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Yael Martínez
Yael Martínez

Yael Martínez

Country: Mexico
Birth: 1984

Yael Martínez (born 1984) is a Mexican Photographer which became a Magnum Photos Nominee member in 2020. Martínez is based in Guerrero, Mexico.

Martínez's work has explored the connections between, poverty, narcotrafic, organized crime, and how this affects on the communities in his native Guerrero in southern Mexico.

He is trying to represent the relationship of absence and presence and this state of invisibility in a symbolic manner working with the concepts of pain, emptiness, absence, and forgetting.

Yael Martínez received the Magnum Emergency Fund, Magnum On religión, and was named one of the PDN´s 30 new and emerging photographers to watch in 2017. In 2015 he was selected in the Joop Joop Swart Master Class Latinoamerica and was finalist in the Eugene Smith grant in 2015, 2016.

He was nominated to the Foam Paul Huf Award, the Prix Pictet and the Infinity award of the International Center of Photography.

Source: www.yaelmartinez.com


Martínez’s work addresses fractured communities in his native Mexico. He often works symbolically to evoke a sense of emptiness, absence, and pain suffered by those affected by organized crime in the region.

He is the recipient of the Eugene Smith Award 2019, was fellow of the Photography and Social Justice Program of The Magnum Foundation. He won the 2nd Prize of the World Press Photo contests 2019 in the category of long-term projects. Martínez was grantee of the Magnum Foundation in the grants: Emergency Fund and On Religion in 2016- 2017.

His work has been featured in group shows in America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

His work has been published by: The Wall Street Journal, Blomberg news, Lens NY times, Time, Vogue Italy, Vrij Nederland, Aperture.

Source: Magnum Photos


 

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Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky
Russia
1863 | † 1944
Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky (Russian, August 30, 1863 Russian Empire – September 27, 1944) was a Russian chemist and photographer. He is best known for his pioneering work in color photography of early 20th-century Russia.Prokudin-Gorsky was born in the ancestral estate of Funikova Gora, in what is now Kirzhachsky District, Vladimir Oblast. His parents were of the Russian nobility, and the family had a long military history. They moved to Saint Petersburg, where Prokudin-Gorsky enrolled in Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology to study chemistry under Dmitri Mendeleev. He also studied music and painting at the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1890, Prokudin-Gorsky married Anna Aleksandrovna Lavrova, and later the couple had two sons, Mikhail and Dmitri, and a daughter, Ekaterina. Anna was the daughter of the Russian industrialist Aleksandr Stepanovich Lavrov, an active member in the Imperial Russian Technical Society (IRTS). Prokudin-Gorsky subsequently became the director of the executive board of Lavrov's metal works near Saint Petersburg and remained so until the October Revolution. He also joined Russia's oldest photographic society, the photography section of the IRTS, presenting papers and lecturing on the science of photography. In 1901, he established a photography studio and laboratory in Saint Petersburg. In 1902, he traveled to Berlin and spent six weeks studying color sensitization and three-color photography with photochemistry professor Adolf Miethe, the most advanced practitioner in Germany at that time. Throughout the years, Prokudin-Gorsky's photographic work, publications and slide shows to other scientists and photographers in Russia, Germany and France earned him praise, and in 1906 he was elected the president of the IRTS photography section and editor of Russia's main photography journal, the Fotograf-Liubitel. Lithograph print of Leo Tolstoy in front of Prokudin-Gorsky's camera in Yasnaya Polyana, 1908. Perhaps Prokudin-Gorsky's best-known work during his lifetime was his color portrait of Leo Tolstoy,[6] which was reproduced in various publications, on postcards, and as larger prints for framing. The fame from this photo and his earlier photos of Russia's nature and monuments earned him invitations to show his work to the Russian Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich and Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in 1908, and to Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1909. The Tsar enjoyed the demonstration, and, with his blessing, Prokudin-Gorsky got the permission and funding to document Russia in color.[8] In the course of ten years, he was to make a collection of 10,000 photos. Prokudin-Gorsky considered the project his life's work and continued his photographic journeys through Russia until after the October Revolution. He was appointed to a new professorship under the new regime, but he left the country in August 1918. He still pursued scientific work in color photography, published papers in English photography journals and, together with his colleague S. O. Maksimovich, obtained patents in Germany, England, France and Italy.In 1920, Prokudin-Gorsky remarried and had a daughter with his assistant Maria Fedorovna née Schedrimo. The family finally settled in Paris in 1922, reuniting with his first wife and children. Prokudin-Gorsky set up a photo studio there together with his three adult children, naming it after his fourth child, Elka. In the 1930s, the elderly Prokudin-Gorsky continued with lectures showing his photographs of Russia to young Russians in France, but stopped commercial work and left the studio to his children, who named it Gorsky Frères. He died at Paris on September 27, 1944, and is buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.Documentary of the Russian EmpireAround 1905, Prokudin-Gorsky envisioned and formulated a plan to use the emerging technological advances that had been made in color photography to document the Russian Empire systematically. Through such an ambitious project, his ultimate goal was to educate the schoolchildren of Russia with his "optical color projections" of the vast and diverse history, culture, and modernization of the empire. Outfitted with a specially equipped railroad-car darkroom provided by Tsar Nicholas II and in possession of two permits that granted him access to restricted areas and cooperation from the empire's bureaucracy, Prokudin-Gorsky documented the Russian Empire around 1909 through 1915. He conducted many illustrated lectures of his work. His photographs offer a vivid portrait of a lost world—the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming Russian Revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia's diverse population. It has been estimated from Prokudin-Gorsky's personal inventory that before leaving Russia, he had about 3500 negatives. Upon leaving the country and exporting all his photographic material, about half of the photos were confiscated by Russian authorities for containing material that seemed to be strategically sensitive for war-time Russia. According to Prokudin-Gorsky's notes, the photos left behind were not of interest to the general public. Some of Prokudin-Gorsky's negatives were given away, and some he hid on his departure. Outside the Library of Congress collection, none has yet been found.By Prokudin-Gorsky's death, the tsar and his family had long since been executed during the Russian Revolution, and Communist rule had been established over what was once the Russian Empire. The surviving boxes of photo albums and fragile glass plates the negatives were recorded on were finally stored in the basement of a Parisian apartment building, and the family was worried about them getting damaged. The United States Library of Congress purchased the material from Prokudin-Gorsky's heirs in 1948 for $3500–$5000 on the initiative of a researcher inquiring into their whereabouts. The library counted 1902 negatives and 710 album prints without corresponding negatives in the collection.(Source: en.wikipedia.org)
José Ramón Bas
In 1979 José Ramón Bas was teaching himself photography when he met photographer Florencio García Méndez, who gave him a helping hand. In 1985 he began formal studies at the Escuela de la Imagen y el Diseño (IDEP) in Barcelona, where he was quickly attracted to contemporary forms of expression and the theme of travel memories. In 1989 he moved definitively to Barcelona and in 1997 he won the La Caixa Foundation’s Fotopress Award for young artists. He began working with the Berini Gallery in Barcelona and in 1998 moved into a studio in the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Piramidón. After joining Galerie VU’ in 2001, he won the Federico Vender Prize in Italy in 2003, followed by the Arena Foundation Prize in 2004. In 2005 he began teaching the Masters in Creative Photography at EFTI in Madrid. He has exhibited in Holland, Boston, Lisbon and elsewhere.Source: www.rencontres-arles.com "He is an incurable traveller. He is a poet; to him it's like breathing. He is unclassifiable and, being in love with spaces and people, he invents objets that preserve the memory of his experiences and his emotions. He is not concerned about building a body of work but rather endeavors to reproduce times spent traveling in Africa, Cuba or Brazil. During his travels, he photographs, in a playful, compulsive way. Then, when he gets back to Barcelona, he looks at his contact sheets and decides to transform the images that he has recorded into objets. He prints them, with little interest for technique, and then he works on them: he may write on the proof, scratch it, or mistreat it, depending on the mood or inspiration of the moment, before setting it in a resin inclusion and dedicating it, between imagery and sculpture, to its status as an objet. For him, each negative is an opening onto infinite possibilities, which he will realize in various formats, from the square to the panoramic, and which are to convey his memory of the travel experience. Then, his parallelepipeds, which are lighter than air, occupy the wall with subtlety and encourage us to dream and be at peace."-- Christian Caujolle, Agence VU’ Galerie Source: Galerie VU
Bruno Barbey
France
1941 | † 2020
Bruno Barbey is a Moroccan-born French photographer. Throughout his four-decade career he has traveled across five continents, photographing many wars. Barbey was born in Morocco and in 1959-1960 he studied photography and graphic arts at the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Vevey, Switzerland. During the 1960s he was commissioned to photograph European and African countries by Editions Rencontre in Lausanne. In 1964 Barbey began a relationship with Magnum Photos, becoming an Associate member in 1966, and a full member in 1968, at which time he was photographing student riots in Paris. He eventually served as Magnum vice president for Europe in 1978 and 1979 and from 1992-1995 as President of Magnum International. He spent 1979 to 1981 photographing Poland, resulting in his book Portrait of Poland. He rejects the label of 'war photographer', although he has covered civil wars in Nigeria, Vietnam, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Northern Ireland, Iraq, and Kuwait. From 2005 Barbey has, among other work, been pursuing a project on Istanbul. Source: Wikipedia Bruno Barbey was born on Feb. 13, 1941, in Berrechid, Morocco, just south of Casablanca, and grew up in various parts of the country: Rabat, Salé, Marrakesh and Tangiers. His father, Marc, was a diplomat; his mother was Marie Clement-Grandcourt. From a young age he knew he wanted to travel the world like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French writer and aviator. Bruno’s parents sent him to Paris for high school, where he was a “dunce and a thwarted lefthander,” he wrote in his retrospective photographic book, Passages (2015). He and his friends skipped classes to see movies by Italian neorealist filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Mr. Barbey entered Ecole Des Arts et Métiers in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1959 to study photography and graphic arts, but left after a year, because his courses had focused on advertising and industrial photography. He craved the freedom to pursue a single subject for an extended period as the Swiss documentary photographer Robert Frank did in his groundbreaking book The Americans, which was published in France in 1958. Following Frank’s example, Mr. Barbey drove through Italy in a used Volkswagen in the early 1960s, photographing its people in black-and-white in a neorealist style. “My goal,” he wrote in Passages, “was to capture the spirit of the place.” He caught dozens of moments in the life of a nation: a family racing along on a scooter, each person ebullient save for the pregnant mother; a group of girls whose joyful expressions contrast with that of a doleful beggar holding out his hand behind them; little boys playing with realistic-looking weapons; and a host of other characters like prostitutes, priests, old men and Mafiosi. The photographs - which would later be published as The Italians in 2002 - brought him to the attention of Magnum, where he worked for more than 50 years. In addition to the Paris demonstrations, he covered conflicts in the Middle East, Nigeria, Vietnam and Cambodia and recorded life in China, Brazil, India, Japan and Spain. He spent much of 1981 in Poland during the rise of the Solidarity trade union, capturing Poles in a period of turmoil and torment. He collected the pictures in Portrait of Poland (1982). “He brought genteel attention to the human experience — with a lot of kindness,” Gilles Peress, another Magnum photographer, said in a phone interview. Mr. Barbey, whose photographs have been widely exhibited, received the French National Order of Merit and was elected a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, Institut de France, in 2016. He served as a Magnum executive at two different times. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Aurélie Barbey; a son, Igor; two sisters, Loïse Barbey-Caussé and Adelaïde Barbey-Guissinger; two brothers, Dominique and Guy; and four grandchildren. Although he left Morocco at age 12, Mr. Barbey kept returning there, lured by its rich colors, light and architecture. Many of his photographs were of quiet moments: a bride showing off her hands decorated with a henna design; a golden-hued interior with a distant figure in a black-and-white striped robe blending into the floor’s design; red hides drying in the sun; and a person in black walking down a lane bracketed by pink walls. “Its very difficult to photograph there,” Mr. Barbey was quoted as saying on Magnum’s website, “because in Islam photography is supposed to bring the evil eye.” He added: “You have to be cunning as a fox, well-organized and respect some customs. The photographer must learn to merge into walls. Photos must either be taken swiftly, with all the attendant risks, or only after long periods of infinite patience.”Source: New York Times
Hoang Long Ly
Vietnam
1965
Ly Hoang Long was born in 1965 in Dalat, a city located on the high plateaus of central Vietnam. Since childhood, the photographer has been fascinated by colours and images and began his professional career as a graphic designer. He discovered photography in 1993 through a friend, bought his first analogue reflex and two years later, made a dark room in his apartment. One thing led to another and he definitely abandoned design in order to devote his time to his images. With over twenty years experience to his name and 310 international prizes, including that of best travel photographer in 2014 (TFOTY). Several of his pictures also won awards in the same year at the CBRE Urban Photographer of the Year and from National Geographic. Mud wrestling Mud wrestling with a ball was a traditional game organized every four year in Van village, Bac Ninh province, the north of Vietnam. Like basket ball, but instead of the baskets hanging up, here there were two holes (like a goal) and the playing ground was filled up with wet mud, there were 16 players divided into two teams, they competed vigorously to score by putting the heavy wooden ball in their competitors's hole. The audiences supported all the teams, they were screamming and laughing because the game looked so amusing; it was not easy at all to seized a ball, keep it in arms and run on the slippery surface and cross a barrier of competitors. After three day-competing, the both teams would gather in the courtyard of the temple to worship their ancestors, the game completely ended in peace and happiness.
Nieves Mingueza
Nieves Mingueza is a lens-based, mixed media artist working with experimental photography, collage and text. Born in Spain, based in London. The often-cinematic themes in her projects have in common her fascination with old books, film stills, vintage cameras, poetry and minimal drawings. Ultimately, Nieves' work is about the foggy relationship between fiction and reality. In addition, she is currently exploring about immigration, mental health and human conflicts. Nieves' work has been exhibited widely, including Copeland Gallery -Peckham 24-, les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Retina Scottish International Photography Festival, The Royal Academy of Arts, PhotoEspaña, Saatchi Gallery and Tate Britain. Publications that have featured her work include Editorial 8mm, Fisheye magazine, Der Greif magazine, Low Light Magazine, Shots magazine, Eyemazing, Sarmad Magazine, YET Magazine and L'oeil de la photographie, among others. Lens Culture also featured a selection of her works. Recently, in July 2019, her first monograph book was released by IIKKI Books Editorial. About The malady of Suzanne "A few months ago, I moved to my new flat in South London. Once settled in my new home, I realised that the building had previously been a mental health hospital. In this hospital, people with mental health issues were treated and helped to reintegrate into society. One night, I was relaxing, reading in my living room. There was a sepulchral silence, and suddenly I heard a noise coming from the ceiling. I was scared and I noticed that there was a small loft. The next day, a neighbour helped me open the loft. Unexpectedly, we found a suitcase that contained photos, letters and documents that had belonged to a woman named Suzanne. Reading her letters, I learned that she was a Vietnamese woman who had been a teacher in her home country. There, she fell in love with an Englishman, and finally they decided to move to London together. This happened in 70s. Apparently she began to experience signs of a rare disease: loss of speech and isolation behaviour. I also found out from her documents that she had changed her name in London, because her real name was very difficult to pronounce for English people. She called herself Suzanne in honour of Leonard Cohen's song. By combining found archives with my documentary photography work, I am exploring the story of a Vietnamese female with mental issues in 70's London. This is an on-going project about the complex relationship between memory, immigration, mental health and human conflicts. Additionally, is there any reciprocation between Suzanne and myself? We have both lived in the same space. I am an immigrant in London, I work in a school, and I have modified my name because it was difficult for my students to pronounce. I also love silence. " -- Nieves Mingueza
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