place’. I enjoy doing street photography, portraitures, architecture, abstract, including nature, photography. I am drawn to photographing ’the ordinary’, which has become a common theme in many of my projects. Therefore, the projects often tend to be documentary. What drives me to take photographs is that it makes me feel good and that I feel satisfied with what I achieve.
Advertisement
AAP Magazine #54 Nature
Win a Solo Exhibition this January
AAP Magazine #54 Nature

Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Peter Ydeen
Interview
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
Interview
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
Interview
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Tommi Viitala
Interview
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Robert Mack
Interview
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Alan Schaller About Irys
Interview
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Guillaume Bonn
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Guillaume Bonn
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Sander Vos
Interview
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.
Read the full interview
Exclusive Interview with Tomasz Trzebiatowski Editor-in-chief FRAMES Magazine
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Tomasz Trzebiatowski Editor-in-chief FRAMES Magazine
Founded in 2020 by photographer, publisher, and classical pianist Tomasz Trzebiatowski, FRAMES Magazine has quickly established itself as a thoughtful space for photography lovers who believe that powerful images deserve to live on paper. Known for its beautifully printed quarterly issues and dynamic international community, FRAMES bridges the gap between tradition and innovation in the photographic world. As editor-in-chief, Trzebiatowski has created not only a publication but a platform that celebrates diverse genres, nurtures dialogue, and champions the tactile experience of print in a digital age. In this interview, he reflects on the journey from founding FRAMES to building a global membership, the challenges of independent publishing, and the future of photography in both print and digital forms.
Read the full interview
Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #54 Nature
Publish your work in AAP Magazine and win $1,000 Cash Prizes
© Anup Shah
Explore All About Photo
All About Photo
About Us
Contact Us
Link Back
Press
Blog
Newsletter
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Competitions
All About Photo Competitions
Our Jurors
All Photo Contests
Open Photo Contests
Amateur Photo Contests
Professional Photo Contests
Portfolio Reviews
Photo Competition News
Artists
Photographers A-Z
Masters of Photography
Modern Photographers
Rising Photographers
Articles
Interviews
Inspirational
Photography Exhibitions
Photography Festivals
Photo Fairs
Photo Museums
Galleries & Centers
Photographer Monographs
Technique Books
History of Photography
Miscellaneous
Paper Magazines
Online Magazines
Resources
Schools and Classes
Photography Agencies
Equipment Rentals
Studio Rentals
Photo Labs
Camera Repairs
Framing Stores
Photo Tips & Tools
Photo Gear
© 2025 © All-About-Photo.com, All Rights Reserved  •  Photographs © the Respective Artists, All Rights Reserved.