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

Derrick Whaley

Country: United States

Born and raised in Baltimore, My passion for Photography started when I was in high school but I took it more seriously in college when I enroll in a digital photography class and it open my eyes to photography even more and haven't looked back since. I purchase my first camera during that time period and later started using my iPod as another camera source to take pictures just because it's easy, convenient, and with the increase of technology with camera usage. There's no limitations on being creative.

Statement:
They say art imitates life, I have a great eye in capturing my surroundings, my photos imitate my surroundings. What I capture in the moment, I bring it to life. The photos I capture are symbolical and metaphorical because they represent the essence of life, Most of what I capture is objects and things because they are just as important as people are when it comes to photographing subjects. There's no limitations on what I don't capture. It's not about where you create your art, it's about the art you create. Create What Can Be Manifest".

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Culturally Arts Collective

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@ivisionphotos

 

Inspiring Portfolios

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Julien Chatelin
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More Great Photographers To Discover

Michael Potts
Michael Potts
United States
1977
Mike grew up in Pennsylvania and in 2005 moved to Arizona where he’s rarely cold and doesn’t have to shovel snow. He graduated from Bucknell University with a major in English and a minor in Chemistry and still wonders what to do with them. He currently works as a nuclear medicine technologist mainly so he has someone to talk to. This lets him photograph on the side without having to live on ramen and sleep on friends’ couches. The rest of his time is devoted to various cats. They don’t like ramen, but they do like couches. His ultimate dream would be to visit Mars (and ideally make the trip back too). In the meantime he keeps making pictures.
Michael Light
Michael Light
United States
1963
Michael Light is a San Francisco-based photographer focused on the environment and how contemporary American culture relates to it. He has exhibited globally, and his work has been collected by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Getty Research Institute, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, among others. For the last fifteen years, Light has aerially photographed over settled and unsettled areas of American space, pursuing themes of mapping, vertigo, human impact on the land, and various aspects of geologic time and the sublime. A private pilot and Guggenheim Fellow in photography, he is currently working on an extended aerial survey of the arid Western states. Radius Books published the first of a multi-volume series of this work, Bingham Mine/Garfield Stack, in 2009. The second, LA Day/LA Night, was released in 2011. The third, Lake Las Vegas/Black Mountain, was published in 2015. The fourth, Lake Lahontan/Lake Bonneville, was released in September 2019. Light is also known for his globally published archival works. His first, FULL MOON (1999), used lunar geological survey imagery made by the Apollo astronauts to show the moon both as a sublime desert and an embattled point of first human contact. 100 SUNS (2003), focused on the politics and landscape meanings of military photographs of U.S. atmospheric nuclear detonations from 1945 to 1962.
James Van Der Zee
James Van Der Zee
United States
1886 | † 1983
James Van Der Zee was an American photographer best known for his portraits of black New Yorkers. He was a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Aside from the artistic merits of his work, Van Der Zee produced the most comprehensive documentation of the period. Among his most famous subjects during this time were Marcus Garvey, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Countee Cullen. Born in Lenox, Massachusetts, Van Der Zee demonstrated an early gift for music and was initially aspired to a career as a professional violinist. Van Der Zee's second interest was in photography. He bought his first camera when he was a teenager, and improvised a darkroom in his parents' home. He took hundreds of photographs of his family as well as his hometown of Lenox. Van Der Zee was one of the first people to provide early documentation of his community life in small-town New England. In 1906, he moved with his father and brother to Harlem in New York City, where he worked as a waiter and elevator operator. By now Van Der Zee was a skilled pianist and aspiring professional violinist. He would become the primary creator and one of the five performers in a group known as the Harlem Orchestra. In March 1907, Van Der Zee married Kate L. Brown and they moved back to Lenox to have their daughter, Rachel, born in September. Soon after, they moved to Phoebus, Virginia. In 1908, their son, Emile, was born but died within a year from pneumonia. In 1915, he moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he took a job in a portrait studio, first as a darkroom assistant and then as a portraitist. That same year, he converted to Catholicism and began taking assignments from the Church. He returned to Harlem the following year, just as large numbers of Black immigrants and migrants were arriving in that part of the city. He set up a studio at the Toussaint Conservatory of Art and Music with his sister, Jennie Louise Van de Zee, also known as Madame E Toussaint, who had founded the conservatory in 1911. In 1916, Van Der Zee and Gaynella Greenlee launched the Guarantee Photo Studio on West 125th Street in Harlem. They married in 1918. His business boomed during World War I, and the portraits he shot from this period until 1945 have demanded the majority of critical attention. In 1919, he photographed the victory parade of the returning 369th Infantry Regiment, a predominantly African American unit sometimes called the "Harlem Hellfighters." During the 1920s and 1930s, he produced hundreds of photographs recording Harlem's growing middle class. Its residents entrusted the visual documentation of their weddings, funerals, celebrities and sports stars, and social life to his carefully composed images. Quickly Van Der Zee became the most successful photographer in Harlem. Among his many renowned subjects were poet Countee Cullen, dancer Bill ("Bojangles") Robinson, Charles M. "Daddy" Grace, Joe Louis, Florence Mills, and black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. By the early 1930s, Van Der Zee found it harder to make an income from his work in photography, partly because of the strained economic circumstances of many of his customers and partly because the growing popularity of personal cameras reduced the need for professional photography. Van Der Zee worked predominantly in the studio and used a variety of props, including architectural elements, backdrops, and costumes, to achieve stylized tableaux vivant in keeping with late Victorian and Edwardian visual traditions. Sitters often copied celebrities of the 1920s and 1930s in their poses and expressions, and he retouched negatives and prints heavily to achieve an aura of glamour. He also created funeral photographs between the wars. These works were later collected in The Harlem Book of the Dead (1978), with a foreword by Toni Morrison. In 1982, at age 96, Van Der Zee photographed 21-year-old painter Jean-Michel Basquiat for the January 1983 issue of Interview magazine. Van Der Zee died in Washington, D.C. on May 15, 1983. Ten years later the National Portrait Gallery exhibited his work as a posthumous tribute. In 1984 Van Der Zee was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s a hard job to get the camera to see it like you see it. Sometimes you have it just the way you want it, and then you look in the camera and you don’t have the balance. The main thing is to get the camera to see it the way you see it. -- James Van Der Zee Works by Van Der Zee are artistic as well as technically proficient. His work was in high demand, in part due to his experimentation and skill in double exposures and in retouching negatives of children. One theme that recurs in his photographs was the emergent black middle class, which he captured using traditional techniques in often idealistic images. Negatives were retouched to show glamor and an aura of perfection. This affected the likeness of the person photographed, but he felt each photo should transcend the subject. His carefully posed family portraits reveal that the family unit was an important aspect of Van Der Zee's life. "I tried to see that every picture was better-looking than the person ... I had one woman come to me and say 'Mr. VanDerZee my friends tell that's a nice picture, but it doesn't look like you.' That was my style", said VanDerZee. Van Der Zee sometimes combined several photos in one image, for example by adding a ghostly child to an image of a wedding to suggest the couple's future, or by superimposing a funeral image upon a photograph of a dead woman to give the feeling of her eerie presence. Van Der Zee said, "I wanted to make the camera take what I thought should be there." Van Der Zee was a working photographer who supported himself through portraiture, and he devoted time to his professional work before his more artistic compositions. Many famous residents of Harlem were among his subjects. In addition to portraits, Van Der Zee photographed organizations, events, and other businesses.Source: Wikipedia
Ellen Cantor
Ellen Cantor
United States
Ellen Cantor is a Southern California artist who uses the camera to reimagine the family photo album and objects that hold personal histories in order to explore the distillation and persistence of memory. She received a BS from The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and continued her education in Interior and Architectural Design at UCLA. Her work has been featured in 19 solo exhibitions including dnj gallery, Santa Monica, CA, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Center for Fine Art Photography, and The Spartanburg Museum of Art. She was a Critical Mass finalist in 2015 and 2016 and winner of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers as well as first place in the Fine Art category. Since 2016, she has participated in over 25 national and international group exhibitions which include the Italian Cultural Exchange in Naples, Italy. Her photographs have been published in Harper's Magazine, Muzee Magazine and SHUTR Magazine and online in Lenscratch, f-stopmagazine, fraction magazine, rfotofolio, Voyage LA Magazine, My Daily Photograph, Lightleaked, a photo editor, Float Online Magazine, thisiscolossal.com and Silvershotz. Ellen is represented by dnj gallery, Santa Monica, CA, Susan Spiritus Gallery, Irvine, CA and Truth and Beauty Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Upcoming shows: VISUAL DNA... the language of photographs at dnj Gallery, Santa Monica in March, 2020 Mimi and Her Purses at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA in Spring, 2020
E. J. Bellocq
E. J. Bellocq
United States
1873 | † 1949
Ernest Joseph Bellocq was an American professional photographer who worked in New Orleans during the early 20th century. Bellocq is remembered for his haunting photographs of the prostitutes of Storyville, New Orleans' legalized red-light district. These have inspired novels, poems and films. Bellocq was born into a wealthy family of French créole origins in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He became known locally as an amateur photographer before setting himself up as a professional, making his living mostly by taking photographic records of landmarks and of ships and machinery for local companies. However, he also took personal photographs of the hidden side of local life, notably the opium dens in Chinatown and the prostitutes of Storyville. These were only known to a small number of his acquaintances. He had been something of a dandy in his early days, while he lived alone in the latter part of his life and acquired a reputation for eccentricity and unfriendliness. According to acquaintances from that period, he showed little interest in anything other than photography. Bellocq died in 1949, and was buried in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 3 in New Orleans. After his death, most of his negatives and prints were destroyed. However, the Storyville negatives were later found. After many years, they were purchased by a young photographer, Lee Friedlander. In 1970, a show of Friedlander's posthumous prints on gold tone printing out paper from Bellocq's 8" x 10" glass negatives were mounted by curator John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. A selection of the photographs were also published concurrently in the book, Storyville Portraits. These photographs were immediately acclaimed for their unique poignancy and beauty. A more extensive collection of Friedlander's prints, entitled Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, was published with an introduction by Susan Sontag in 1996. In recent times, a significant number of prints from Bellocq's own studio have come to light. They are typical professional photographs of the day, such as portraits, copy work for the Louisiana State Museum, and local views, yet few if any Storyville portraits printed by Bellocq's hand exist. A number of early posthumous prints from Bellocq's negatives by photographer Dan Leyrer have also surfaced. The Storyville photographs All the photographs are portraits of women. Some are nude, some dressed, others posed as if acting a mysterious narrative. Many of the negatives were badly damaged, in part deliberately, which encouraged speculation. Many of the faces had been scraped out; whether this was done by Bellocq, his Jesuit priest brother who inherited them after E. J.'s death or someone else is unknown. Bellocq is the most likely candidate, since the damage was done while the emulsion was still wet. In a few photographs the women wore masks. Some prints made by Bellocq have since surfaced. These are far more conventional than the full-negative prints made by Friedlander. The Storyville photographs not only serve as a record of the prostitutes, but also the interiors of the businesses that housed them.
Max Waldman
Max Waldman
United States
1919 | † 1981
Max Waldman was a well-known American photographer who made significant contributions to the field of performing arts photography. Waldman, who was born in 1919 in Brooklyn, New York, developed an early interest in photography. He became well-known for capturing the energy, emotion, and theatricality of the performing arts. In the 1940s, Waldman's career took off when he began photographing Broadway shows, ballet performances, and opera productions. His photographs provided a one-of-a-kind visual documentation of the performing arts, immortalizing iconic performances and highlighting the talents of renowned actors, dancers, and musicians. Waldman's photographs captured the essence of live performances, providing viewers with a glimpse into the stage's magic. He had an extraordinary ability to anticipate and freeze moments that encapsulated the performers' emotion and energy. His images captured the theatrical lighting, expressive gestures, and dynamic movement that defined each performance, conveying a sense of drama. Aside from the stage, Waldman documented the world of the performing arts behind the scenes. His photographs provided an up-close look at rehearsals, costume fittings, and the camaraderie between performers. He revealed the human side of the performers through his lens, emphasizing their dedication, passion, and vulnerability. Waldman's work was widely exhibited in galleries and museums throughout his career, and his photographs graced the pages of prestigious publications. He rose to prominence as one of the most sought-after performing arts photographers of his generation, working with well-known artists and institutions. Waldman experimented with other genres besides performing arts photography, such as portraiture and street photography. His diverse body of work demonstrated his photographic versatility and ability to capture the essence of his subjects, whether on stage or in everyday life. Waldman's influence went beyond his photographs. As a teacher, he also shared his knowledge and expertise, inspiring aspiring photographers through workshops and lectures. He wrote several books about photography, offering insights and advice to other photographers. Max Waldman's photographs continue to captivate audiences because they capture the ephemeral nature of live performances as well as the timeless beauty of the performing arts. His photographs bear witness to the power of the stage and the talents of those who bring it to life. Waldman has left an indelible mark on the world of performing arts photography with his exceptional skill and artistic vision, preserving the magic and emotion of the stage for future generations.
Lorenz Berna
Lorenz Berna
Italy
1984
I am an Italian photographer with a passion for exploring places where spirituality, tradition, and the human experience come together. Raised in the Tuscan countryside, I discovered photography as a way to connect with the world on a deeper level. My travels have taken me across Asia and Africa, seeking out the silent stories hidden in daily encounters and the atmosphere of sacred, remote spaces. My photographic style gravitates between travel documentary and a touch of street photography. I prefer a slow and immersive approach—spending extended time in a few places rather than briefly visiting many. For me, photography is a journey of presence, curiosity, and listening, allowing the authentic character and emotion of each place to quietly emerge. Statement: Photography is, for me, a practice of attentive presence—a way to connect more deeply with the world and the people I encounter. I am drawn to environments where tradition and spirituality are still a living force, and I try to approach each subject with honesty and respect. Through my images, I hope to evoke a sense of wonder and reflection, inviting viewers to slow down and appreciate the subtle beauty of ordinary moments. AAP Magazine: AAP Magazine 49: B&W
Buck Holzemer
Buck Holzemer
United States
Buck Holzemer's photography career began at the young age of eight when he climbed onto a garage roof to capture images of his friends playing basketball below. This experience sparked a lifelong fascination with the magic little window of the camera. After an multi-year detour to study the unseen world through physics and mathematics, he returned to the “magic little window” in his late twenties and began a career in photography and soon expanded into filmmaking. Throughout his career, Buck has received numerous accolades, including the prestigious Clio award for television commercials, recognition in the Communication Arts Photography Annual, awards from Print magazine, and the Grand Prize for fine art work from PDN magazine. In 2013, he won a Best of Show award from the International Photography Awards, and in 2019, he received the People's Choice Award from National Geographic. Buck's versatility as an image maker is evident in his work across various photographic genres and his filmmaking projects in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Milan, and Guatemala. For the past decade, he has collaborated with producer Patti Petrich to create media for Common Hope, a St. Paul based non-profit organization that supports education for children in Guatemala. Through this partnership, he has produced numerous videos and portraits of over 800 Guatemalan children. In recent years, Buck has dedicated his time primarily to personal photographic projects. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 05
Claudia Jaguaribe
Claudia Jaguaribe
Brazil
Claudia Jaguaribe was born in Rio de Janeiro, lives and works between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. She holds a degree in art history, fine arts and photography from Boston University, USA. Her work is focused on the urban landscape, environmental issues , and questions directed to the representation of the real as a conceptual register. By blending reality and subjectivity, it stimulates our perception of what we are seeing by creating layers of understanding and narrative. The materiality of her works questions the very nature of photography. She expands the traditional formats of photography by creating photo sculptures besides integrating and using video and internet in her installations. Since her beginning she was linked to editorial research. Many of her series find their final expression in book format. She has 15 books published and recognized by the singularity of the photographic integration and graphic design. In 2013 she co-founded the publishing company Editora Madalena. Her works are in several museums and collections in Brazil and abroad an such as Museum of Modern Art - São Paulo, Inhotim - Institute of Contemporary Art - Brumadinho, Instituto Moreira Salles - Rio de Janeiro, Victoria and Albert Museum, Maison Européene de la Photographie - Paris, Instituto Italo Latino Americano - Rome, Hangar art center among others.
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Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Marijn Fidder
Interview
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.
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Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Interview
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.
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Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
Interview
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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Exclusive Interview with Peter Ydeen
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Peter Ydeen
Winner of AAP Magazine #45 Travels, his series reflects this unique vision—capturing the spirit of place through subtle layers of light, color, and emotion. Whether traveling abroad or observing the rhythms of his own surroundings, Ydeen creates images that feel both grounded and enchanted, inviting viewers into a world where reality and reverie meet.
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Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
Chinese-born photographer Julie Wang brings a poetic, contemplative sensitivity to her visual exploration of the world. Having lived for nearly equal parts of her life in China, Europe, and the United States, she approaches her subjects with the nuanced perspective of someone shaped by many cultures. This blend of distance, curiosity, and emotional resonance infuses her work with a quiet depth, allowing her to reveal the fragile beauty and subtle tensions that often pass unnoticed.
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Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
American photographer Ghawam Kouchaki brings a sharply observant and introspective gaze to the streets of Japan’s capital. Based in Los Angeles, he approaches Tokyo with the distance — and curiosity — of an outsider, allowing him to uncover the city’s subtle contradictions, quiet tensions, and fleeting gestures that often go unnoticed. His series Tokyo no no, selected as the Solo Exhibition for December 2024, explores the hidden undercurrents of urban life: the unspoken rules, the small ruptures in routine, the poetic strangeness found in everyday moments. Through muted tones, instinctive timing, and meticulous framing, Kouchaki reveals a Tokyo that exists somewhere between reality and imagination — both intimate and enigmatic. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
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Exclusive Interview with Tommi Viitala
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Tommi Viitala
Tommi Viitala, winner of AAP Magazine #44: Street, is a Finnish photographer celebrated for his striking and cinematic street photography. With a keen eye for atmosphere and composition, he captures fleeting urban moments that reveal the poetry of everyday life. His work often explores the tension between solitude and connection within contemporary cityscapes, blending documentary realism with artistic sensibility. Viitala’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized for their strong visual storytelling and emotional depth. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
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Exclusive Interview with Robert Mack
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Robert Mack
Robert Mack is a California-based visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker. His fine art photography and films have been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, with major shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany. Both institutions hold his work in their permanent collections. Working across different media, Mack has built a career exploring the complexities of human presence and representation. In 1981, while living in Baltimore, he produced The Perkins Project: Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, a rare photographic and film study inside Maryland’s hospital for the criminally insane. These stark yet compassionate black-and-white portraits remain one of his most powerful and controversial bodies of work.
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Exclusive Interview with Alan Schaller About Irys
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Alan Schaller About Irys
Alan Schaller is a London-based photographer best known for his striking black-and-white street photography and as co-founder of Street Photography International, one of the largest online communities dedicated to the genre. With years of experience both behind the camera and in building platforms that give visibility to photographers, Schaller has now turned his focus to creating a new digital space for photography itself. His latest venture, Irys, is a photography app designed by photographers, for photographers, with the aim of offering a dedicated platform where images are respected as works of art rather than treated as disposable content.
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Call for Entries
All About Photo Awards 2026
$5,000 Cash Prizes! Juror: Steve McCurry
© Fernando Morales Roca
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