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Last Call AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Last Call AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Stéphane Garnavault
Stéphane Garnavault
Stéphane Garnavault

Stéphane Garnavault

Country: France
Birth: 1971

As a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, I found my passion blossoming through studies in graphic design, painting, drawing, printmaking, silkscreen, and photography.

However, upon receiving my diploma, I suppressed my artist's soul and embarked on a career as a designer. For nearly 25 years, I worked tirelessly, forgetting my initial artistic loves.

Swiftly, I achieved success as a designer, thanks to my keen sensitivity. Yet, this success became a bittersweet gift that drained me. Emotions washed over me so intensely that at times, I felt overly attuned to the world around me.

Five years ago, a book opened my eyes and shook me to the core. It was a revelation. I realised I needed to respond. Gradually, my artist's heart reawakened. I purchased the camera of my student dreams—a Leica.

I started wandering, and it did wonders for my soul. Out in nature, I found my place. The landscapes I traversed became as significant as the landscapes within. I observed the world and delved deep within myself, seeking to translate into images how I perceived my surroundings.

My photographic work reveals my distinct sensitivity and attraction to sleek design. My flower portraits, akin to self-portraits, blend blurriness with interplays of light. My urban landscapes capture the sensations of climate catastrophe, depicted in simplified, even abstract compositions.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Ian McFarlane
United States
1970
Yves Léonard
Belgium
1970
"Professional photographer located in Belgium, I am now 52 years old with a practical experience of photography for twenty years. I am a lover of life. My optimistic and positive temperament and my joy of living allow me to meet very nice people. I started photography in the early 2000s, mainly family reports. It was in 2015 that I really fell in love with photography with the purchase of my first reflex camera, a Nikon D5100. Self-taught, I perfected myself throughout my daily practice and by following training given by professional photographers: Photoshop (Olivier Rocq), packshot photography (Quentin Décaillet), understanding light in photography (Julien Apruzzese), empara. Fr... As I love architectural photography, I will soon be taking professional training on this subject. Having become a professional since 2021, my photographic expertise is mainly at the service of companies but also individuals in order to sublimate their project and their know-how. The artistic side of photography is also very important to me. I love to sublimate flowers, nature, landscapes... The landscape photo "The Enchanted Forest" was the winner of the largest photo competition in the world 2021 of the prestigious site www.photo.fr in the landscape category and won the prize for the best photo of the Brussels Art Vue 2022 art competition. The 'Trio' photo was a finalist in the 2021 World's Biggest Photo Contest resumes above. Several of my photos were included in the selection of the month on the Facebook page of the Sigma France site. I particularly like the minimalist side of photography. It is not uncommon to stay 3-4 hours in my packshot studio and take more than 300 photos to create an artistic photo of a flower and thus find the best angle of view and the best lighting. I have participated in several photo exhibitions in my region and hope to "export" myself abroad."
Polly Gaillard
United States
1965
Polly Gaillard is a fine art photographer, writer, and educator. She is part-time Professor of Art at Furman University and has taught photography workshops and college courses for more than ten years including summers abroad teaching American students in Prague, Czech Republic, and Cortona, Italy. Polly received a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010. She has exhibited her fine art photographs nationally and published a limited edition artist book, Pressure Points, with a foreword by actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Polly's photographic skills traverse contemporary art, documentary, portrait, and traditional photographic practices. She lives in Greenville, SC with her daughter. You, From a Distance Making portraits in a pandemic is challenging if you like to get closer than six feet to your subject. Frustrated by an inability to work at close range, I began to make portraits on my computer screen via FaceTime and Zoom by photographing friends, family, acquaintances, strangers, and my daughter at her father's home. This collaboration with others is particularly rewarding, especially when I've put the camera down, and we sit screen to screen discussing the changes in our collective worlds while checking in to make sure the other is okay. Each person has been generous in showing me around their homes to find the right background and light. They move furniture, take pictures off the wall, change clothing to create the right contrast, and position their laptops or phones so that I can take their picture at just the right angle. I sit behind my screen watching them do the work that I so desperately want to do as I experience a heightened sense of ambivalence, the love of "seeing" others, the distaste for lack of physical control over the situation. At times, the process calls for a third person to hold the camera phone, sometimes that assistant is a six-year-old girl, a father, a husband, or a cousin. During the awkwardness of the portrait session, there are moments of laughter when cats photobomb the sitting, a mother walks in the room wanting to reclaim her office space, a dad saunters by with a laundry basket, a sibling or grandchild screams from an adjoining room, and many phones crash to the floor from their perch of prime picture-taking position. We laugh together across connected distances about the absurdity of the situation and that I am trying to make a meaningful portrait amid unpredictability. Strangely, I find the absurdity satisfying; everything feels peculiar at this moment in time. For a more technically astute photographer than myself, the lack of technical command over making screen portraits would be unnerving. In essence, the image is blurry if the Wifi connection isn't clear. There are uncontrollable color shifts due to monitor calibrations; a moire pattern may appear because the screen is refreshing, and the perspective of the body can distort if the phone isn't perfectly parallel to the subject. I won't elaborate on how the highlights and shadows clip. The image noise and pixelation can drive you mad if you don't accept it as divine intervention. I find myself wanting to jump into the scene and move things and bodies, hold reflectors, close blinds, and refrain from making my subject do the heavy lifting. However, I sit behind the computer giving direction to "look to the right, chin down, eyes up, come closer to the camera" and then I embrace every technical flaw as if it's a gift. The power I have over the subject and the limitation I command over the image humbles me. The vulnerability I feel in putting these imperfect images into the world is tempered by the realization that we are all powerless in the face of this pandemic. You, From a Distance reflects the way I have experienced life during the Covid-19 pandemic- a personal feeling of distance and loss but with a desire to hold onto normalcy of making pictures, albeit without influence over the outcome. I am interested in these new ways of seeing each other and being together without being together - I look at you on my computer, in return, you look back at me through a phone or laptop while you can also see yourself in the frame. Who are we looking at - ourselves or others? The intersection of gazes is countless at times; it excites and confuses me. The process of looking and seeing divided by screens changes everything I have learned about image-making. The portraits become my memory of shared moments across time zones with distant faces; the four walls of my house expand into the space of others' homes. The intimacy I feel with the subject ironically is far greater than the portraits I make in-person in a time before social distance. In the span of one month, I have virtually traveled to five countries, five states, and homes nearby in South Carolina. Although more than the required physical distance is maintained through these portrait sittings, the mutual human connection is undoubtedly rich with meaning and unlimited possibility. December and Everything After
Monika Macdonald
Monika Macdonald was born in 1969 in Sweden. She moved to Stockholm where she studied photography after graduation. In 2001 she settled in London and worked as a freelancer, primarily making reportage for newspapers and magazines. She returned to Sweden in 2007 and ever since has focused on working on self initiated projects. In her thick photographs, plenty of souls and flesh, inhabited by strength and vulnerability, Monika Macdonald breathes an unusual eroticism into photography that provokes a vision of interiority rather than fantasy. They invite us to observe moments of abandonment as well as introspection where distant (and yet concrete) beings are grasped in their daily lives as desiring subjects rather than objects of desire. Here the intimate is suggested, and something of the neglected order of existence surfaces. Monika Macdonald shows what remains in the absence, the flesh of everyday life: meeting, abandonment, taste for solitude... The bewitchment of her images lets us penetrate beyond the visible and glimpse this intimacy that is usually killed. "I don't like the idea of taking pictures that much. But I always come back to it. There are no words to describe the feeling of being close to something. That's why I keep going. I oscillate between different worlds to which I try to link myself. My images are memories. To access a sense of loneliness and vulnerability. To be admitted beyond reason, far from what is called reality." Source: Galerie VU' In Absence is a series of images portraying women in their strive to find their own identity in a solitary life. Hulls is a photographic essay about my meeting with the man in a space, without limitation. An intimate room for losing self control. Book to be published beginning of 2020 by André Frère Éditions, France. Edited by Art Director Greger Ulf Nilson.
Jodi Champagne
United States
Born in Phoenix Arizona, Jodi Champagne had a passion for drawing from a very young age. While other children drew flowers and smiley faces Jodi´s artistic interest was more in the eyes and character of a person. At the age of 15 Jodi became a mother, so her creative ventures were put on hold while she raised her family and devoted herself to the corporate world of engineering. As her family grew older she found herself becoming the designated photographer and videographer of all their family vacations and outings. One day she realized that she had replaced her pencil and paper with a Canon DSLR camera.Jodi began working as a portrait, wedding, family and sports photographer and quickly discovered her true passion in documentary and street photography. Telling a story, bringing awareness and making a difference with her work is what she strives for. She has traveled to the corners of Myanmar to the corners of downtown Los Angeles to capture humanity with compassion and heart.Jodi´s award winning work has been featured in group exhibitions in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Her photographs have been widely published in books, magazines, and used for editorial and commercial work. Along with a myriad of other honors, Jodi’s work has recently been shown in Sports Illustrated, Corbis Images, Getty Images and is available with National Geographic Creative. Jodi lives and works in Palmdale, California. Interview by Tera Bella Media TBMPN: What best describes your particular style of photography? JC: I have sampled various genres of photography, but ultimately my style and passion is documentary work. I incorporate that style in my imagery when I do street or travel work. I am primarily a “candid” photographer. TBMPN: What equipment do you regularly use? JC: When I shoot documentary or the streets I use a Canon 50D for reach and a 5D Mk3 for close ups. I use various lenses, but for my main “go to” lenses I use a 24-70mm 2.8L and a 70-200mm 2.8L. TBMPN: Who or what do you consider your major influences? JC: I am an “emotional” photographer, and my goal is to evoke emotion in an image or a series of images. With that said, my major influences have been James Nachtwey and Dorothea Lange. Just one of James Nachtwey’s images is so passionately powerful and exudes more than words can. Dorothea Lange is yet another strong influence, as she took her street photography of the depression and poverty and made it her passion to create a difference. TBMPN: Why did you choose photography as your method of expression? JC: From a very young age I painted and drew. I did not like to limit myself and found that my camera gave me a larger canvas. It’s not easy to capture the decisive moment, but with my camera I can show the world what I see. TBMPN: What do you wish to accomplish with your photography? JC: Whether it is in my street, travel or documentary photography I wish to make a difference. I would like to show others certain issues of which they may be unaware. I wish to reveal cultures they might not have a chance to see and the hardship of others of which they may not be aware. TBMPN: What are your current projects? JC: I am currently working on the completion of my “Life Lines” and “Obsessions” series. I do have other projects such as “Waiting on a Friend” and “Silent Cries” which I feel I will always continue to work on as society changes. I also just published my first documentary book, “Courage Under Wraps”, which has taken two years to complete. It’s a photographic documentary of a young boy named Nicholas Zahorcak who has a rare, genetic disorder called Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa. TBMPN: What are your plans for future projects? JC: I will continue to work with the Epidermolysis Bullosa organizations on some future work in order to raise awareness. Though “Courage Under Wraps” is my first published documentary, it is not my last.In the works is an amazing project called “Diminishing Generations.” This is a documentary of our Veterans of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. It’s a powerful, emotional and very personal experience, as you will hear stories that have never been told. I will also be collaborating with Jim Dailey of Digital Delta Design to help put the book into reality and to give a real voice to the subjects. The book(s) will be published early 2015. I’m also working with an amazing composer, Marco De Bonis, from Italy. We are collaborating on a few projects together. With his music you can feel the emotions which will enhance my work.
Axel Breutigam
Germany/Canada
Axel Breutigam is a German-born Canadian Fine Art Black and White Photographer, located in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Breutigam started photography at an early age, with an Agfa Box Camera, gifted to him by his father. His interest in photography developed into a serious practice around the age of sixteen, when he purchased his first SLR camera and turned his bathroom into a darkroom to self-develop his b&w photos. However, his photographic practice was cut short as his career as an attorney and CPA as well as family took precedence for much of his adult life. Although he practiced photography during any spare moment available, from family vacations to business trips around the world, it was not until he sold his law firm in 2002 and moved with his family to Vancouver, BC that he was able to devote his time fully to his art. In 2013/14 Breutigam got the chance to study with Alan Ross (Ansel Adams' former assistant and the exclusive printer of Adams' Yosemite Special Edition Negatives). Under Ross Breutigam enhanced his technical skill and was taught how best to use digital processing techniques that emulate the darkroom prints of earlier decades. Both Ansel Adams and Alan Ross have been influential artists for Breutigam, and although he emphasizes that he deliberately does not replicate their styles, he is inspired by the exquisite tonality and quality of their works. Breutigam shoots in black & white exclusively; rather than dictate the colors of a particular image to his audience, monochrome encourages them to imagine, from their own unique perspective, how the scene may have appeared at the time of the photograph; also, monochrome photographs give room for the viewers' own interpretations of his photographs. Breutigam, meanwhile an award-winning photographer, hopes that his compositions inspire people to reflect upon their surroundings, and enable them to appreciate the often overlooked beauty found in urban environments and nature. His attention to detail, visual aesthetics, and unique perspective indeed empowers his viewers with this opportunity. Since 2014 Breutigam's work has been exhibited at seven Solo- and eight Group-Shows. Breutigam has published three Photography Books.
Callie Eh
Malaysia
1972
Callie is a Switzerland-based Malaysian. Her travels ignited her love for photography, and what started as a hobby has now become an integral part of her life. Callie’s works mostly refer to life “In the moment”. Emphasizes the honesty and authenticity of people through her unique perspective and optimistic outlook on life. She aspires to convey the beauty she sees in the world and share it with others through her photography. For Callie, photography is not just about creating memories but also about connecting and communicating with others. Callie's work has received recognition through exhibitions, awards, and publications in international magazines and books. The Door to a Brighter Future My time at Sambhali (NGO) has taught me a lot and opened my eyes to the inequalities in this world. In this male-dominated country - India, most of these women have no social value and they are expected to be a housekeeper. Many women are still trapped in the veil - Ghoonghat, a symbol of identity is observed by Hindu women across castes, classes, and walks of life, in and outside Rajasthan, they have been worn for decades. Sambhali Trust, whose focus provides underprivileged Rajasthan women and kids with an education in English, Hindi, Math, and social skills, to support them in developing confidence and self-esteem and help them work towards financial independence. The majority of the girls and women at the centers are from low castes and some have difficult backgrounds. These women are so hungry for knowledge and have to fight so hard to get it, most of the Sambhali women were so bright and naturally intelligent. I’ve come away with a better understanding of real lives and society in India, as well as the freedom and responsibility that comes with it. These women live in a world where their every move is dictated by men, and to break that tradition by pursuing an education and skill. You may look at this a simple sewing machine and education, but is the door opening up to these women and children to fulfill their dream to be able to change their life in the future. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 41
Andreas Franke
Andreas Franke is in the business for more than twenty years. For Luerzer‘s Archive he is among the 200 Best Photographers. He worked for great brands like Ben&Jerry's, Coca-Cola, Ford, General Electric, Gillette, Heineken, Nike, Visa or Wrigley‘s. His still lifes and his surreal effects are famous. In his pictures every little detail is planned precisely. There is no space left for fortuity. Andreas Franke is a traveler. He travels through the world and between the worlds. His job frequently leads him to several countries on several continents. So does his passion the scuba diving. In his pictures Franke crosses the borderlines between fantasy and real life.With his project “The Sinking World“ Andreas Franke brings a strange, forgotten underwater world back to life and stages realms of an unprecedented kind.The pictures engender extreme polarities: the soft, secretive underwater emptiness of sleeping shipwrecks is paired with real, authentic sceneries full of liveliness and vigor, thus creating a new world, equally bizarre and irresistibly entangling. The resting giants at the bottom of the sea do not only form fascinating and unique backgrounds for Andreas Franke’s sceneries. They also constitute the best exhibition sites imaginable. These spectacular underwater galleries make divers fall under their spell and display the work of the ocean itself. During the weeks and months under water the ocean bequeaths impressive, peerless traces to the pictures. It adorns them with a certain, peculiar patina, endowing them with the countenance of bizarre evanescence and transfiguring them into rare beauties.
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AAP Magazine #54 Nature
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