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FINAL DAYS TO ENTER AAP MAGAZINE B&W: PUBLICATION AND $1,000 CASH PRIZES
FINAL DAYS TO ENTER AAP MAGAZINE B&W: PUBLICATION AND $1,000 CASH PRIZES
Elmira Sturki
Elmira Sturki
Elmira Sturki

Elmira Sturki

Country: Ukraine
Birth: 1991

My name is Elmira Sturki, I was born in 1991, a difficult year for Ukraine, in Donetsk. From the age of 15 I dreamed of becoming a photographer, my priorities were constantly changing. I wanted to shoot wildlife, become a photojournalist and even a war photojournalist.

In 2014, the war came into our lives and I had to move to Kyiv, where photography faded into the background. By that time, I had chosen a family and stability. Therefore, the idea of ​​becoming a military photojournalist remained a dream. Who knew it would become so relevant.

Today, living in military Kyiv, having a small child, I try to help civilians, covering what is happening from the inside.

Memories of a past calm life do not let me give up, and faith in a bright future pushes me to take action and broadcast the beautiful.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Paul Strand
United States
1890 | † 1976
Paul Strand was born in New York City. As a teenager, he was a student of renowned documentary photographer Lewis Hine at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. A visit to Gallery 291 (owned by Alfred Stieglitz) proved to be a strong influence on Strand, who began to take photographs of his own. He experimented with abstraction but also used his camera as a means to promote social reform. Alfred Stieglitz praised these early efforts and featured Strand's work in his gallery and in his magazine Camera Work. In the early 1920s, Strand began to work in motion pictures as well as still photography. In June 1949, Strand left the United States to present a film in Czechoslovakia, an event which marked the beginning of his self-imposed exile overseas due to the prevailing climate of McCarthyism in America. He settled in Orgeval, France and in the ensuing years photographed extensively, and also produced six book "portraits" of places: Time in New England (1950), La France de Profil (1952), Un Paese (1955), Tir a'Mhurain / Outer Hebrides (1962), Living Egypt (1969) and Ghana: An African Portrait (1976).Source: Robert Mann Gallery Strand married the painter Rebecca Salsbury on January 21, 1922. He photographed her frequently, sometimes in unusually intimate, closely cropped compositions. After divorcing Salsbury, Strand married Virginia Stevens in 1935. They divorced in 1949; he then married Hazel Kingsbury in 1951 and they remained married until his death in 1976. The timing of Strand's departure to France is coincident with the first libel trial of his friend Alger Hiss, with whom he maintained a correspondence until his death. Although he was never officially a member of the Communist Party, many of Strand's collaborators were either Party members (James Aldridge; Cesare Zavattini) or prominent socialist writers and activists (Basil Davidson). Many of his friends were also Communists or suspected of being so (Member of Parliament D. N. Pritt; film director Joseph Losey; Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid; actor Alex McCrindle). Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than 20 organizations that were identified as "subversive" and "un-American" by the US Attorney General. When he was asked by an interviewer why he decided to go to France, Strand began by noting that in America, at the time of his departure, "McCarthyism was becoming rife and poisoning the minds of an awful lot of people." During the 1950s, and owing to a printing process that was reportedly only available in that country at the time, Strand insisted that his books be printed in Leipzig, East Germany, even if it meant they were initially banned in the American market on account of their Communist provenance. Following Strand's move to Europe, it was later revealed in de-classified intelligence files, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and now preserved at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, that he was closely monitored by security services.Source: Wikipedia
Ralph Steiner
United States
1899 | † 1986
Ralph Steiner was an American photographer, pioneer documentarian and a key figure among avant-garde filmmakers in the 1930s. Born in Cleveland, Steiner studied chemistry at Dartmouth, but in 1921 entered the Clarence H. White School of Modern Photography. White helped Steiner in finding a job at the Manhattan Photogravure Company, and Steiner worked on making photogravure plates of scenes from Robert Flaherty's 1922 Nanook of the North. Not long after, Steiner's work as a freelance photographer in New York began, working mostly in advertising and for publications like Ladies' Home Journal. With fellow graduate Anton Bruehl (1900–1982), in 1925, they opened a studio on 47th Street, producing a narrative series of amusing table-top shots of three cut‑out figures dressed in suits for The New Yorker magazine; advertisements for Weber and Heilbroner menswear in a running weekly series. Their client was wiped out in the Wall Street Crash. Through the encouragement of fellow photographer Paul Strand, Steiner joined the left-of-center Film and Photo League around 1927. He was also to influence the photography of Walker Evans, giving him guidance, technical assistance, and one of his view cameras. Steiner's still photographs are notable for their odd angles, abstraction and sometimes bizarre subject matter; the 1944 image Gypsy Rose Lee and Her Girls is sometimes mistaken for Weegee. His experimental films, however, are considered central to the literature of early American avant-garde cinema, and the influence of Ralph Steiner's visual style continues to assert itself; for example, contemporary avant-garde filmmaker Timoleon Wilkins cites Steiner as an inspiration. In his appreciation of Steiner, author Scott McDonald expands that list to include Dorsky, Andrew Noren, Larry Gottheim and Peter Hutton. The links between the first generation of American avant-garde filmmakers such as Steiner with the second – exemplified by Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage and others – are few, but Steiner is among those who managed to bridge the gap.Source: Wikipedia At the end of the 1960s Steiner relocated to Vermont. After making three more films he devoted himself to photographing clouds for nearly twenty years, primarily on the coast of Maine and in Oaxaca, Mexico. Clouds have been of longstanding interest to painters throughout the history of art. In photography, the subject is often associated with Alfred Stieglitz, who made photographs of clouds entitled Equivalents, believing them to appeal directly to the subconscious mind. Steiner similarly saw the evocative potential in cloud formations, although he felt the meaning of any given image was far more mercurial than his predecessor. Leaving his works deliberately untitled, he invites viewers to use their imaginations and provide their own titles, which, in his estimation, becomes a process of testing out different descriptions and metaphors. In 1985, shortly before his death, Steiner published a book of these studies, In Pursuit of Clouds.Source: MoCP
R.J. Kern
United States
1978
Edouard Boubat
France
1923 | † 1999
Edouard Boubat (September 13, 1923, Paris, France – June 30, 1999, Paris) was a French art photographer. Boubat was born in Montmartre, Paris. He studied typography and graphic arts at the Ecole Estienne, and then worked for a printing company before becoming a photographer after WWII. He took his first photograph in 1946 and was awarded the Kodak Prize the following year. Afterwards he travelled the world for the magazine Réalités. The French poet Jacques Prévert called him a "Peace Correspondent." His son Bernard is also a photographer. Source: Wikipedia Edouard Boubat was born in Montmartre, Paris in 1923. He studied typography and graphic arts at the Ecole Estienne. Edouard Boubat's interest in photography began after World War II. Public collections that hold his work include Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.Source: Jackson Fine Art Édouard Boubat, France’s most famous romantic photographer, was born in Paris on September 13, 1923. He grew up on the Rue Cyrano-de-Bergerac, Montmartre. As the son of an army chef, he heard many tales of the Great War, in which his father served as a cook on the front lines and was wounded three times. In 1938, Boubat attended the École Estienne, where he studied to become a photo-engraver, but in 1943, he was called up to serve two years of compulsory labour in a factory in Leipzig, Germany. Upon his return to Paris in 1946, Boubat sold his six-volume dictionary to fund the purchase of his first camera, a 6x6 Rolleicord. Boubat's approach to photography was deeply affected by World War II: "Because I know war… because I know the horror, I don’t want to add to it... After the war, we felt the need to celebrate life, and for me photography was the means to achieve this." Spanning a 50 year career, Boubat's photographs do just that. They celebrate the beauty, simplicity, and little things in life. His first professional photograph was taken in the Jardin du Luxembourg in 1946, “Little Girl with Dead Leaves,” a charming and magical shot. The following year, at the age of 24, Boubat exhibited the picture at the Salon International de la Photographie organized by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and was awarded the Kodak Prize. It was an amazing start to his career. The same year that he bought the Rolleicord Boubat met his future wife, Lella, of whom he took some of the most beautiful and emblematic photographs of the 20th century. In 1950, Boubat’s work was initially published by the Swiss magazine Caméra. Soon after, he became acquainted with the artistic director of the French magazine Realités. From then on, Boubat traveled the world for the prestigious magazine. His assignments often took him to poor and desolate regions, but Boubat still managed to capture only love and beauty. His special gift as a photojournalist was finding the common thread that linked the everyday life of people everywhere. For Boubat, photography meant meeting his fellow man. He loved to photograph humanity; his images bear witness to the specific relationship he had with his subjects, on which he commented: "We are living photographs. Photography reveals the images within us." In 1968, Boubat left Realités magazine, but continued to work on an independent basis. He tirelessly sought to bring the emotion and beauty of life to our gaze. Considered an heir of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” photography, Boubat had a rare talent for capturing those fleeting, magical moments that can only be immortalized by the confident eye of a true master. Boubat died in 1999 in Paris, leaving behind a remarkable collection of photography, on which he often philosophized: "Over a lifetime I have noticed that everything is woven together by chance encounters and special moments," he said. "A photograph gives you a deep insight into a moment, it recalls a whole world."Source: Duncan Miller Gallery
Rosita Delfino
I started getting interested in photography in 2009 and since then I have been emotionally struck by the picture's power of communication. Photography is a dimension where pictures enhance the words and become means of expression of our inner world, through the filter of our eyes they have the power of changing the reality. It is a never ending dialogue between appearing and being, a wonderful journey in the female dimension, where the body is no more bound to space and time but opens to a dreamlike atmosphere. I often think of a sentence by Francesca Woodman, 'you'll get excited when looking at an image but you'll never know what's behind it'.Rosita DelfinoAll about Rosita Delfino:AAP: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?In 2009 I realized that the camera has a big power for communicating the feelings of my soul. So I decided to start taking pictures. When I take picture I feel free.AAP: What or who inspires you?I bought a lot of photographic books and I was amazed by Francesca Woodman, Christy Lee Rogers, Alexei Vassiliev's pictures and so on. They express the concepts of their soul through a non-objective representation of the reality, where the time is hanging and feelings, fears, desires are mixed. I find myself through the style of these photographers.AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images?I usually work with a photographic project. Using digital editing I feel in front of a painting and I create the pictures depending on my state of soul and it takes a lot of time.AAP: An idea, a sentence, a project you would like to share?I imagine myself in this Francesca Woodman's sentence: "Ti ecciterai osservando un'immagine ma non saprai mai cosa vi è dietro". ("You will be excited seeing a picture, but you'll never know what is behind that.")
Laurent De Gebhardt
My childhood and adolescence were nourished by painting galleries and museums. Portrait and nude were my preference. After my studies, I crossed the Sahara and moved to the African bush for 2 years as a teacher then moved to Reunion Island where I began to make photo reports for NGOs. For a few years now, I have developed personal projects in artistic residency, mainly oriented towards the intimate and the portrait. My inner universe is imbued with a quest for an "original state" prior to any injury. The face is very often a revealing which does not deceive of this interior state and this quest specific to each one. Fascinated by the energy given off by the expression of a face, my work tries to draw closer with portraits to the reading of these inner states, perhaps to find my own way. Taxidermus Taxidermus is a series produced with the staff of the St-Denis Natural History Museum (Reunion Island). I wanted to play with the same characteristic codes of the first photos of the 19th century. The characters created posed with studied seriousness, in classic postures based on carefully chosen elements: armchair, desk, mirror, easel... Adventure and travel stories nourished my imagination from childhood and I found behind the scenes of the museum an atmosphere suitable for reviving these stories. I installed lights to recreate these chiaroscuro from the Flemish school and with the assistance of a team I dressed and styled these characters using authentic period costumes. I also found period objects in local associations and my hairdressing assistant studied period hairstyles to reproduce them as closely as possible
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