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Gavin Libotte
Gavin Libotte
Gavin Libotte

Gavin Libotte

Country: United Kingdom/Australia
Birth: 1969

Gavin Rene Libotte is an Australian photographer born in Kent Sussex England in 1969 and is currently based in Sydney. He studied Graphic Design, Fine Art, and Jazz Guitar in Perth Western Australia. He started photography as a teenager using film while studying graphic design. After a long break he started using iPhones to make images and then went on to use Fuji and Ricoh cameras on the streets. He became a full-time musician and educator and has recently started working as a commercial photographer part-time and spending the rest of his time working on his fine art street photography. Gavin is influenced by painters such as Gorgio De Chirico, Jeffery Smart, and Caravaggio. His photographic influences include Ray K Metzker and Alex Webb. He discovered that the practice of photography is in alignment with his meditation routine and can be used to help focus the mind and live in the present moment. Gavin is currently working on some street photography projects and is showing his work in several International Group exhibitions.

Artist Statement
I like to explore the human condition and our relationship with the world around us. The world is multidimensional and we exist not just in a physical space. My images explore our relationship with the physical and spiritual layers of the world. The fragile human condition is at play within many layers of existence. Something we don't understand but we a committed to moving through the unseen challenges that lay ahead. I am attracted to strong compositions, hard light, faces/figures and have recently started exploring flash, ICM ( intentional camera movement ) and reflections. I like to work in black and white and colour.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Damian Lemański
Damian Lemański aka Damian Wolf Wagabunda Polish freelance photojournalist documenting the life around him. He is mainly interested in people and their place in today's world - especially those left aside, on the margins of society. In 2008 he graduated from the European Academy of Photography in Warsaw - Dr Izabela Jaroszewska's school. He took part in workshops led by Kadir van Lohuizen, Pep Bonet, Tanya Habjouga, Espen Rasmussen, Stefano De Luigi, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Michael Ackerman, Lorenzo Castore. Vagabond and dreamer. At the turn of 2011 and 2012 he wandered for 181 days through South America. From this solitary expedition he edited the film 181. And in 2015 he set off on his bike from Korsze in Masuria (Poland) to Africa, to reach Dakar in Senegal after 171 days. During this expedition, together with the foundation Hear Africa, he raised money for the education of a deaf girl, Makane Dieng. From this expedition, Damian created the film Restaurant, which premiered in February 2018. In early 2019, he flew to the Greek island of Lesbos, where Europe's largest refugee camp is located, because he wanted to get to know the people that so many are afraid of without knowing them at all. For a few weeks, walking between tents in the so-called jungle next to the Moria camp (which he was not allowed into) and in other places on the island, he met hundreds of people who willingly invited him to join them around the campfire for warm tea or a meal in the tent that is currently their home, shared bread they had just baked in an oven dug into the ground, and shared heartbreaking stories. He met people who live in inhumane conditions and try to maintain their dignity, people who, having little, get offended if you don't eat enough, when they offer what they have. He also met there a wonderful Greek couple, Katerina and Nikos, who 6 days a week host the residents of the Moria and Kara Tepe camps for dinner in their restaurant and take the meals to the place. They are assisted by many volunteers, including from Poland. In October 2019, he visited Senegal again - this time to document the work of the Polish Medical Mission. At that time, he met Huleje (Little Princess) and her parents. Since 2017, every now and then he visits Lunik IX, a Roma settlement in Kosice, Slovakia, where he left his heart among the children living there. On a daily basis, he tries to love.
Nazanin Alipour Jeddi
Iran/United States
Nazanin Alipour Jeddi, known as Sitaaj, is a self-taught freelance photographer and translator born in Tehran, Iran, and currently residing in the United States. She specializes in capturing the nuanced experiences of women, exploring themes of gender, identity, and cultural dynamics. Sitaaj's photography has been exhibited internationally and recognized with multiple awards. Her work highlights the profound interplay between women's experiences and the cultural systems surrounding them, fostering dialogue and understanding through her art. In addition to her photography, Sitaaj is an accomplished translator. Her fifth translated book, Howto Be an Artist, was recently published in Tehran. Through her creative work and translations, Sitaaj seeks to inspire and empower individuals to pursue their passions, regardless of their backgrounds or circumstances. Photography remains her true passion, providing a medium to tell compelling and meaningful stories. Lingering Shadows The photography series "Lingering Shadows" is an attempt to capture the simple yet complex and hidden moments that women experience in their everyday lives. These images use the color blue to emphasize the often invisible fatigue—an endless cycle of tasks that, despite their importance, sometimes feel futile and unproductive. The dominant presence of blue conveys a deep sense of coldness and isolation. The goal of this series is to invite viewers to rethink the aspects of women's lives that often go unnoticed. Simple moments, such as drinking tea, preparing food, or a brief pause amid the daily chaos, take on new meaning in these images, representing the emptiness, futility, and underlying complexities in these seemingly ordinary experiences. These photos are not only a personal narrative but also a reflection of the collective experience of women around the world.
Hugo Thomassen
Netherlands
1972
Shadow of Truth In his search for shadow, Hugo Thomassen found light. It is not the play of light that intrigues, but the richness of shadow. The bottles are what they are, yet they inadvertently evoke associations. Are we looking at a nocturnal cityscape with figures? Are we witnessing a chance encounter, a moment frozen in time, or simply an elegant composition with one or more bottles as the photographic subject? The bottle as a shape. In actual fact, the bottle has been constructed down in minute detail. Although the associations may suggest coincidence, the composition itself makes no such assumption. After all, it was built layer by layer. Painstakingly so. It is rich in its simplicity. No expense is spared. Each line is deliberate, considered. So much is expressed through so little. Without warning, this piece sends you soaring into the void - at least it had that effect on me. The void in which there is no time, and the severity of silence reigns. From a compositional standpoint, you have no reference point for space and time. As such, you go on your instincts and create a story yourself. Or you experience it in a meditative sense. What am I feeling? Is it abandonment, bottomless loneliness? Or am I experiencing silence, light, and intimacy? The image is poetic, still, melancholy, and harmonious. Reassurance emanates from the strict imposition of order. Coincidence is out of the question. The meaning of the work is hidden in the order that it projects. The interplay of lines formed by light and shadows never becomes a labyrinth, instead forming a guide pointing out the right direction. The photo has a reassuring effect on me which does not indicate a lack of thought. It makes me wander off in my mind’s eye while deciding my own perspective. This piece puts me outside of time. I can find no links to a memory, something which photography usually excels at. The image is new, though I believe I see a shade of art history through which the influence of Giorgio de Chirico, Morandi, and Night Shadows by Edward Hopper subtly shine through. The photograph distils the bottle to its purest form. It lays bare its essence. An idea. Is it truth that we see? Reality being exposed? Or are these simply shadows created by shapes? It is this that Thomassen plays with. Is it a single photograph or a picture composed of several images, a multitude of shots? In a sense, the photographic image is attempting to transcend the flatness of the paper. Photography is the means by which Thomassen explores the world. He exposes order in chaos or reveals an event through an ordering. He is the author of a visual story. His work is a narrative without words. It is excitement without something taking place. It represents an ode to emptiness, silence, and form. The bottle as the bearer of meaning. Everything has been translated into a language that one does not necessarily need to understand, but that one feels. He finds beauty in the composition of things, of objects. Naturally, a bottle is just a bottle, but in a composition and in relation to other bottles, by sheer coincidence a story is created. Thomassen brings light and shadow as nuances to that composition. He does not impose hierarchy onto the image. The background, the negative space, is just as important as the bottle. This piece is so streamlined that there are no secondary subjects. Light and shadow are of equal importance, because they need one another. Hugo Thomassen provides a context to the bottles. It is up to the viewer to make a story out of them - or not, of course. Because what is simply a charming image to one may appear to another as a story about existence and appearances. Ludo Diels
Dirk Roseport
Belgium
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Advertising creative director and self-taught photographer. Inspired by Jem Southam, Jonathan Smith, Mark Rothko, Mies van der Rohe, Mihokajioka, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Annie Leibovitz, Asako Naharashi and new discoveries every day... Roseport focuses on projects that he fills out thematically over several years. CLOSER TO THE GODS Closer To The Gods was created during the Covid era when, like many photographers, he fell back on previously created material; inhospitable plateaus and glaciers of Iceland, the mountain landscapes of the Pyrenees and the high altitude deserts of Ladakh. In Closer To The Gods, these are portrayed hard and directly in powerful, high-contrast black-and-white photography. Nature does not invite here, she imposes. Compelling, ominous, at times almost menacing. It is a nature that impresses and often looks as if it could insidiously swallow and crush us at any moment. TRANSCENDENTAL TRANQUILITY In his project Transcendental Tranquility he brings us seascapes, distilled to their essence, authentic without any post-processing. It all has to happen in the camera. If it doesn't happen there, it goes into the trash. Sometimes the oceans are no longer recognizable and they become Rothkosian color impressions, but his goal is not to show an ocean. The point is to create a scene that induces a state of tranquility in which what is perceived as troublesome in the psyche falls away. Nature does not impose itself here, but invites the viewer to drown in it and regain the peace that we so often lack today. Roseport sees the Transcendental Tranquility project as the antithesis of the Closer To The Gods work. FADING MEMORIES Always exploring, Roseport also created the Fading Memories project that invites viewers to create their own stories. Roseport: "As time passes, memories fade. What was once sharp, clear and vivid in our minds becomes blurred. Shapes and colors disappear. Bits and pieces are gone never to return. With Fading Memories, I try to visualize this feeling of losing the details. The images take on a dreamlike surreal atmosphere. And usually we will remember what has been forgotten, more beautifully - if hard or soft - than it actually was. That's what we do. That's how we survive. In Fading Memories, I know the story behind the image. The place. The time. The people. The viewers don't. There is an analogy here with projective tests like Rorschach, when ambigious stimuli reveal hidden emotions and internal conflicts. Thanks to what the viewers don't see, the images suggest more open stories than the ones I know. More open stories than they would see if the images were intact. So their minds will create their own story. Immediately. I invite them not to stop it. Have Fading Memories challenge their imagination."
Stefano Galli
Italy
1981
Stefano Galli is an Italian photographer born in 1981. After graduating at the University of Turin, with a BA in cinema, he moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he worked with director Lars Von Trier. During these years he attended Fatamorgana, The Danish School of Art & Documentary Photography. Fascinated with traveling and the discovery of new environments, Galli is currently working on a new series that belong to a trilogy started with 'Cars' and followed by '80 Skies'. He recently terminated a non-narrative documentary-film, based on the stories of random people met along a journey through the USA. Galli exclusively works on a traditional analog way, both in his motion and still project. Currently based in Los Angeles. About '80 skies'Gazes at the sky. The beauty and power of pure light entering the camera. A project that recalls Claude Monet’s study of the influence of light on objects. Stefano Galli brings his own light studies to the extreme, focusing on the sky and its myriad variations. In “80 SKIES”, the protagonists of Galli’s frames are airplanes or - better said - the small shapes that fly over our heads daily. Because of their height in the sky and the sunlight by which they are surrounded, the shapes Galli captures become something entirely different than just giant devices that move hundreds of human beings. In many cases, the planes are insignificant elements when compared to the magnificence of the heavens. In fact, the eye of the viewer becomes lost in the contemplation of the colors, in the totality of the photographs; looking at these images, the impression of hearing the deafening noise or the usual imagery of the airplane is not perceived. Fascinated by movement and travel, Stefano Galli dedicates this project to the aircraft for the purpose of studying the sky. The result is a creative pictorial but also a tiring study that begins in the early hours of dawn and ends with the fall of the sun. Pushing 35mm negatives to the extreme through a 90mm lens, he lets the film be flooded by the infinite heavenly hue, the changing colors of the horizon sometimes grayish, or yellow and pink, the broad spectrum of colors that characterize the sky. The intensity of the light seems to struggle with the film speed, so the photographs are characterized by a thick grain that gives the picture a three-dimensional effect, as if it had been given a brushstroke.A photographic project that shows the endless variations of the light system in which we live. About 'Cars': Stefano Galli’s work documents his journey of crossing deserts, through forgotten villages, on remote and empty roads. In ‘Cars’ , geography is just as important as photography even if in his shots - distinctive sharp cuts - he leads away from the dusty streets and daily life. Galli conducts the imagination to an elsewhere where lines play with material and shape, where the tail lights and fenders are transformed into surreal and alien beings. Yet ‘Cars’ goes far beyond a mere figurative research, the work is conducted with rigor and awareness, typical of a geographer or an archivist. In fact, Stefano meticulously notates the physical location of the intersection shown in each photograph. Therefore, the project goes beyond the cult of the American car. Through this adventure, Galli tracks and defines - snap after snap - a cognitive path of the new continent. So there is an aspect that links these works to a deep investigation of American society and to aspects of decay and yet, mixed with a splendor that still dazzles. The essence of his idea lies not only in the aesthetics of the work, but also in his decision to show the layers of dust on the cars, the broken headlights and swollen wheels. In this series, a fascination with America remains. A fascination with all its vastness and complexity, which attracts and disturbs at the same time. Discover Stefano Galli's Interview
Charles Nègre
France
1820 | † 1880
Charles Nègre (French: 9 May 1820 - 16 January 1880) was a pioneering photographer, born in Grasse, France. He studied under the painters Paul Delaroche, Ingres and Drolling before establishing his own studio at 21 Quai Bourbon on the Île Saint-Louis, Paris. Delaroche encouraged the use of photography as research for painting; Nègre started with the daguerreotype process before moving on to calotypes. His "Chimney-Sweeps Walking", an albumen print taken on the Quai Bourbon in 1851, may have been a staged study for a painting, but is nevertheless considered important to photographic history for its being an early instance of an interest in capturing movement and freezing it forever in one moment. Having been passed over for the Missions Héliographiques which commissioned many of his peers, Nègre independently embarked on his own remarkably extensive study of the Midi region. The interesting shapes in his 1852 photograph of buildings in Grasse have caused it to be seen as a precursor to art photography. In 1859, he was commissioned by Empress Eugénie to photograph the newly established Imperial Asylum in the Bois de Vincennes, a hospital for disabled workingmen. He used both albumen and salt print, and was known also as a skilled printer of photographs, using a gravure method of his own development. A plan commissioned by Napoleon III to print photographs of sculpture never came to fruition, and in 1861 Nègre retired to Nice, where he made views and portraits for holiday makers. He died in Grasse in 1880.Source: Wikipedia
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