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Win a Solo Exhibition in June 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
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Tom Atwood
Tom Atwood

Tom Atwood

Country: United States
Birth: 1971

Tom Atwood is an American fine art, portrait, and celebrity photographer, best known for his books Kings in Their Castles (2005) and Kings & Queens in Their Castles (2017). The New Yorker has praised the "refreshing clarity and modesty" of his work. Born and raised in Vermont, Atwood is a graduate of Harvard University, where he studied economics. He later earned an MPhil from Cambridge University. Atwood has lived in Paris, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and currently resides in New York City.

Atwood worked several years as an advertising executive before turning full-time to commercial and fine art photography. As a photographer, Tom Atwood is largely self-taught, developing many of his techniques through trial and error. According to him, various cultural influences—including theater, painting, architecture, and psychology—have informed his photographic style.

Tom Atwood is particularly known for combining and balancing the genres of portraiture and architectural photography, so that neither the subject nor his or her surroundings predominate in the final image. His recent work has focused on portraits of people at home. He has shot over 100 luminaries including Hilary Swank, Julie Newmar, Buzz Aldrin, Mark Wahlberg (Marky Mark), John Waters, Don Lemon, Tommy Tune, Meredith Baxter, Greg Louganis, Barney Frank, George Takei, Todd Oldham, Edward Albee, Ross Bleckner, Michael Cunningham, Alison Bechdel, Ari Shapiro, Don Bachardy, Charles Busch, Alan Cumming and Leslie Jordan.

His second book, Kings & Queens in Their Castles, was recently published by Damiani. The book won multiple awards including First Place in the International Photography Awards (book category) as well as a Lucie Award (book-other category).

Atwood was included in the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Triennial (Smithsonian Museum). He won first place in Portraiture in the Prix de la Photographie Paris. Atwood also won Photographer of the Year from London's Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, as well as first place in Portraiture.

He has won over 40 additional awards including from the Griffin Museum of Photography, Center for Fine Art Photography, International Photography Awards, Santa Fe Center for Photography, Vienna International Photo Award (Gold Medal), CameraArts, Photo Life, PDN, The Photo Review, Communication Arts, Fence at Photoville, Graphis, Camera Club of NY, Jacob Riis Award, American Photography Annual, One Life International, American Art Awards, Photography Masters Cup, Manhattan Arts International, Hellerau Photography Award, World in Focus, Artrom Gallery Guild, PhotoServe, Reclaim Photo Award, Passepartout Prize, One Eyeland, International Photographer of the Year, International Color Awards, Moscow International Foto Awards, Kodak and American Photographic Artists (sponsored by the Getty Museum and Hammer Museum). He has also been recognized on Photo Life Magazine's list of 50 Emerging Photographers.

Atwood's work has exhibited over 60 times in over 15 countries, including at the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Museum), Griffin Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, National Museum of Finland (Finland), D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Kemper Art Museum, Center for Fine Art Photography, Museum of Photographic Arts, House of Lucie, Annenberg Space for Photography, Museum of Modern Art, University of the Arts, Frank Museum, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Benaki Museum (Greece), Museum of Science and Technology (Germany), Shibuya Cultural Center (Japan), Círculo de Bellas Artes Museum (Spain), LA Center for Digital Art, Pacific Design Center, Manhattan Arts International and other institutions.

Selected Books on Available on Amazon
Kings & Queens in Their Castles
Kings & Queens in Their Castles
Tom Atwood
Kings in Their Castles
Kings in Their Castles
Tom Atwood, Charles Kaiser

Gallery

BBA Gallery

Websites

www.tomatwood.com

@tomatwoodphoto

 

Selected Books

Kings & Queens in Their Castles
Kings & Queens in Their Castles
Tom Atwood
Kings in Their Castles
Kings in Their Castles
Tom Atwood, Charles Kaiser

Inspiring Portfolios

Marjolein Martinot
© Marjolein Martinot
Jackson Patterson
© Jackson Patterson
Nanda Hagenaars
© Nanda Hagenaars
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More Great Photographers To Discover

Elisabeth Sunday
Elisabeth Sunday
United States
Elisabeth Sunday has been photographing indigenous people across the African continent for the last 26 years. Using a flexible mirror she created for the purpose (and hand carries unaccompanied to some of the most remote and dangerous spots on earth), Sunday has created her own analog process that prefigured Photoshop that she calls "Mirror Photography". Her method of photographing her subjects emphasizes and enhances their grace, elongating the body and the folds of their garments, creating an impressionistic effect one might be used to seeing in painting but which is unexpected in a medium from which we often expect a more literal representation. The effect is closer to that of dance, in which the body has reshaped itself and learned to move in a way that proclaims and exaggerates all its best qualities, while momentarily silencing its flaws, and in which movement itself has an aesthetic, rather than merely practical, purpose. Typically Sunday captures an elongated vertical reflection, rushing and bleeding like a single expressive brush stroke. Although Sunday herself is never visible in the frame, she is as much actor as she is director within the drama of these photographs, as she strives to represent not so much the personal characteristics of her subjects, but an essential gesture that connects a given incarnation with the long history of the soul. In her Anima and Animus series, Sunday mediates on eternal masculine and feminine energies, using warlike Koro men and nomadic Tuareg women as subjects. The Anima women are hidden under flowing garments, slanting to left or right or reaching upward like dark flames against the steady white curve of a dune. The Animus figures rise like tough young trees or spears, rooted somewhere beneath the picture plane. Grace and violence here seem cast together in a solid block, As with so many of Elisabeth Sunday's figures, these seem composed of stone or bone more than living flesh. Elisabeth Sunday has shown in galleries and Museums the world over including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Centre cultural Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, France, the African American Museum, Los Angeles; International Photography Biennial, Brecsia, Italy, UC Berkeley Art Museum; Salle d' Exposition, Arles, France, Le Maison de la Photographie, Aosta, Italy, Exploratorium Museum, San Francisco, CA Smithsonian Anakostia Museum, Center for African American History and Culture, Washington D.C. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her work is included in major collections: The Corcoran Art Gallery, The University Art Museum at Berkeley, The Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, The Los Angeles Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Art-Houston, Le Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, France, The San Francisco Museum of Art, and The Eastman Kodak Collection. Her private collectors include Graham Nash, Quincy Jones, Gloria Steinem, Linda Grey, Bill Cosby, Bonnie Raitt and Alice Walker.Source Frank Pictures Gallery
Deb Achak
Deb Achak
United States
Raised in New Hampshire, Deb Achak holds a master's degree in social work and is a self-trained photographer and filmmaker. She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband and sons in a grand old home that was once a bed and breakfast. Deb's fine art photography explores natural elements of water and grasses - earth elements with clean, simple compositions meant to calm and soothe. Her children are also a growing subject of her fine art work. Her photographs have been exhibited at the Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR; Sante Fe Photographic Workshops, Sante Fe, NM; the SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC: and Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT. About She Told Us To Trust Our Intuition My mother's last words to my siblings and I before she died were "trust your gut instincts". It's struck me over the years how profound and revolutionary that one simple phrase is. It has become my mantra - my north star. When we still our mind, free it of conscious thought, intuition can be heard and felt, and becomes the perfect guide. Some years ago, I started to notice that when I am in a deep flow with my art, it becomes a meditation and I am able to hear my inner voice with complete clarity. In this series I use water, color, movement and the human form to express the meditative quality I feel when I am in synch with the flow of creating. I seek to capture that single moment where my camera, my intuition, and the natural world are perfectly aligned, and to give gratitude to my mother for bestowing such a powerful parting gift. All the Colors I Am Inside
Bernice Williams
Bernice Williams
United States
I was born in a small country town near Pittsburgh, PA, where I went to university and studied painting and sculpture. To be a painter was my dream! For several years I lived in Papua New Guinea and then moved to Sydney, Australia. In both places I worked with clay, mostly high-fired white earthenware, creating minimalist hand built forms. Eventually I returned to the U.S., first to New York City, and then to Chicago where I now live. I’ve come full circle and returned to my first love of painting, but now I paint with light! All About Photo Competitions AAP Magazine 39 Shadows AAP Magazine 56 Shadows
Xueqi Bai
Xueqi Bai
China
1989
A photojournalist since 2012, Bai Xueqi currently works in Moscow. His photos have been used by news outlets around the globe. His imageThe Return Won second place at All About Photo Awards 2018. All About Photo Awards 2018
Thomas Dodd
Thomas Dodd
United States
Thomas Dodd is a visual artist and photographer based out of Atlanta, Georgia who has developed a style that he calls "painterly photo montage" - a method he employs during principal photography and in editing software with which he crafts elaborately textured pieces that have a very organic and decidedly non-digital look to them. His work often has mythic and quasi-religious themes that pay homage to Old Master art traditions while at the same time drawing from psychological archetypes that evoke a strong emotional response from the viewer. Although his artwork resembles paintings, his pieces are entirely photographic in nature, fusing many images into a cohesive whole. His larger works are often presented in a mixed media form that adds a depth and texture that complements the photography beautifully. Thomas has had numerous exhibitions of his works in many cities in the USA and around the world. He has had recent shows in New York City, Paris, Mexico City, New Orleans, Tokyo, San Antonio, Seattle, and in his hometown of Atlanta. Dodd's photographs have been featured in many magazines, on book and album covers and he frequently teaches workshops and webinars on photo-editing and marketing for artists. Thomas began his career as a visual artist in 2005. Before that, he was best known as the harpist and songwriter for the 1990s musical group Trio Nocturna, a Celtic Gothic ensemble that put out three critically-acclaimed albums ("Morphia", "Tears of Light" and "Songs of the Celtic Night") and performed at author Anne Rice's annual Halloween balls in New Orleans, as well as spawning an offshoot band called the Changelings. Thomas also played harp on two albums by Michael Gira (the driving force behind the influential post-punk band the Swans): "the Body Lovers" and the Angels of Light "New Mother". The images that Thomas creates are basically a visual equivalent of the music he composed in the 1990s. Mythic themes and their relation to emotions and psychological states continue to be his primary subjects and motivations. Source: thomasdodd.com Interview with Thomas Dodd All About Photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? Thomas Dodd: There was a period in my early teens where I was inspired by seeing a gallery show of Ansel Adams’ work, and for a short time thereafter I was compelled to study black and white film photography (of course, digital did not exist back then in the 1970s), but that inspiration quickly was replaced by the kick in the ass I received when I heard the Sex Pistols (in 1977) which made me run out and get a guitar so I could take out my teen angst upon the (non-listening) world! AAP: Where did you study photography? With whom? TD: My father taught me the basics of the camera back in the 1970s. I also took a darkroom course in high school. My reemergence as a photographer in 2006 (after a 25 year musical career playing the Celtic harp) was basically a self-taught one with quite a few online tutorials along the way! AAP: Do you have a mentor? TD: My father was a great influence on me- both as a photographer and a human being. AAP: How long have you been a photographer? TD: Since 2006. My brief dabbling in photography in the 70s barely counts! AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it? TD: My first real photoshoot was of my friend (and first Muse) Halley dressed in a beautiful Rococo-themed dress she made. We wandered through the streets of downtown Decatur Ga. at around midnight searching for street light to shoot in. AAP: What or who inspires you? TD: Beauty inspires me. Great painters inspire me. An artistic or chameleonesque model inspires me... AAP: How could you describe your style? TD: “Painterly” photo montage with an artistic approach AAP: Do you have a favorite photograph or series? TD: My favorite photo is always the one I am currently working on! AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film? TD: I really am not one of those photographers who likes to talk about gear because I think the most important tool that an artist possesses is their imagination... but I shoot with a Sony A57 using a 18-70mm lens. AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose? TD: I seem to spend ALL my time editing photos - What purpose? Self expression and sometimes' client satisfaction! AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)? TD: Jan Saudek - for the way he created such boldly erotic personal imagery while hiding from a repressive Communist regime... He also used texture and color in a very painterly way which has influenced me a great deal. AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer? TD: Don't be in a hurry to "succeed", and shun advice like "Fake it ‘til you make it". It takes TIME and PATIENCE to develop your own style. Always follow your own voice and don't be swayed by what is currently popular, and don't forget to ENJOY it - this is not supposed to feel like work! AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid? TD: Becoming an imitation or a copy of another photographer. Being in a hurry to get published or displayed in galleries is another common mistake. Take the time and develop your craft for a few years before you start thinking about sharing it with the world! AAP: Any quotes you would like to share? TD: "I am steadily surprised that there are so many photographers that reject manipulating reality, as if that was wrong. Change reality! If you don't find it, invent it!" - Pete Turner AAP: What current projects are you working on? TD: Nothing I can tell you about, but I will drop a hint and say it involves shattering some commonly held preconceptions about a "marginalized" segment of society. AAP: Your best memory as a photographer? TD: There have been so many, it's hard to choose an absolute best but I will say my first solo show, my first print sale and my first publication were all high points! AAP: Your worst souvenir as a photographer? TD: My broken D50 which gasped it’s last breath 5 clicks into a nude shoot! Or maybe the memory card and external hard drive that I irretrievably lost data from. Here is some more good advice - ALWAYS use an online backup in addition to discs and hard drives! AAP:The compliment that touched you most? TD: When my 92 year old Mother came to my first big gallery show in Atlanta (featuring some very large nude images) and said she was proud of me... AAP: Your favorite photo book? TD: Bob Carlos Clarke's "The Dark Summer" and Helmut Newton's "White Women". AAP: An anecdote? TD: I long ago learned as a model photographer that the crucial things to pack in your camera bag are not extra lenses, filters and light meters, They are instead bobby pins, safety pins, hair ties, insect repellent and sun block. Oh yeah, and a few model releases too! AAP: Anything else you would like to share? TD: Please feel free to "like" my Facebook page and introduce yourself.
Marco Sanges
Marco Sanges
Italian
1970
SANGES is an imaginative and innovative photographer who has exhibited worldwide and published extensively. Clients and art projects include: Agent Provocateur, Cutler & Gross, Vogue, National Opera Munich,Dolce & Gabbana National Opera Stuttgart, Dario Argento, Stash Klossowski de Rola and Gunther Von Hagens' Body World. Academy of Art New York. Magazines include: Sunday Telegraph, Silver Shotz, Photo, All About Photos, Musee, Katalog, Lomography, Normal, Elle, Esquire, The Times, Independent, Fault , Aesthetica , Shoot, Harpers Bazar, L’œil De la Photographie. Wonderland Some of his short films include : Sugar, Meet me in Winter, Circumstances, Music Sound Machine, Sonnambula, Wunderkamera. His books include : Circumstances, Venus, Wild, and Erotic Photography, Love Lust Desire, Dolce & Gabbana Animal, National Opera Munich, The Cutting Room. Mefistofele Opera Stuttgart by Arrigo Boito. A multi-disciplinary artist, his film 'Circumstances' won Best Art Film at the Portobello Film Festival in London and Best Experimental Film at the Open Cinema Film Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia. Sanges' work is exhibited in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts permanent collection and at the Center for Creative Photography in Arizona - USA His distinctive photographs have been shown at major contemporary photography festivals including Helsinki Photo Festival and Batumi PhotoDays in Georgia and the Lodz Photofestiwal in Poland. One of his latest project 'Wunderkamera' has been exhibited at the Hospital Club in London and at the Chateau de Dampierre (France) and will be exhibited in the Gallerie de Buci in Paris February 2020.
William Klein
William Klein
United States
1928 | † 2022
William Klein (born in New York, New York, USA, on April 19, 1928) is a photographer and filmmaker noted to for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. He was ranked 25th on Professional Photographer's Top 100 Most influential photographers. Trained as a painter, Klein studied under Fernand Léger and found early success with exhibitions of his work. However, he soon moved on to photography and achieved widespread fame as a fashion photographer for Vogue and for his photo essays on various cities. Despite having no training as a photographer, Klein won the Prix Nadar in 1957 for New York, a book of photographs taken during a brief return to his hometown in 1954. Klein's work was considered revolutionary for its "ambivalent and ironic approach to the world of fashion", its "uncompromising rejection of the then prevailing rules of photography" and for his extensive use of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, natural lighting and motion blur. Klein tends to be cited in photography books along with Robert Frank as among the fathers of street photography, one of those mixed compliments that classifies a man who is hard to classify. The world of fashion would become the subject for Klein's first feature film, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, which, like his other two fiction features, Mr. Freedom and The Model Couple, is a satire. Klein has directed numerous short and feature-length documentaries and has produced over 250 television commercials. Though American by birth, Klein has lived and worked in France since his late teens. His work has sometimes been openly critical of American society and foreign policy; the film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum once wrote that Klein's 1968 satire Mr. Freedom was "conceivably the most anti-American movie ever made." Klein was born into an impoverished Jewish family. Klein graduated from high school early and enrolled at the City College of New York at the age of 14 to study sociology. Klein joined the US Army and was stationed in Germany and later France, where he would permanently settle after being discharged. In 1948, Klein enrolled at the Sorbonne, and later studied with Fernand Léger. At the time, Klein was interested in abstract painting and sculpture. In 1952, Klein had two successful solo exhibitions in Milan and began a collaboration with the architect Angelo Mangiarotti. Klein also experimented with kinetic art, and it was at an exhibition of his kinetic sculptures that he met Alexander Liberman, the art director for Vogue. In 1966, Klein directed his first feature film, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? He has since directed many others, including the cinéma vérité documentary Grands soirs et petits matins, the 1964 documentary Cassius the Great, re-edited with new footage as Muhammed Ali, The Greatest in 1969, and the satires Mr. Freedom and Le Couple Témoin. A long time tennis fan, in 1982 he directed The French, a documentary on the French Open tennis championship at Roland-Garros. He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 1999. In 2012, Klein received the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award at the annual Sony World Photography Awards in recognition of his work in the field of photography.Source: Wikipedia
Elisabeth Ajtay
Elisabeth Ajtay
Germany
1978
An artistic journey commenced amidst the vibrant Hungarian art scene, where the artist studied drawing, jewelry making, graphic design, photography, and contemporary dance. While an initial passion lay in drawing and painting, photography swiftly emerged as her primary voice. Further skill development was achieved through a diploma in communications design from the University of Applied Sciences Dortmund in Germany, followed by an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. These educational experiences, coupled with a childhood spent navigating different cultural landscapes, have profoundly shaped Ajtay's perspective. The artist's conceptual work delves into themes of home and belonging, the psychology of language, the impact of societal change, and the spectrum of human emotions and the soul. Their practice is deeply rooted in personal experiences as a migrant and nomad, marked by constant adaptation to new environments that necessitate a complete rewiring of the brain, total openness, and reorientation. Change, identified as life's most constant aspect, lies at the core of her explorations, prompting deep dives into reorientation, loss, the unknown, and even death. ELisabeth Ajtay's work is held in numerous private collections and has been exhibited internationally across Europe and the United States. Notable venues include festivals such as inSPIRACJE and Art Moves in Poland, Goethe Institutes in Morocco, Prague, New York, and France, and galleries like Don Soker Contemporary Art in San Francisco. Museum exhibitions include the MKK - Museum for Art and Cultural History Dortmund, Germany, and Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Texas. Recognition has come in the form of an honorable mention from PX3-Prix de la Photographie Paris, inclusion in the San Francisco Arts Commission's Prequalified Artist Pool, and residencies at the 3rd Street Studio Programs (San Francisco Art Institute), BANFF Center for Arts and Culture (Canada), and the Vermont Studio Center. She received several honorable mentions from the International Photography Awards. Towards Perfection: Series MoonABC "Towards Perfection" is a digital collage, composed entirely of circles, represents the challenges I faced while creating my moon alphabet. Each circle is a testament to the difficulties, frustrations and endurance encountered in capturing the letter 'O' using the moonlight as I was slowly moving my camera. About the series: The idea of creating a moon alphabet started somewhere in 2014 with me sitting on the stairs in front of my house in SF, finding calm in the ever present light of the moon. I was working on my artist visa and tied down with no status, no existence - practically being an alien resident on hold - I had plenty of time thinking about how I could push my work with the moon further. Further, in terms of overcoming that what is visible. The moon has been exposed and explored to numerous artistic expressions and, scientific ones. I did not mean to repeat but to expand. Also, having been working for almost 20 years with a camera, there are moments when I am tired of the medium. I began making art with my hands first, drawing, painting and even dancing for many years I would consider a very physically based expression. Making images with a camera is very different, the body is less involved, instead, a lot of editing and thinking, once the "klick" happened. One night I simply grabbed my camera and began tracing the light. First randomly, then more purposefully, with the solely intention of putting my body into the image. Movements. After some time, I wrote my initials and from there, I began practicing the remainder of the letters. At some point, Alan Bamberger, told me what I was actually doing - a moon font. It took me another year to complete the alphabet and train my hand to as much perfection as my body was able to offer. During these two years, I was reading numerous books on communication and technology. The points that fascinated me outlined how technology effects our brains, the level of empathy and how we change our social patterns within society. Those readings were my "back ups" in exploring my physicality in conversation with nature, or, the physicality of the moon. On another level, creating an alphabet is to some extent a reflection of my multilingual presence. It is sometimes hard phrasing thoughts when the tongue is moving differently, or you have another language's rhythm inside you. It can confuse, cause mayonnaise. Having babel inside and on the outside (history repeats itself).
Frances Benjamin Johnston
Frances Benjamin Johnston
United States
1864 | † 1952
Frances "Fannie" Benjamin Johnston (15 January 1864 – 16 May 1952) was an early American female photographer and photojournalist whose career lasted for almost half a century. She is most known for her portraits, images of southern architecture, and various photographic series featuring African Americans and Native Americans at the turn of the 20th century. The only surviving child of wealthy and well connected parents, she was born in Grafton, West Virginia, raised in Washington, D.C., and studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and the Washington Students League following her graduation from Notre Dame of Maryland Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies in 1883 (now known as Notre Dame of Maryland University). An independent and strong-willed young woman, she wrote articles for periodicals before finding her creative outlet through photography after she was given her first camera by George Eastman, a close friend of the family, and inventor of the new, lighter, Eastman Kodak cameras. She received training in photography and dark-room techniques from Thomas Smillie, director of photography at the Smithsonian. She took portraits of friends, family and local figures before working as a freelance photographer and touring Europe in the 1890s, using her connection to Smillie to visit prominent photographers and gather items for the museum's collections. She gained further practical experience in her craft by working for the newly formed Eastman Kodak company in Washington, D.C., forwarding film for development and advising customers when cameras needed repairs. In 1894 she opened her own photographic studio in Washington, D.C., on V Street between 13th and 14th Streets, and at the time was the only woman photographer in the city. She took portraits of many famous contemporaries including Susan B. Anthony, Mark Twain and Booker T. Washington. Well connected among elite society, she was commissioned by magazines to do "celebrity" portraits, such as Alice Roosevelt's wedding portrait, and was dubbed the "Photographer to the American court." She photographed Admiral Dewey on the deck of the USS Olympia,[6] the Roosevelt children playing with their pet pony at the White House and the gardens of Edith Wharton's famous villa near Paris. Her mother, Frances Antoinette Johnston, had been a congressional journalist and dramatic critic for the Baltimore Sun and her daughter built on her familiarity with the Washington political scene by becoming official White House photographer for the Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, "TR" Roosevelt, and Taft presidential administrations. Johnston also photographed the famous American heiress and literary salon socialite Natalie Barney in Paris but perhaps her most famous work, shown here, is her self-portrait of the liberated "New Woman", petticoats showing and beer stein in hand. Johnston was a constant advocate for the role of women in the burgeoning art of photography. The Ladies' Home Journal published Johnston's article "What a Woman Can Do With a Camera" in 1897[9] and she co-curated (with Zaida Ben-Yusuf) an exhibition of photographs by twenty-eight women photographers at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, which afterwards travelled to Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Washington, DC. She traveled widely in her thirties, taking a wide range of documentary and artistic photographs of coal miners, iron workers, women in New England's mills and sailors being tattooed on board ship as well as her society commissions. While in England she photographed the stage actress Mary Anderson, who was a friend of her mother. In 1899, she gained further notability when she was commissioned by Hollis Burke Frissell to photograph the buildings and students of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia in order to show its success. This series, documenting the ordinary life of the school, remains as some of her most telling work. It was displayed at The Exhibit of American Negroes of the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900. She photographed events such as world's fairs and peace-treaty signings and took the last portrait of President William McKinley, at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 just before his assassination. With her partner, Mattie Edwards Hewitt, a successful freelance home and garden photographer in her own right, she opened a studio in New York in 1913 and moved in with her mother and aunt. Hewitt wrote Johnston love letters over the course of their relationship, which are chronicled in "The Woman Behind the Lens: The Life and Work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1864–1952." Many of the early letters focused on Hewitt's admiration for Johnston's work, but as their romance progressed, they became increasingly full of words of love: "...when I need you or you need me — [we] must hold each other all the closer and with your hand in mine, holding it tight..." She lectured at New York University on business for women and they produced a series of studies of New York architecture through the 1920s. In early 1920 her mother died in New York. In the 1920s, she became increasingly interested in photographing architecture, motivated by a desire to document buildings and gardens which were falling into disrepair or about to be redeveloped and lost. As her focus in architecture grew, she became specifically interested in documenting the architecture of the American South. Johnston was interested in preserving the everyday history of the American South through her art; she accomplished this by photographing barns, inns, and other ordinary structures. She was not interested in photographing the grand homes and estates of the American South, but rather the quickly deteriorating structures in these communities that portrayed the life of common southerners. Her photographs remain an important resource for modern architects, historians and conservationists. She exhibited a series of 247 photographs of Fredericksburg, Virginia, from the decaying mansions of the rich to the shacks of the poor, in 1928. The exhibition was entitled Pictorial Survey--Old Fredericksburg, Virginia--Old Falmouth and Nearby Places and described as "A Series of Photographic Studies of the Architecture of the Region Dating by Tradition from Colonial Times to Circa 1830" as "An Historical Record and to Preserve Something of the Atmosphere of An Old Virginia Town." Publicity from the display prompted the University of Virginia to hire her to document its buildings and the state of North Carolina to record its architectural history. Louisiana hired Johnston to document its huge inventory of rapidly deteriorating plantations and she was given a grant in 1933 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to document Virginia's early architecture. This led to a series of grants and photographs of eight other southern states, all of which were given to the Library of Congress for public use. In December 1935, she began a year long project to capture the less evolved structures of the Colonial Era in Virginia. This was effort was intended to be a one year project, but evolved into an eight year extensive project, in which she surveyed 50,000 miles and 95 counties in Virginia. Johnston was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects for her work in preserving old and endangered buildings and her collections have been purchased by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Although her relentless traveling was curtailed by petrol rationing in the Second World War the tireless Johnston continued to photograph. Johnston acquired a home in the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1940, retiring there in 1945, where she died in 1952 at the age of eighty-eight.Source: Wikipedia
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Interview
Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Dutch photographer Jan Janssen explores universal human experiences through his long-term project It Matters, winner of the May 2025 Solo Exhibition. Begun in 2016, the series captures intimate moments of everyday life—love, loss, connection, and belonging—across Central and Eastern Europe. Working in countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, Janssen spends extended time within communities, building relationships based on trust and respect. His approach allows him to move beyond observation, revealing deeply human and authentic moments. Rooted in travel and personal discovery, It Matters reflects Janssen’s search for what connects us all in an increasingly divided world. The project is ongoing and will culminate in a photobook scheduled for publication in 2026.
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Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
German photographer Henk Kosche turns his lens toward the streets of Halle an der Saale, capturing everyday life in the late years of the former German Democratic Republic. At the time, Kosche was studying design and exploring the city with his camera, drawn to the atmosphere of its industrial landscape and the quiet rhythms of daily life. His series Street Photography at the End of the 80s, selected as the Solo Exhibition for July 2025, revisits a body of work created just before a period of profound change. Rediscovered decades later in a small box of 35mm negatives, these photographs offer glimpses of a city and its people at a moment suspended between the familiar and the unknown.
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Exclusive Interview with Anastasia Samoylova
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Anastasia Samoylova
Anastasia Samoylova is an American artist whose photographic practice is shaped by close observation and a deep attentiveness to place. Working between documentary and formal exploration, she photographs landscapes, architecture, and everyday scenes with a sensitivity to light, structure, and atmosphere. Since relocating to Miami in 2016, her work has increasingly focused on how environments—both natural and built—carry social, cultural, and emotional traces. We asked her a few questions about her practice and her way of seeing, to better understand the thoughts and experiences that shape her work—while allowing the images themselves to remain open and speak in their own time.
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Exclusive Interview with Marijn Fidder
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Marijn Fidder
Marijn Fidder is a Dutch documentary photographer whose work powerfully engages with current affairs and contemporary social issues. Driven by a deep sense of social justice, she uses photography to speak on behalf of the voiceless and to advocate for the rights of those who are most vulnerable. Her images have been widely published in major international outlets including National Geographic, CNN Style, NRC Handelsblad, Volkskrant, GUP New Talent, and ZEIT Magazin. Her long-term commitment to disability rights—particularly through years of work in Uganda—culminated in her acclaimed project Inclusive Nation, which earned her the title of Photographer of the Year 2025 at the All About Photo Awards. She is also the recipient of multiple prestigious honors, including awards from World Press Photo and the Global Peace Photo Award. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
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Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Josh S. Rose is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, film, and writing. His practice bridges visual and performing arts, with a strong focus on movement, emotion, and the expressive potential of the image. Known for his long-standing collaborations with leading dance companies and performers, Rose brings together authenticity and precise composition—a balance he describes as “technical romanticism.” His work has been commissioned and exhibited internationally, appearing in outlets such as Vogue, at the Super Bowl, in film festivals, and most recently as a large-scale installation for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. A sought-after collaborator, he has worked with major artists, cultural institutions, and brands, following a previous career as Chief Creative Officer at Interpublic Group and the founder of Humans Are Social. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
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Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
Interview
Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
Photographer Maureen Ruddy Burkhart brings a quietly attentive and deeply human sensibility to her exploration of the world through images. Shaped by a life immersed in photography, film, and visual storytelling, her work is guided by intuition, observation, and an enduring interest in the emotional undercurrents of everyday life. With a practice rooted in both fine art traditions and documentary awareness, she approaches her subjects with sensitivity, allowing subtle moments to emerge naturally rather than be imposed. Her series Til Death, selected as the Solo Exhibition for February 2025, reflects this long-standing commitment to photography as a space for reflection rather than spectacle. Drawn to moments that exist just outside the expected frame, Burkhart’s images suggest narratives without resolving them, leaving room for ambiguity, humor, and quiet connection. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
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