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Win a Solo Exhibition in June 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
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Debbie Smyth
Debbie Smyth
Debbie Smyth

Debbie Smyth

Country: United Kingdom
Birth: 1959

Debbie is an avid travel and documentary photographer, always on the move, with eyes and lens constantly in action. The camera allows her to tell the stories she sees, portraying both the physical and cultural aspects of the places she visits. Her working life started as researcher in the British Library Reading Rooms, moving on to designing library systems for use around Europe, and from there into the payments industry. With her daughter now grown up, exploration and photography are getting a larger share of her life. Whilst travel has been limited for the last 18 months, Debbie has had time to concentrate on her photography projects, currently focussing on the traditions and architecture of the British coast, and Cold War architecture.
 

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Isabeau De Rouffignac
I followed an artistic career path with a drawing baccalaureate, 2 years of preparatory classes at the Met de Penninghen studio, then I entered the graphic art school. This was followed by a long experience in design agencies (Design Strategy Orchestra), communication agencies (CPP) and manufacturing agencies (Vision Prod) as an employee and then as a freelancer since 1999. It is this status that will allow me to devote myself to photography, which I discovered in the 2000s. It was a revelation, and soon became obvious. Since then, I have been photographing worlds far and near, between a documentary approach and a resolutely artistic approach. A line of conduct, like a thread that runs through my work and gives it coherence: approaching the other, taming them, taking the time, learning their language, being forgotten, with a gaze that is always curious and fundamentally empathetic. Four photographic editions were born from this work. Since 2017, I devote all my time to photography. And although I have an initial training that integrates the work of the image and a long-standing photographic practice, I felt the need to go further, to question my writing, and I have therefore attended several workshops and training courses. (Arles, Cifap, Gobelins) In 2018, I became a member of Studio Hans Lucas Today, the more I advance in my artistic practice, the more I approach my projects from a documentary point of view, but with an aesthetic or even plastic approach from the start. By mixing these different ways of working on my subject, I leave the imposed categories (documentary, plastic photography, etc.) to invent my own language that allows me to convey a message (environmental, social, humanitarian, political, etc.). This is the case in my latest work in India, pleas. In Bhopal, they point out the consequences of the worst chemical disaster the world has ever known, and in Rajsamand, they tell of the difficult working conditions of the miners. Statement An intuition, a call following the reading of an article or a book, moves me from my daily life in the metropolis and I set off to meet the other. The country is always far away, the situation speaks of a reprieve. Through photography I seek an encounter with the other, the other in what is different about him, his way of life, his language, which I try as much as possible to learn in order to be in touch with him. I am looking for an encounter with a place that also has its own language that often says the impalpable, what does not always appear at first sight, a place to be deciphered. In these encounters, I also seek an encounter with myself, because the other person questions me, challenges me, shakes up my preconceptions, pushes me to question myself. In my last work on the miners of Rajasthan, I sought to pay tribute to men in pain, working in sandstone or marble quarries, working without safety clothing, for a ridiculous salary, without a work contract, and more than half of whom suffer from silicosis because they work without masks. In most of my other photographic works, I try to bear witness but also to show a cultural heritage that is on the verge of disappearing, and to talk about those who keep it alive and often fight against a progressive assimilation. Of course, the time needed for these encounters, for this acceptance by the communities in which I immerse myself, implies taking time. A lot of time. It is the only way to establish the links that open doors, give access to knowledge, beliefs, and sometimes even confidences. Learning the Hindi language has helped me to better understand the personal stories of all the men and women I have photographed, to understand the distress that lies behind their dignity. I try to document the issues through personal stories that are each unique and singular. This is what I have done here with the miners of Rajasthan, or previously with the women of Bhopal, the postmen of Rajasthan, or the Akhas of Thailand. I offer you my view, nourished by what my encounters have revealed to me, my way of documenting it, as close as possible or with distance when necessary. A view that I hope will open up the possibility of better understanding, or at least of trying. That's already a lot.
George Rodger
United Kingdom
1908 | † 1995
George Rodger was a British photojournalist and war photographer, best known for his work documenting World War II and Africa. He was born on May 20, 1908, in Hale, Cheshire, England, and began his career as a photographer in the 1930s, working for magazines such as National Geographic and Illustrated London News. In 1940, Rodger joined the British Army as a war photographer, and covered the North Africa campaign and the invasion of Sicily. He later joined the RAF and covered the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Europe. His photographs from this period captured the harsh realities of war and the human impact of the conflict. When I discovered that I could look at the horror of Belsen—4,000 dead and starving lying around—and think only of a nice photographic composition, I knew something had happened to me and it had to stop. -- George Rodger After the war, George Rodger traveled to Africa and documented the continent's people and cultures. He spent several years living and working in West Africa, and his photographs from this period captured the daily lives of the people and the beauty of the land. He also documented the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, which aimed to end British colonial rule, and the effects of the rebellion on the local population. In addition to his work as a photojournalist, Rodger was also a founding member of the Magnum Photos agency, along with other renowned photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and David "Chim" Seymour. He served as the first president of the agency and played an important role in establishing its reputation as one of the premier photographic agencies in the world. Rodger's photographs have been widely exhibited and published, and his work is held in several major museums and collections, including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. I had no contact with my contemporaries in the photographic field, nor even knowledge of their work. So I was influenced by no-one and there were no short cuts for me. I was self-taught the hard way, by trial and error... -- George Rodger Throughout his career, George Rodger always sought to document the human experience, whether it was the horrors of war or the beauty of everyday life. He believed that photography had the power to change the world and to bring about social change, and his work continues to inspire and inform photographers and photojournalists today. George Rodger passed away on July 9, 1995, in London, England. His legacy continues to inspire photographers around the world with his dedication to document the human experience, and his work remains iconic and powerful to this day.
Jeff Wall
Canada
1946
Jeff Wall's artistic technique mixes the fundamentals of photography with influences from other art forms such as painting, film, and literature. This synthesis takes place within a complex framework that he refers to as "cinematography." His wide body of work ranges from classical reporting to sophisticated constructions and montages, which are frequently performed on bigger scales typically associated with painting. Wall, who was born in 1946 in Vancouver, Canada, and still lives there, became interested in photography in the 1960s, a time when Conceptual art was popular. By the mid-1970s, he had incorporated the spirit of experimentation inherent in Conceptualism into his own style of pictorial photography. Wall's photos, created as backlit color transparencies, a method more commonly associated with advertising than fine art photography at the time, made a huge effect when displayed in galleries and museums. They had a critical influence in establishing color as an important part of photographic composition. In his early works, Wall explicitly references other artworks, creating linkages to the history of image creation. "The Destroyed Room" (1978) is inspired by Eugène Delacroix's enormous picture "The Death of Sardanapalus" (1827), which explores themes of violence and sensuality. "Picture for Women" (1979) resembles Édouard Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" (1882) while contextualizing the painting's implications within late-'70s cultural politics. These works exhibit Wall's concept of "blatant artifice," which emphasizes the theatricality of both the subject and the production. One important part of Wall's body of work is "near documentary," which are pictures that mimic documentary style but are made in conjunction with the people they include. Wall's method of using nonprofessional models, which captures ordinary moments with complex meanings, is reminiscent of the neorealism of Italian cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. Wall explores formal and dramatic possibilities, delving into the meanings and affects of documentary photography by depicting events that were seen but not captured on camera at the time. Since the mid-1990s, Wall has expanded his artistic repertoire, incorporating traditional black-and-white prints and, more recently, inkjet color prints into his evolving body of work.
Richard Learoyd
United Kingdom
1966
Richard Learoyd was born in the small mill town of Nelson, Lancashire, England in 1966. At the age of 15, his mother insisted he take a pinhole photography workshop, which he attributes as the start of his interest in photography. In 1990 he graduated from the Glasgow School of Art with a degree in Fine Art Photography. While there he studied with American photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper. In 1991 Learoyd was awarded an artist-in-residence at the Scottish Ballet. Learoyd taught photography at Bournemouth and Poole College from 1994 until 1999. In 2000, he moved to London where he worked as a commercial photographer. Source: Wikipedia Richard Learoyd’s color images are made with one of the most antiquarian of photographic processes: the camera obscura. Literally translated from Latin as “dark room,” Learoyd has created a room-sized camera in which the photographic paper is exposed. The subject—often a person, sometimes a still life—is in the adjacent room, separated by a lens. Light falling on the subject is directly focused onto the photographic paper without an interposing film negative. The result is an entirely grainless image. The overall sense of these larger-than-life images redefines the photographic illusion. Learoyd’s subjects, composed simply and directly, are described with the thinnest plane of focus, re-creating and exaggerating the way that the human eye perceives, and not without a small acknowledgement to Dutch Master painting. Learoyd’s black-and-white gelatin silver contact prints are made using the negative/positive process invented roughly 170 years ago by Englishman W. H. Fox Talbot. Working with a large and portable camera obscura of his own construction, Learoyd has journeyed outside of his London studio, into the art-historically rich English countryside, along the California coast, and throughout Eastern Europe, producing images that have long been latent in his imagination. The negatives are up to 80 inches wide, resulting in the largest gelatin-silver contact prints ever made. In 2015, Aperture released Richard Learoyd: Day for Night, a comprehensive book of color portraits and studio work, and concurrently, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London mounted a his first solo museum exhibition, Dark Mirror. In 2016, the J. Paul Getty Museum opened a solo exhibition of his large-scale portrait and still-life photographs, which then traveled to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. In 2019, a survey exhibition will open at Fundación MAPFRE in Spain. Learoyd’s work is included in the collections of The Getty, Tate, Victoria & Albert Museum, Centre Pompidou, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum, National Gallery of Canada, and Yale University Art Gallery, among others. Source: Fraenkel Gallery
Anka Zhuravleva
Russia
1980
Anka (born Anna Belova) was born on December 4, 1980. She spent her childhood with books on art and her mothers’ drawing tools, covering acres of paper with her drawings. In 1997 she entered the Moscow Architectural Institute deciding to follow in her mothers’ footsteps. But at the end of 1997 her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died in less that a year. Then her father died in 1999. After that Anka’s life changed dramatically. In attempt to keep sane, she plunged into an alternative lifestyle – working as a tattoo artist, singing in a rock-band, sometimes looking for escape in alcohol. In order to make a living while studying, Anka worked at several modeling agencies. Thanks to the drawing lessons she wasn’t afraid to pose nude, and her photos appeared in the Playboy and XXL magazines and at the Playboy 1999 photo exhibition. But she was not looking for a modeling career – it was just a way to make some money. In 2001 Anka was working in the post-production department at the Mosfilm StudiosThat same winter one of her colleagues invited her to spend a weekend in Saint-Petersburg with his friend, composer and musician Alexander Zhuravlev. In less than a month Anka said farewell to Moscow, her friends, her Mosfilm career and moved in with Alexander in Saint-Petersburg. Living with her loved one healed her soul, and she regained the urge for painting. She made several graphic works and ventured into other areas of visual arts. In 2002 Gavriil Lubnin, the famous painter and her husband’s friend, showed her the oil painting technique, which she experimented with for the following several years. During that period she made just a few works because each one required unleashing of a serious emotional charge. All those paintings are different as if created by different people. Anka’s first exhibition took place on a local TV channel live on the air - the studio was decorated with her works. Several exhibitions followed. Private collections in Russia and abroad feature her paintings and sketches. In 2006 Anka noticed that her inspiration often came from photos and decided to take up photography. Since that time Anka took part in numerous projects - magazine publications and covers, book and CD covers, exhibitions. She is engage in digital photo art and analog film photography as well. In 2013 Anka with her husband moves to live in Porto, Portugal. Source: anka-zhuravleva.com Interview With Anka Zhuravleva All About Photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? Anka Zhuravleva: "I always was about visual arts so I can't name exact date or year.. But I turned to photography completely in 2010." AAP: Where did you study photography? AZ: "I am self-educated. I took some individual workshops dedicated to analog processes but it was technical things." AAP:Do you have a mentor? AZ: "No." AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it? AZ: "I was 6 years.. I shot horses with small film lomo-camera." AAP: What or who inspires you? AZ: "Life, everything I got around me, my dreams, interesting people, my husband's music." AAP: How could you describe your style? AZ: "I have no special style. Different series in different styles." AAP:Do you have a favorite photograph or series? AZ: "No, I love them all!" AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film? AZ: "A lot... And they are changing all the time. Digital 35mm, film medium format, vintage cameras and cameras made by my husband. About 20 different lens, modern ones and vintage brass ones as well." AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose? AZ: "It depends. I always edit digital a lot to reach exactly that tone and mood wich I need. And I also do analog process in darkroom without any computer at all." AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)? AZ: "This is a difficult question..." AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer? AZ: "To keep eyes wide open." AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid? AZ: "I don't know... Everybody make mistakes. I suppose it's important not "not making" mistakes, but learn after doing mistakes." AAP: The compliment that touched you most? AZ: "When people telling me that my pictures bring their mind, fantasy and soul to childhood or let them think about miracles.. Or making a good mood..." AAP: If you were someone else who would it be? AZ: "Hum... Maybe a baker? Just joking, I don't know..."
Costanza Rossi
Costanza Rossi is an Italian-born documentary and travel photographer whose work explores remote and indigenous communities around the world. Dividing her time between Italy, the UK, and extended travels, she has developed a practice rooted in cultural storytelling and human connection. Her photographs are the result of immersive fieldwork in some of the most isolated places on earth, from the nomadic herders of northern Mongolia to the tribes of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, the Amazon rainforest, or the Darién Gap. Costanza’s work has appeared in both solo and collective exhibitions, with venues such as the History Museum of Salento and the Paris Imagination Gallery. She is the co-author of I mondi nascosti dei popoli Surma (Pensa Editore, 2025) and the editor and curator of the forthcoming Anthropology & Photography Quarterly published by the History Museum of Salento. Her practice combines her professional background in communication and branding with a passion for documenting humanity in its many forms, always seeking to highlight resilience, dignity, and alternative ways of living. Artist Statement My photography is driven by a curiosity for different worlds and the many ways humanity can be expressed. I seek out communities that exist at the edges of globalization, where traditions, rituals, and identities have been preserved against the current of modernity. I am an avid traveler, fueled by the excitement and wonder that arise when I encounter cultures so different from my own. This sense of discovery and the adrenaline of confronting unfamiliar realities inspire me to keep searching, documenting both diverse traditions and pressing social issues. I approach people’s lives with empathy, building stories that honor their uniqueness. I am drawn to subjects that challenge conventional narratives, and what unites my projects is a search for visual storytelling that sparks both recognition and wonder: images that remind us of our shared humanity, while revealing the beauty of cultural difference. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 36, 2025
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AAP Magazine #58 B&W
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