All about photo.com: photo contests, photography exhibitions, galleries, photographers, books, schools and venues.
Win a Solo Exhibition in August! Juror Ann Jastrab, Executive Director, Center for Photographic Art
Win a Solo Exhibition in August! Juror Ann Jastrab, Executive Director, Center for Photographic Art
Will Burrard-Lucas
© Blackwell & Ruth
Will Burrard-Lucas
Will Burrard-Lucas

Will Burrard-Lucas

Country: United KIngdom
Birth: 1983

Will Burrard-Lucas is a British wildlife photographer, author and entrepreneur. He is the creator of BeetleCam, a remote-control camera buggy, and founder of Camtraptions Ltd, a company specializing in high-quality equipment for camera trap photography and filmmaking. He dedicates much of his time to working on long-term book projects in Africa. His latest book, "The Black Leopard," features a rare melanistic African leopard and was published in March 2021. Prior to that, he spent a year documenting the last remaining big tusker elephants in Tsavo, Kenya for his book, "Land of Giants." When not in Africa, he lives in Buckinghamshire, UK.

Statement:
There are few creatures as stunning and elusive as a black leopard. In Africa, these magnificent cats are so rare as to be the stuff of legend. Then, one day in 2018, I heard about sightings of a young African black leopard in Kenya. With the help of people from the local community, over the course of a year, I succeeded in capturing a series of high-quality photographs of the extraordinary cat. I recently released the images and story behind the project in my new, "The Black Leopard, My Quest to Photograph One of Africa's Most Elusive Big Cats".

ARTICLES

The last images of the Elephant Queen
The Black Leopard
Stunning Photographs Support the Conservation of Africa's Precious Wildlife
Camera Trap Project
 

Will Burrard-Lucas's Video

Selected Books

Inspiring Portfolios

Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #50: Shapes
Publish your work in AAP Magazine and win $1,000 Cash Prizes
 
Stay up-to-date  with call for entries, deadlines and other news about exhibitions, galleries, publications, & special events.

More Great Photographers To Discover

Sara Markese
United States
1975
Sara Markese is a child psychologist by day and a photographer in every spare moment in between. A long hiatus from creative work began anew as she returned to photography, and macro photography especially. With a background in psychoanalytic clinical psychology training at the CUNY Graduate Center, NYC, research in microanalysis of mother-infant communication at Columbia University NYSPI, and study of mother-infant howler monkeys in Nicaragua, as well as a decade as a play therapist in NYC and fifteen more years in play therapy since, she has always been a keen observer of behavior, nuance, affect and detail. She approaches photography as she did cherished treasure walks as a child, letting her eye be caught and emotion and visual wonder guide the image. She uses simple elements of nature, daily life and common objects, and childhood themes of wonder, hiding, seeking and peeking to create feeling mementos in each photograph. With a focus on bringing elements of color, light and simple detail to center stage, her photographs encourage the viewer to see things as they would look if you just got on your knees and peered carefully. Champion of the tiny, wanderer with purpose, she is drawn to the things out of place, the slivers of light and gleams of color. In her work, she seeks to show the world in its infinitesimal detail and beauty, to convey the majesty of the miniscule and the extraordinary nature of the ordinary things that go unnoticed in our bustling world. She is often a quiet observer, always with camera in hand, moving through the many busy places she has lived. Raised in suburban Chicago, she has lived in NYC, Boston, and now lives in suburban Washington DC. Amidst the busy pace of life as a therapist, photographer and mother to a dynamic 9-year-old daughter, she strives to be in complete stillness and silence when she is with her camera, known to spend hours on a square foot of grass in the “wild” of her backyard or a local park or trail where most of her work is focused. She teaches creative photography for children with an emphasis on the development of their unique artistic perspective alongside basic photography skills, composition and exploration of different photographic styles. She has had her work exhibited at Praxis Gallery, PhotoPlace Gallery, SE Center for Photography, Black Box Gallery, and LoosenArt Gallery in Rome as well as featured in ArtDoc Magazine online and several issues of F-Stop Magazine. Wayward Summer - Project Statement: Summer can be like a Sunday. Too long, lonely and quiet in all the wrong places. A respite awaited and longed for, only to arrive with an aura of loss before it starts. Summers growing up in suburban Chicago felt that way, oppressively humid, stretching, and filled with unease as I wandered the micro world of my backyard dreading the end of the season. At night, to the contrary, everything seemed to come to life on my block. Then I was missing out, peering out my window while the sounds of neighborhood games rang from the street. I was inside looking out, like I was in another world. Since then, I’ve been in many other worlds, only to find myself back as I approach my fiftieth year as a wife and mother in the suburbs of Washington DC. Back in a suburban summer and back in that old feeling. Lost. It started as I followed my daughter, my lovely, brilliant, precociously independent daughter, Elodie, who I have been following for nine years, since she was able to walk and always way ahead of me. It was different this summer, though. Admittedly, something in me was unsettled already. I had always followed her and then joined, but now she spent her time in the deep end, doing things that just didn’t involve me and suddenly I was not following or joining. I was sitting alone. And there was that familiar disconnected feeling –sitting with time, with loneliness, with space, with thoughts – she will grow up, I will miss her – sitting with sadness, with self. Summer is long, and so there is July, like I just described, and there is August. I have tried to remedy my August malaise with an end of summer trip. My daughter and I always leave my husband at home to go on a road trip. I look forward to our trip as a gift from rushing through our days, time to spend freely exploring, roaming, adventuring, being as we wish, together. We have done this since she was very small, and she has always been beyond her years in her ability to roll with the long stretches and unknowns a road trip can bring even with the best planning. We usually know where we are going, but not this year, I didn’t know where to go and didn’t have it in me to plan. No direction, and now she is older, even farther ahead, leaving me to watch from further away. I found myself left with time - to sit and be still, to look at what was near, to gaze at my own hands, the poolside, the light reflecting off the table, the sand on my feet - and then she would return to show me what she created, often bringing me a gift to see or photograph. The gift of a memory shared. We were very often together too, in laughter, joy, closeness, and when she was still and we were together, that was a gift too, and those photos are rare but treasured. “Wayward Summer” is about loss and its depths, but also about turning “lost” into finding a way forward. As much as the feeling of too much space has always been disquieting, I also love to be lost. Wandering is and has always been my strength and my joy. From my childhood lost in the world of grass, bugs and dirt in the backyard, to driving blindly through the Chesapeake on an August trip with my 9-year-old daughter this summer, loss and “lost” are entwined in all my most deeply meaningful experiences. “Wayward Summer” is a project about all the moments that make a summer, the bright, the quiet and calm, the lonely and lost ones, and the turning of feeling lost into wandering. I found that unleashing purpose from the equation and accepting disconnection led me back to one of my greatest joys – untethered wandering. It allowed me to find beauty in the tiny details that stillness allows and a way to see moments that won’t last or stay still because they cannot and should not. The pictures in this series are all memory mementos – each contains elements of the mood evoked, sensory recollections and traces of the thoughts and feelings I was having as I watched my daughter play, learn, leave. Summers have a life of their own and can feel like a lifetime. In that, they can generate enormous unease, but also have room for so much growth. Children come back and they have changed, grown taller, sound different, want different, need less. Summers allow us a burst of freedom, a chance for joy, connection and change before we return to our lives overcome by time demands, structure, separation and parallel movement. They are a treasure veined with the knowing that they will end, but the memories glimpsed as they unfold when we are forced to let go are mementos of the magic that filled them. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 42
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
Raquel Chicheri
Raquel Chicheri is a freelance photographer.I am from Galicia, Northern Spain but because it was cold and wet I decided to move to Fuerteventura, an island off the coast of Africa which has a much better weather. I loved photography since I was a kid, my father is a great photographer and his work inspired me from the beginning. I studied " comercio internacional" (International commerce or trade) but I only worked one year in that field and then decided to study graphic design which I liked better. I worked a few years but when I met my boyfriend who was a professional windsurfer, I began to take pictures of him and of his trips and it is at that time that I began publishing photos in windsurfing magazines. I am inspired by almost everything, kids, water, animals, street... I don't take pictures in a studio, I take my camera everywhere and when I see something that catches my attention I shoot. I spend most of my time on the beach and I broke several cameras with the sand but I don't care as long as I take good photos. If the situation is right I see it right away, I cannot wait for the situation to develop too much because I usually go for a walk with my children and I have to take care of them. I prefer the situation to be casual, I hope to capture nature and the relationship of people around it. Some situations are magical, when I realize I am in front of something special, my heart beats so fast and the happiness is absolute. There are so many cheesy, affected photos all around, I try to be different. I would love to make a complete series of photos about cuba...All about Raquel Chicheri:AAP: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?I realized I wanted to be a photographer when I had my children and I couldn't stop taking photos of them.AAP: Where did you study photography?I studied photography on the life school with the people who shared it with me.AAP:Do you have a mentor?LifeAAP: How long have you been a photographer?Since I met my boyfriend. I used to take windsurfing photos of him for magazines.AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?It was a self-portrait.AAP: What or who inspires you?Life, people, animals, lights, situations...AAP: How could you describe your style?I prefer someone else to do it for me...AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film?Canon Eos Mark II 5D, my favorite lens is the 50mm f:1,4.AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images?NoAAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Sally Mann, Mccurry, Newton, Cristina Garcia Rodero, Murray Michel, Man Ray, Jock Sturges, Margaret de lange, Koudelka, Eve Arnold, Saudek... so many..AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?To be what you are and not what everyone else want you to be.AAP: If you could have taken the photographs of someone else who would it be?My grandmother who already died.AAP: Anything else you would like to share?"and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste" Julio Cortazar, HOPSCOTCH.
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
Michael Anker
I entered the professional side of photography during my studies in graphic design. It was then that I discovered the rich tonality and depth of tones that can be found in analog black-and-white photos. My photography teacher at the time, Manfred Paul, provided the necessary inspiration. Nowadays, I execute the majority of my projects using analog methods once again. This approach allows me to alleviate the time pressure from the creative process. "The Dark River" from the cycle "Remember me?" For several years, I have been working on my photographic series "Remember Me," which explores traces of my cultural identity. At the same time, it serves as a long-term study of the relationship between people and landscapes. My focus is on two topographies that lie beyond media attention: the Oderbruch region on the northeastern border of Germany and Poland, and the former German-speaking enclave of Hirschenhof in present-day Latvia. Both areas, which have undergone significant changes, are also imbued with traces of the last great war. My family stories are rooted in these places. The first part of the series, "The Dark River," presented here, tells the story of my father's family's deep connection with nature. The subsequent second part, "The Dark Silence," will explore the migration and flight of my maternal family. Without explicitly stating it, the work invites reflection on the fact that economically or politically motivated migration has always existed. The anchor point of "The Dark River" is the Oder River, which today forms the border between Germany and Poland. Along the Oder, my father's family witnessed the two-and-a-half-century-long transformation of the once primeval river and swamp landscape into an agrarian cultural area, initiated by the Prussian King Frederick II. This region also saw one of the fiercest battles of World War II in 1945. It was here, after the war, that my father met my mother's family, who had reached the Oderbruch on a trek from the Wartheland/Poland. They later met while dancing at the "Schwarzer Adler" in Seelow. In "The Dark River," long-buried memories and dreams resurface. Calm and dark, the Oder flows, filled with memories of itself and the people along its banks. The sky reflects in it, even at night. Dark shallows remain hidden. Sluggish like the stream, life moves through the plains, carrying my own family history with it. Where the landscape is left undisturbed, it recalls its own fertility and the myths that once surrounded it. Scars in its terrain remind it of its vulnerability, keeping the pain alive, and these scars grow deceptively. The images are captured on 120 film, which I believe is the only suitable format for processing history and stories in an epic way.
Vladimir Nosalskiy (Lenin)
Russia Federation
1973
I was born in USSR on June 10-th 1973. My pseudonyms in arts is Lenin. Back there our country was far from being open towards new ways of self-expression such as modern art, creative photography or so. For a long time everything people could percept from art and culture has been gray and monotonous. My childhood passed in criminal district. However, both of my parents are self-educated artists. I am sure that my ability to see beauty in ordinary, routine things originates from my family. Photography itself appeared in my life when I was 10.With my father's camera Zenith; I discovered all the nearby corners of my district, all the parks and squares. When I was teenager, the only way to make surrounding world more beautiful was to go studying as a tailor, which was the only creative profession in our town back there. During Perestroika Russia moved from cultural aspects of governmental policy into market economy, which made a life of an artist hard. I built into the system by creating decorations and shows for governmental and business events. However, I always missed the camera, it was my companion everywhere. I took pictures of the art plans, events, nature, city and travel. However, my comeback to real inspirational photoshoots happened several years ago. "Contemplate, create, enjoy" - has become my moto since I was young. I had several personal exhibitions art & photo: 1999, "26 steps", Moscow, Russia, 2000, "Cocoon-2000", Moscow, Russia. And several group exhibitions 1999, "Kazantip", "Kazantip-2" The exhibition of young artists "Lenin i Deti", Moscow, Russia, 2016, "Planet Moscow 2016" , Moscow, Russia. My inspiration in photography and arts are: Alexander Rodchenko, Auguste Rodin, Billy Monk, Claude Monet, Francisco Josè de Goya, Hieronymus Bosch, Ivan Bilibin, Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonardo da Vinci, René Magritte, Vladimir Tatlin, Wassily Kandinsky.
Serena Dzenis
Australia
1984
Serena Dzenis is a lens-based artist from Australia who resides in Iceland. She uses her work to tell stories about science, conservation, environmental issues and the future of mankind. Serena’s photographs depart from the traditional, with a focus on capturing the otherworldliness that is sometimes associated with nature and human constructions on our own planet. The emphasis of her art is on storytelling within the landscape – connecting with the land and exploring the outcomes of human desires while immersing oneself in the rhythms and dangers associated with the living presence of this world. 2021 ± II: Utopia Broadcasting Do you think that the first space colony created by mankind will happen during your lifetime? Technology has advanced so quickly over the past few years. In the overall scheme of things, we’re just a flash in the pan and yet we’ve done so much to change our planet. Humankind is leaving a profound legacy on Earth, exploiting its resources to turn it into the sanctuary that we want it to be or perhaps farewelling a paradise that we’ve already lost. ‘2021 ± II: Utopia Broadcasting’ encapsulates everything about human construction, sheer curiosity, consumerism, as well as the wonders and dangers associated with science. The overall aim of this project is to utilise existing structures within the Icelandic landscape to transport the viewer’s imagination to another world that exists outside of time. In doing so, the hope is to invoke conversation around themes of futurism and dreams for a better life amidst the darker side of human ideals.
Advertisement
AAP Magazine #50 Shapes
Win a Solo Exhibition this August
AAP Magazine #50: Shapes

Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Evan Murphy
At just 25, Evan Murphy’s work immediately stood out for its depth and maturity. A self-taught photographer originally from Las Vegas and now based in New York City, Evan blends raw emotion with a strong visual voice shaped by years of creative exploration. His series I.D. earned him a solo exhibition in July 2024, marking an impressive early milestone in a career that promises to go far.
Exclusive Interview with Lydia Panas
Lydia Panas, winner of AAP Magazine #38: Women, is an American photographer, known for her powerful and introspective portraiture. With a background in visual arts and philosophy, she uses photography to explore identity, vulnerability, and human connection—often drawing from personal experience to create images that are both intimate and thought-provoking. Her work has been widely exhibited and published, and is part of numerous permanent collections. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Hana Hana Peskova
Hana Peskova is a passionate self-taught photographer whose journey began at Škola kreativní fotografie in Prague. In 2021, she was awarded the prestigious EFIAP distinction by the Fédération Internationale de l'Art Photographique, recognizing her artistic excellence. Based in Český Krumlov, Czech Republic, she explores the world through street and documentary photography, capturing the beauty of fleeting moments and untold stories. Drawn to forgotten places and lives lived on the margins, her work reflects both emotional depth and creative vision. In April 2024, she won a solo exhibition with her powerful series Child Labour, further cementing her commitment to socially engaged photography.
Exclusive Interview with Shinji Ichikawa
Shinji Ichikawa, winner of AAP Magazine 39: Shadows, was born into a family of photographers in Shimane Prefecture, Japan, where he grew up surrounded by cameras and prints. After graduating from Tokyo Visual Arts, he began his career in commercial photography before moving to New York in 1999 to explore a more personal, surreal approach to image-making. His work often investigates themes of space and presence. Now back in Shimane, he continues to create and exhibit his photography while managing his family’s studio. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Eric Davidove
Eric is addicted to street photography — and he’s been chasing its highs since 2014. Logging thousands of miles through city streets, he captures quirky, satirical, and often humorous moments that reflect the absurdities of modern urban life. His recent series, Life Is But a Dream, won him a solo exhibition and challenges viewers to look up from their screens and truly observe the world around them. Through his lens, the ordinary becomes extraordinary — and sometimes, even a wake-up call.
Interview with Anna and Jordan Rathkopf: On Seeing Ourselves Through Illness
Visual storytellers Anna and Jordan Rathkopf didn’t set out to make a book, an exhibition, or a lecture series. When Anna was diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer at 37, their shared creative language—photography—became a way to stay connected, grounded, and emotionally present. Nearly a decade later, that body of work has evolved into HER2: The Diagnosed, The Caregiver, and Their Son—a book and traveling exhibition that blends fine art, writing, and lived experience to explore how illness reshapes marriage, identity, and family. The exhibition opens June 7 at Photoville Festival in New York City and will travel through Czechia beginning in Fall 2025. Below, Anna and Jordan reflect on how they shaped the project, how their perspectives stayed distinct, and how it became the first major initiative of their nonprofit, the Patient Caregiver Artist Coalition (PCAC).
Exclusive Interview with Jackie Mulder
Amsterdam-based artist Jackie Mulder took an unconventional path into photography. After working in fashion and graphic design, she shifted her creative focus later in life—graduating from the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam at the age of 60. Since then, she’s embraced photography not as an end but as a beginning: a base layer in a deeply personal and tactile artistic process that blends images with wax, embroidery, and drawing.
Exclusive Interview with Mark S. Kornbluth
Five years after Broadway’s Great Intermission, Mark S. Kornbluth’s series DARK returns to AIPAD’s The Photography Show with Cavalier Gallery. Capturing the haunting beauty of New York’s shuttered theaters during the pandemic, DARK is both a tribute to resilience and a testament to the enduring power of the arts. With new works debuting at his upcoming exhibition ENCORE, we asked Mark a few questions about his life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Sarah Ketelaars
British photographer Sarah Ketelaars combines a background in literature, journalism, and social science with a distinctive visual style that is both thoughtful and evocative. Based in Brighton, her work has been exhibited internationally and featured on book and magazine covers. Her recent project The 544 earned her a solo exhibition in May 2024.
Call for Entries
Win A Solo Exhibition in August
Get International Exposure and Connect with Industry Insiders