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Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
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

Susi Belianska
Slovakia/Italy
1980
Susi Belianska is a photographer and artist with a passion for capturing visual stories, particularly through the art of portrait photography. Her fascination with the intricate details of the human face, the play of light and shadow that accentuates its contours, and the emotions it conveys drives her to create compelling and evocative portraits that tell unique narratives. With a background in the fashion industry, she transitioned into full-time photography in 2007, capturing diverse campaigns and catalogues for national and international brands. Her work has been featured in prominhotent publications like Condè Nast - Vogue Italia, GQ, Financial Times, Vrij Magazine, L’Officiel, D Repubblica, among others. She develops as well her personal projects within fine art. In 2013 she won the Nikon Talent Photo Contest presented and exhibited during the international contemporary art Artissima fair In 2012 she was in shortlist of the Sony World Photography Awards in fashion category. She actively participates in renowned photography festivals, including the Ancona Photo Festival 2021 and Grenze Photo Festival Verona 2022. Das Unheimliche: Das Unheimliche is a photographic project that explores the intersection between the human being and the artificial and invites us to reflect on the complex dynamics and emotional dilemmas that arise when confronted with the possibility that a man-made work can replace a living being. The photographs depict girls representing dolls, thus embodying the idea of the artificial figure hidden behind a human appearance. Each portrait captures the ambivalence of experience in front of these hybrid figures, who seem alive but lack genuine vitality. The expressions on the girls' faces convey a combination of fascination, unease and disquiet, inviting viewers to question the meaning and implications of this substitution. The idea that artificial creations can replace a person has ancient roots and can be traced across different cultures and historical periods. A significant example dates back to ancient Greece, where stories and myths have been documented involving statues or artifacts that come to life. Among these narratives, the myth of Pygmalion stands out, a famous sculptor who fell in love with his own creation: a statue of a woman. Through divine intervention, the statue came to life, highlighting the ability of artificial figures to enchant and involve human affections. Over the centuries, the idea of replacing an individual with an artificial figure has been explored in different forms of artistic expression such as in the film "Die Pupe" by Ernst Lubitsch or the short story "Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffmann. In Lubitsch's film ,a shy young man decides to marry a mechanical doll to avoid a traditional marriage while in Hoffmann's story, a man becomes obsessed with a female automaton believing it to be alive.These works reflect on the tensions between desire, fear and the challenge of defining what is truly human. With the advent of modern technologies and artificial intelligence, the discussion around the possibility of replacing a human being has taken on a new meaning and relevance. Modern lifelike dolls and artificial intelligence interfaces, such as advanced chatbots, have become subjects of ethical and social debate. These creations raise profound questions about the nature of human relationships, affection and emotional connection, questioning our perceptions of what is authentic and genuine. Exploring the boundary between the human and the artificial has profound implications on a psychological level as well, as what approaches a living being but lacks vitality or completeness can elicit complex emotional reactions. Sigmund Freud's "Das Unheimliche" theory and Masahiro Mori's "Uncanny valley" hypothesis offer perceptive insight into these challenges and ambiguities. According to Freud's "Das Unheimliche" theory, the experience of what is familiar yet strange and disturbing can trigger a variety of psychological reactions, such as disgust or fear. When we are faced with artificial figures that resemble human appearance but without being alive, a feeling of unease can arise that challenges our understanding of what is considered authentic and genuine. Mori's "Uncanny Valley" hypothesis focuses on the concept of an emotional curve that describes our psychological responses based on the level of similarity of an artificial figure to human appearance. The project aims to capture the essence of these reflections, highlighting the contradictions and tensions that emerge. The girls portrayed represent a fascinating duality: on the one hand, they seem to reflect the dolls' ideal of perfection and control, with their delicate features and impeccable poses; on the other, they convey a feeling of foreboding and dissonance, which underlines the lack of authenticity and vitality. Each photograph is intended as an invocation of the need for a deeper connection with our own humanity and the complex emotional dynamics that emerge when we are faced with an artificial creature that seeks to emulate human affection and vitality. The project challenges us to investigate the meaning of humanity and our ability to deal with the complexities of affection, intimacy and replacement in an age characterized by rapid technological advances. It prompts us to explore our relationship to artifice and to deepen our understanding of ourselves. Stars: he focus of this project is to elevate women to a central place in the universe, symbolizing their importance, and to emphasize the need for equal treatment in social and occupational settings. The project features surreal images of women situated in an infinite cosmos surrounded by stars, emphasizing the timeless relevance of the message.The women depicted are captured without clothing to avoid association with any particular historical period, as passing time has no bearing in this context. The stars radiate upon their bodies, symbolizing the brilliance that women should exude in today's contemporary society. This project aims to celebrate those women who break the mold and call for questioning of stereotypes in a society often dominated by male culture. It highlights the strength and resilience of women who have defied non gender equal societal norms.Additionally, the project seeks to ignite discussions and raise awareness about gender inequality, addressing not only men but also women who may unknowingly undervalue their own worth, urging individuals to recognize and appreciate their own intrinsic value.
Margaret Watkins
Canada
1884 | † 1969
Margaret Watkins (1884-1969) was born in Canada. Best known for art and advertising photography executed in New York in the 1920s, Watkins was active in the Clarence White school of photography and a participant in the shift from pictorialism to modernism. Her working life spanned a Victorian upbringing in Hamilton, Ontario, and the witnessing of the first Soviet Five-Year Plan. Watkins' modernism, which involved experimentation and a radical focus on form, transgressed boundaries of conventional, high-art subject matter. Her focus was daily life and her photographs, whether an exploration of the objects in her New York kitchen or the public and industrial spaces of Glasgow, Paris, Cologne, Moscow, and Leningrad in the 1930s, strike a balance between abstraction and an evocation of the everyday, offering a unique gendered perspective on modernism and modernity. Watkins established a studio in Greenwich Village and in 1920 she accepted the position of editor of the annual publication Pictorial Photography in America. Clarence White asked Watkins to join the faculty of his school, where Watkins met other notable photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand. She worked for Macy's department stores and for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, capturing simple domestic objects with a clarity of modernist vision rare in commercial photography at the time. Her landscapes, portraits, nudes, still lifes, and abstractions received praise and attracted controversy. Exhibitions were held in the United States and in Europe. In 1928, Watkins decided to visit her four elderly aunts in Glasgow, Scotland. She traveled throughout Europe, photographing extensively and producing a body of work documenting post-revolution Russia. Her aunts began to take ill, and Watkins remained in Glasgow to help care for them. She drifted from the spotlight of public recognition, and few photographs or negatives exist from this time. Watkins lived in Scotland in seclusion until her death in 1969.
Thomas Jorion
France
1976
Thomas Jorion (b. 1976, lives in Paris) photographs urban ruins and condemned buildings, spaces that no longer serve the purposes for which they were built. His work explores the built environment in a state of entropy, inviting viewers to reflect on the relationship between the material and the temporal.My work is based on our perception of time, how it passes and especially its lack of linearity. Some places seem frozen as time passes by. While our society is developing and changing very rapidly, these places are submitted to a distorted passing of time. They seem to be lifeless or in a waking state, although in reality they have their own link with time. I travel the world with one idea in mind, to find and show timeless islands. I choose to enter closed and abandoned places formerly alive, and often places of leisure or prestige to capture and share them. My fascination for the esthetic of abandoned places is the extension of an older tradition. The Romantics enjoyed strolling amidst the ruins of long lost civilizations. Centuries earlier, painters such as François de Nomé (1592 – 1623), Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) and Hubert Robert (1733 – 1808) dedicated part of their work to these forgotten places. Somehow my photos are part of this process. The existence of timeless islands stems from a variety of contemporary phenomena. Though each of these islands has a particular origin depending on its location, all eventually evoke the disappearance of men. In Japan, the line between leisure and consumption is often blurry. Leisure activities that are deemed old-fashioned are disposed of – similar to those handkerchiefs, the “nuigishi,” given out for free on the streets by pretty young ladies. An example of this occurence (occurrence – deux R) is the three-storied, 108-lane bowling alley in a Tokyo suburb. Being out of use for some time, it soon is to be demolished. The expansion of new forms of leisure activities has also led to a booming hotel industry. Better and cheaper flight connections and the growing mobility of global citizens made the world a village, with every destination easy to reach. The province of Izu, which used to be a popular summer destination for the Japanese, is now competing with international destinations as in China or Korea. Hotel complexes or amusement parks now open for business or shut their gates according to short-lived trends in the tourism industry. In America the consequences of the economic crisis have been more disastrous than anyone could hardly have imagined. In the vast landscape of the United States, the possibility to build on new land is considered limitless. The habit of constructing new buildings instead of renovating old ones has proven rather catastrophic for the country. The dramatic consequences can be seen in cities such as Detroit MI, where the “white flag” phenomenon has made matters even worse. Other cities, such as Memphis, TN, or Bridgeport, CT have followed suit. Those cities’ entire cultural and social identities have decayed into ruin. The first places to have become useless for society were theaters, movie theaters, sport centers, schools and churches. Health care institutions, public housing, and judicial systems suffered, too… The failure of American Utopias, photographed by Joel Sternfeld in the late 70s, was already heralding deeper phenomena observed today. On the old continent, the reasons are multiple and the consequences are often the same. Struck by a major structural transformation from industrial to post-modern societies many countries had to turn away from their heavy industry. Gigantic textile factories in Northern Italy have completely disappeared, even sumptuous villas of industrialists were forsaken and left to decay. Twenty years after the reunification this development can also be seen in Germany, where factories became completely unsuitable for the global economy and whole regions became deserted due to migration. There is no denying that these abandoned places now cover all continents and in the name of the profit motive tends to amplify this phenomenon. As for my photographic practice, I wish to conserve the rawness of the places that I observe. This represents a challenge. The frame must be arranged in accordance with the layout of the space and the available light. For me, this reinforces the immaculate and timeless aspect of the place. My use of a large format camera allows me to make sharp and detailed images that contain a variety of focal points, textures, and depths. Capturing the richness of such pictures takes much time, which in turn reduces the number of photographs I can take. The choice of color film is important because it anchors the place within the present moment and allows for a faithful rendering of things seen. This eliminates the austere quality of certain spaces. For example, in the Piedmont theater, the blue, yellow, and brown are muted and soft colors, but they correspond well together to reveal a new beauty. Source: www.thomasjorion.com
Barbara Crane
United States
1928 | † 2019
Barbara Crane (March 19, 1928 – August 7, 2019) was an American artist photographer born in Chicago, IL. Crane worked with a variety of materials including Polaroid, gelatin silver, and platinum prints among others. She was known for her experimental and innovative work that challenges the straight photograph by incorporating sequencing, layered negatives, and repeated frames. Naomi Rosenblum notes that Crane "pioneered the use of repetition to convey the mechanical character of much of contemporary life, even in its recreational aspects." Crane began her studies in art history at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1945. She transferred to New York University in 1948. In 1950, she received her BA in art history from New York University. After recommencing her career in photography, Barbara Crane showed a portfolio of her work to Aaron Siskind in 1964 and was admitted to the Graduate Program in Photography at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Crane then studied under Siskind at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, and received her MS from the Institute in 1966. Crane’s master’s degree thesis focused on “sculptural patterns through abstractions of the human body.” The images for this series depict bodies against white or black backgrounds – the overexposed, overdeveloped nature of the film turns these bodies into abstract outlines. John Rohrbach states, “each body almost dissolves, becoming a sinuous river flowing across a snowy landscape. This unnerving disconnect between what is seen and what is known would become a central theme of her career.” In 1971, Crane visited Ansel Adams at his home to show him a selection of her work. Adams told an assistant “See I told you photographers could still do something different” upon viewing her Repeats series. After this encounter, Adams hired Crane to teach workshops at Yosemite between 1977-1980. During Crane’s Guggenheim Fellowship (1979), she collaborated with the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona to create a career retrospective of her work. During her time in Boston, she formed a relationship with the Polaroid Corporation and through the Polaroid Artist Support Program she experimented with Polaroid black & white and color photographic materials in numerous series. In 1995, Crane became Professor Emeritus at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Barbara Crane's work is represented in numerous public collections including the International Center of Photography, New York City; the George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY; the Art Institute of Chicago; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the WestLicht Museum of Photography, Vienna, Austria. Crane's archive resides at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ.Source: Wikipedia
Joe Vitone
United States/Italy
1954
Joe Vitone is a documentary fine art photographer and educator living in Austin, Texas. His work consists of large format portraiture and landscape in the United States as well as panoramic and other views examining cultures abroad. He is Professor of Photocommunications at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas where he has lived with his family since 1991. He teaches traditional as well as digital photography and electronic media. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in photography and been a Fulbright scholar in Costa Rica as well as a Fulbright Specialist in the Apulia region of southern Italy. In both Costa Rica and Italy, Vitone’s work centers around small-scale family based agriculture. In addition to presentations given in the United States, he has lectured on his photography in Australia, China, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Involved in international education, he has led American students on study abroad programs in China, France, Japan, and Thailand. With a focus on documentary photography, he has worked with students outside of the U.S. in Australia, Costa Rica, France, Italy, and Thailand. His work has been exhibited at a number of venues including one-person exhibitions at the Hungarian Museum of Photography, the Akron Art Museum, and the Instituto Cultural Peruano-Norteamericano. His work is held in a number of collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Center for Creative Photography, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Hungarian Museum of Photography, and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. About Family Records: These photographs have been drawn from an ongoing series of 4x5 and 8x10 inch (10x12.5 and 20.3x25.4 cm) negative portraits called Family Records which was begun in 1998 to document members of immediate and extended families of the photographer and his wife. 2017 marked 20 years of work on the pictures. The majority of the portrait subjects live in an orbit around the Rust Belt city of Akron, Ohio, former home to the country's major rubber and tire producers including Goodyear, Goodrich, and Firestone. Doylestown, Barberton, and other rural communities neighboring Akron serve as locations for many of these images along with Akron proper. The photographs generate dialogues between one another at a number of levels, some directly, as in lineage and interpersonal relation of mother to daughter, father to son, or brother to sister, and some at less specific and more universal places as well. Comment is made on finding purpose or respite in what can be a painful life, on time and aging, on moving from childhood to adulthood, on relations sustained or lost through the years, on masculinity and femininity, on sensuality and beauty seen not only in youth but in age, and on our valuing of ourselves and others not only because of our strengths but, perhaps even more so, by reason of our vulnerabilities.
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All About Photo Awards 2026
Win a Solo Exhibition in February
All About Photo Awards 2026

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Call for Entries
All About Photo Awards 2026
$5,000 Cash Prizes! Juror: Steve McCurry