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Win a Solo Exhibition in June 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
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Silvia Alessi
Silvia Alessi
Silvia Alessi

Silvia Alessi

Country: Italy
Birth: 1975

I was born in Bergamo, Italy in 1975. I have worked as a hairstylist and make-up artist since I was 17. In 2004, while on a trip to Asia, I discovered an interest in reportage photography. I have since travelled extensively pursuing my passion for photography and “telling stories worthy of being told.” My process is a blend of artistic expression and reportage, inspired by an openness to diverse cultures and traditions.

Blending this openness with curiosity and artistic expression has allowed me to produce award-winning photography.

For many months before travelling to my chosen destination, I research and develop my concept, considering particularly the social context. I also consider deeply the question of finding the appropriate visual language to render the concept beautifully.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

James Peaslee
United States
1952
Oksana Omelchuk
Ukraine
1983
Oksana Omelchuk is a Kyiv-based visual artist and fine-art photographer whose practice moves between photography, scanography, and digital art. Her journey began with fine art: she studied painting, drawing, sculpture, and applied arts for six years at an art school before pursuing a degree in economics. Photography came later, almost by accident: she first appeared in front of the camera as a model for a friend studying at the Kyiv School of Photography. Curious to learn how to see through the lens herself, she joined the school in 2021, just to take pictures for pleasure. But soon, photography became her main artistic language. She continues her studies at Form, an international educational platform for photographic education, based in France. Through experimentation, she discovered that her true signature lies in drawing: in the imaginative world she had as a child, now translated into contemporary visual form. Her works are not about the moment, but about emotion - each object, whether a flower, an X-ray, or a fragment of furniture, becomes a character carrying a feeling. Oksana creates intuitively, following emotion more than perfection, balancing analysis and spontaneity. Her process is like opening a piano lid before improvisation: uncertain, yet full of discovery. Inspired by music and Renaissance painting, she builds delicate color harmonies that reflect both control and freedom. Her recurring themes explore the anatomy of feelings and the dreamlike dialogue between tenderness and strength. Statement: Art has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. What began with painting in childhood has evolved into a visual language that moves between photography and digital art. I am drawn to the moment where reality dissolves into imagination. Instead of brushes, I use light, scans, and digital tools - painting emotions rather than objects, reinterpreting the visible world through the colors of my inner states. My process is intuitive, experimental, and deeply emotional. I often begin with a photograph and then layer it with digital textures, hand-drawn traces, or scanned materials, allowing the image to transform organically: from documentation into a state of feeling. I explore memory, transformation, and perception - how fragility and strength coexist in a single gesture. For me, art is a quiet dialogue with the world: a way to speak without words, to hold tenderness and truth in the same breath. Articles: AAP Magazine 51 Colors The Garden of My Tenderness
Jared Ragland
United States
1977
Jared Ragland is a fine art and documentary photographer and former White House photo editor. He currently teaches and coordinates exhibitions and community programs in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is at work on a long-term documentary on methamphetamine users living in northeast Alabama. He is the photo editor of National Geographic Books' "The President's Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office," and has worked on assignment for NGOs in the Balkans, the former Soviet Bloc, East Africa and Haiti. His photographic work is rooted in his lifelong exposure to the landscapes, people, aesthetics, and storytelling traditions of the American South, and his work has been exhibited internationally and featured by The Oxford American, The New York Times, and TIME Magazine. Jared is an alumni of LaGrange College and a 2003 graduate of Tulane University with an MFA in Photography. He resides in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Statement: The rise in use of methamphetamine across the United States over the last decade has led to increased cultural anxiety about the drug and those who use it, while the general perception of the meth-head is perpetuated by popular television programs and pervasive anti-meth campaigns. These limited representations typically paint one-dimensional, demonized characters whose chronic drug use is epitomized by obsessiveness, paranoia, and monstrous physical side effects. But while there are certainly deleterious consequences to meth use and stereotypes often ring too true, existing cultural narratives too often fall short of more complex, individually considered realities. Photographed over 18 months in collaboration with University of Alabama at Birmingham sociologist Heith Copes, Ph.D., GOOD BAD PEOPLE documents the tumultuous lives of meth users from Sand Mountain, a sandstone plateau in northeast Alabama infamous for extreme poverty, poultry processing plants, Pentecostal snake-handlers, and meth production. The images simultaneously reinforce and undermine assumptions of what it means to be a methamphetamine user and present an intimate look into the lives of those who struggle amidst drug use and diminished social status.
Richard Le Manz
For this engineer and self-taught photographer born in Spain in 1971, photography is equally essential both, to communicate the beauty and to reflect on the complex socio-environmental issues, which threaten our planet. He started in photography making landscape photography, but depicting nature is not enough. Pictures of great landscapes may not be the best way to move consciences and change our values and morals. His photography becomes what some journalist called "Philography", photography to philosophize, photography to make people think, to reflect. Photography used as a mean for expressing ideas, transmission of messages, and provoking reactions. Photography as a means to let out the images generated in his mind, imagination and creativity. For this purpose, the artist uses both the object and various photographic techniques like expression way, to delve into the plot of reflection, ideas and dreams. Photography to transmit a clear message, sometimes critical. His landscape photographs begin to turn to black and white and later they go unstructuring seeking to convey a clearer message. One of the first projects in which the search for new forms of expression begins is the "Unstructured Sunset" project that can be seen in this brief presentation. After receiving numerous national and international awards, he present in 2018 his first major project "Habitat, beyond photography", moving from local exhibitions to being invited to international festivals. In 2019 I present this project, together with the most recent "In Our Hands" at the Xposure International Photography festival in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates); different projects but both focuses on the future of our planet. The work "Habitat, beyond photography" explores the relationship between development and nature, between development and the environment and especially between the world of automotive and the environment. It focuses on the serious problem of the mobility habits of today's society, traffic and pollution. It uses internal elements of the explosion engine, (intake valves, exhaust valves, spark plugs, camshafts, injectors, timing chain, and so on) transforming and stamping these objects with a new meaning, creating visual metaphors where nothing is as it seems. In "In Our Hands" he uses multiple exposure in camera without digital manipulation to create images that show a stubborn reality, we are nature and his future is in our hands.
Colin Jones
United Kingdom
1936
Colin Jones is an English ballet dancer-turned-photographer and prolific photojournalist of post-war Britain. Jones documented facets of social history as diverse as the vanishing industrial working lives of the North East coalfields, Grafters, delinquent Afro-Caribbean youth in London, The Black House, hedonistic 1960s Swinging London with pictures of The Who early in their career, the 1963 race riots in Alabama, Soviet Leningrad, and remnants of a rural Britain now lost to history. Jones was born in 1936. He experienced a war childhood; his father, a Poplar, East End printer, went away as a soldier on the Burma campaign. Jones' family was evacuated to Essex and he attended a succession of thirteen schools whilst struggling with dyslexia, before the age of sixteen, when he took up ballet lessons. In 1960 Jones was called up for national service and served in the Queen's Royal Regiment. Fresh out of the army, Colin joined the Royal Opera House, later moving to the Touring Royal Ballet and embarked on a nine-month world tour. Jones met, and for four years was married to, the great ballerina Lynn Seymour. Whilst on tour and running an errand for Dame Margot Fonteyn, he purchased his first camera, a Leica 3C rangefinder, in 1958 and started taking photographs of the dancers and backstage life during the Australian leg of the circuit. Jones admired the available-light backstage photography of Michael Peto, a Hungarian émigré, who agreed to mentor him. Colin Jones took advantage of the ballet company's travel to photograph extensively in the streets of Tokyo, Hong Kong and the Gorbals, Glasgow in 1961. Driving with fellow dancers from Newcastle to Sunderland that year, he saw, north of Birmingham, coal searchers on the spoil-heaps. In 1962, having changed his career to become a photographer for The Observer he returned to produce a series of photographs recording the vanishing industrial working poor and mining communities in the North East of England, later publishing the essay as the book Grafters. At The Observer he worked alongside photographers Philip Jones Griffiths and Don McCullin. He worked in Fleet Street for several years before turning freelance. Commissioned assignments took him to New York City in 1962; Liverpool docks in 1963; the race riots in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, where he made portraits of both 'Bull' Connor, and Dr Martin Luther King in 1963; Leningrad, USSR in 1964. In 1966 he photographed the British rock band The Who at the beginning of their career, and Pete Townshend, then Mick Jagger in 1967. He travelled to the Philippines in 1969 where he photographed the sex trade. He portrayed significant dancers, including Rudolph Nureyev for several publications. Jones’ work has been published in major publications including Life, National Geographic, Geo and Nova as well as many supplements for major broadsheet newspapers, most prominently The Times, who dubbed Jones "The George Orwell of British photography". In his later career he covered assignments around the world, including Jamaica in 1978; the indigenes of the New Hebrides and Zaire in 1980; Tom Waits in New York, 1981; San Blas Islands in 1982; Ireland in 1984; Xian, China in 1985; Ladakh in northern India 1994 and Bunker Hill, Kansas in 1996. Solo exhibitions have been devoted to his work: The Black House: Colin Jones at The Photographers' Gallery in London, 4 May – 4 June 1977 as well as at many other galleries. Martin Harrison’s Young Meteors associated Jones with other important British photographers including Don McCullin and Terence Donovan. In 2013 the Victoria and Albert Museum acquired three of Jones' historic photographs from The Black House series, along with a photograph by Dennis Morris depicting the original Black House associated with Michael X, both acquired as part of Staying Power, a five year partnership between the V&A and Black Cultural Archives, preserving black British experience from the 1950s to the 1990s through photographs and oral histories. The Arts Council also purchased his work.Source: Wikipedia The art of photography remains so fascinating because of the individuals who arrive from unexpected places and take the medium through a lifetime of changes. The career of Colin Jones has a startling trajectory. He was born in 1936, in time to be a war child, a father away as a soldier, and 13 different schools. An element of chance, as well as talent, led to a scholarship at the Royal Ballet School. The moment that defined Jones's later life occurred as he was driving with fellow-dancers from Newcastle to Sunderland one day in 1961. Travelling north of Birmingham and seeing the winding gear of coalmines had always excited Jones, who was steeped in the books of George Orwell, but now he saw the extraordinary drama of spoil-heaps swarming with coal searchers - an epic of reality and survival. Colin Jones is one of the most celebrated and prolific photographers of post-war Britain. He has documented facets of social history over the years as diverse as the vanishing industrial working lives of the Northeast (Grafters), delinquent Afro-Caribbean youth in London (The Black House), and most recently, the high-octane hedonism of Swinging London with his famous pictures of The Who early in their career. His work has been published in every major publication with any regard for the image and photography. Such as Life, and National Geographic, as well as many supplements for the major broadsheets. He has had solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and at the Photographers Gallery in London, as well as at many other venues internationally.Source: Michael Hoppen Gallery
Phil Stern
United States
1919 | † 2014
Phil Stern was an American photographer noted for his iconic portraits of Hollywood stars, as well as his war photography while serving as a U.S. Army Ranger with "Darby's Rangers" during the North African and Italian campaigns in World War II. Settling in Los Angeles after the war, Stern was staff photographer for Look magazine. He also worked for Life magazine and Collier's. He was present on numerous film productions as still photographer, and in that capacity took photographs of a huge cross-section of the film community. Stern's images of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Marlon Brando and even musician Louis Armstrong have become widely recognized icons. A lifelong smoker, Stern died at the age of 95 in Los Angeles from COPD and congestive heart failure which he had been battling for over three and a half decades.Source: Wikipedia I’ve taken mountains and mountains of stuff, which I occasionally describe as mountains and mountains of shit. It so happens, there’s a little gem here and a little gem there. You dig out those gems. -- Phil Stern Phil Stern created portraits of stars of the silver screen – including James Dean, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe – that were both iconic and intimate. His subjects looked natural, even self-absorbed or introverted. The lower half of his most famous portrait of James Dean (1955) is a black cable-knit jumper; the upper half reveals Dean’s face only from halfway up his ears. His eyes are rolled up, framed by straight eyebrows. The white plane of Dean’s forehead under a shiny shock of tousled hair, and the pale background, inevitably draw attention to those mischievous eyes, bisecting the frame and challenging the viewer. By contrast, one 1953 image of Marilyn Monroe shows her as wistful and withdrawn, looking into the distance with an air of abstraction, her hands nervously fingering the loosened bow at the waist of her gown. As Stern told Entertainment Weekly in 1993: “I was never interested in the glamour, I was interested in the tears and agony behind it.” His friendship with John Wayne gave him access to perhaps his most subversively casual image. It shows Wayne lighting up, eyeline going straight to a woman’s bared leg. But it’s not what he’s doing but what he’s wearing that draws the viewer’s eye: the cowboy hat and loose jacket conform to type, but below the waist the over-constricting gingham shorts, plump legs and girly espadrilles are a risible disaster. Stern’s pictures of musicians are very different in character. Formal ones – such as of the Rat Pack on stage in 1962 – are mainly of lineups. One senses his preference for the moodiness of Sinatra alone, shot from behind and dressed – as if by Raymond Chandler – in a hat and long mackintosh, pacing down a bleakly dirty corridor towards a dead end. Another Rat Pack member, Sammy Davis Jr, performed a rooftop diamond-shaped jump. Despite his tightly drawn up (and shiny) brogues, his white outfit and right-angled arms with their delicately spread fingers are reminiscent of a Hindu dancer (1947). Stern loved jazz, and he photographed Louis Armstrong in a coincidentally similar pose, not jumping but perched on a stool, trumpet upended on his knee as he looks down and laughs into his chest (1957). Stern enjoyed the image so much that he made a lifesize cardboard cutout of it, and had his own portrait taken alongside. A less artfully composed shot shows Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald together, in full swing, singing at a studio recording. There was more to Stern’s career than showbiz, however. He enlisted as a combat photographer in the second world war, and won a Purple Heart for his courage and willingness to risk his life picturing infantrymen under fire. Stern documented US troops advancing through north Africa, and was invalided home with severe shrapnel wounds to his arms and neck. In 1943 he returned to cover the Allied invasion of Sicily for Stars and Stripes, the US army magazine. According to his biographer, the journalist Herbert Mitgang: “His pictures of the invasion and its aftermath remain among the most outstanding documents in the annals of combat photography in any war, before or since.” The postwar decades saw a media boom: the heyday of photo magazines and blockbuster movies aimed at a predominantly young mass audience. Stern rode the publicity of a new generation of stars who became, at least in part through his attention, poster pinups. Interviewed later by the Los Angeles Times, he mused on his transfer from war to celebrity photography. “ [The war] very well might have helped me get access ... I don’t really know for sure, because some of them wanted publicity so bad that you didn’t have to have a Purple Heart for that. All you had to have was an expensive camera.”Source: The Guardian Look, Matisse I ain’t. You know how they have on the invitations, “a reception for the artist will be held at...” And I say, “Look, you gotta change this. I’m not an artist. I’m a photographer, a skilled craftsman.” -- Phil Stern
Milos Nejezchleb
Czech Republic
1978
The Czech photographer Miloš Nejezchleb was born in 1978. He lives in the Czech Republic and has got three children. He has only been involved in conceptual photography since 2016; however, he has already won several prestigious international awards. He is the absolute winner of the Fine Art Photography Award in London (2021), where he won the FINE ART PHOTOGRAHER OF THE YEAR title. He is the winner of the Malta International Photo Award (2020), two-time gold medalist in the Trierenberg Super Circuit competition in Linz and he is also, among others, silver medalist in IPA 2021 - International Photography Award. The most characteristic features of his photographs are noticeably colorful elements with a clear focus on the art of photography. Miloš often chooses current social topics, which he processes as stories using photographic series. These stories are narrated by people. He works on such series on his own and ensures the entire Art direction. He himself designs styling, looks for locations and carries out post-production. Besides conceptual art, where he points out currently discussed topics, Miloš has 2long-term thematic photographic cycles which document stories of real people. The most famous of them is photographic cycle "Stronger", in which Milos takes photos of people who have gone through hard times in their lives, and thanks to this experience they have become stronger personalities. Milos is at the beginning of his photographic career. He was fascinated by art photography when he bought his first camera. It happened before the birth of his first daughter. He is currently working on other production-intensive projects.
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Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Carolyn Moore
American photographer Carolyn Moore explores the inner landscape of emotion, memory, and personal transformation through a deeply intuitive photographic practice. Her work unfolds as a quiet dialogue between artist and viewer, where images become a space for reflection, vulnerability, and connection.
Exclusive Interview with Luca Desienna and Laura Estelle Barmwoldt
For over seven years, Of Lilies and Remains has explored the depths of the goth and darkwave underground, unfolding in Leipzig—a city long associated with a vibrant and enduring subcultural scene. Moving between iconic gatherings such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen and more intimate moments on the fringes, the project offers a rare and immersive glimpse into a world often misunderstood, yet rich in expression and community. Created by Luca in collaboration with Laura Estelle Barmwoldt, the work embraces a cinematic and deeply personal approach. Rather than documenting from a distance, it moves within the scene itself, capturing its atmosphere, its codes, and its quiet contradictions. The title Of Lilies and Remains hints at this duality—where beauty and darkness, fragility and strength coexist. As the book prepares for its release, we spoke with both artists about the origins of the project, their process, and what it means to document a subculture that continues to evolve while remaining true to its spirit.
Exclusive Interview with Matthew Finley
American photographer Matthew Finley turns inward, using photography as a way to explore identity, memory, and emotional truth. Based in Los Angeles, his practice moves between performance, gesture, and found imagery, creating a visual language that is both intimate and deeply personal
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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