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Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
René Dissel
René Dissel
René Dissel

René Dissel

Country: The Netherlands

Rene Dissel is a Dutch photographer and musician, known for his landscapes, portraits and abstract work. He created the series "Seascapes" and the book "Ontmoetingen met Amersfoorters". His photography focuses on nature, water and the human impact on the environment, and he wants to capture emotions and create awareness.

Dissel started with a Kodak camera as a child and rediscovered photography during his music career. His work is influenced by Irving Penn, Sebastião Salgado and Gerhard Richter. He experiments with various techniques, but prefers black-and-white photography.

His latest theme, "sMelt", explores the effects of climate change. In this series, he portrays people in ice, captured during the melting process. This shows the transition from hard to liquid, revealing how ice changes and reveals new layers and details. Dissel's work invites reflection on the vulnerability and transformation of human beings.
 

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Steve Schapiro
United States
1934 | † 2022
Steve Schapiro discovered photography at the age of nine at summer camp. Excited by the camera's potential, Schapiro spent the next decades prowling the streets of his native New York City trying to emulate the work of French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, whom he greatly admired. His first formal education in photography came when he studied under the photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. Smith's influence on Schapiro was far-reaching. He taught him the technical skills he need to succeed as a photographer, but also informed his personal outlook and world-view. Schapiro's lifelong interest in social documentary, and his consistently empathetic portrayal of his subjects, is an outgrowth of his days spent with Smith and the development of a concerned humanistic approach to photography. Beginning in 1961, Schapiro worked as a freelance photojournalist. His photographs have appeared internationally in the pages and on the covers of magazines, including Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, People and Paris Match. During the decade of the 1960s in America, called the "golden age in photojournalism," Schapiro produced photo-essays on subjects as varied as narcotics addition, Easter in Harlem, the Apollo Theater, Haight-Ashbury, political protest, the presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy, poodles and presidents. A particularly poignant story about the lives of migrant workers in Arkansas, produced in 1961 for Jubilee and picked up by the New York Times Magazine, both informed readers about the migrant workers' difficult living conditions and brought about tangible change-the installation of electricity in their camps. An activist as well as documentarian, Schapiro covered many stories related the Civil Rights movement, including the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the push for voter registration and the Selma to Montgomery march. Called by Life to Memphis after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Schapiro produced some of the most iconic images of that tragic event. In the 1970s, as picture magazines like Life folded, Schapiro shifted attention to film. With major motion picture companies as his clients, Schapiro produced advertising materials, publicity stills and posters for films as varied as the Godfather, the Way We Were, Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, Rambo, Risky Business and Billy Madison. He also collaborated on projects with musicians, such as Barbra Streisand and David Bowie, for record covers and related art. Schapiro's photographs have been widely reproduced in magazines and books related to American cultural history from the 1960s forward, civil rights, and motion picture film. Monographs of Schapiro's work include American Edge (2000); a book about the spirit of the turbulent decade of the 1960s in America, and Schapiro's Heroes (2007), which offers long intimate profiles of ten iconic figures: Muhammad Ali, Andy Warhol, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Ray Charles, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, James Baldwin, Samuel Beckett, Barbra Streisand and Truman Capote. Schapiro's Heroes was the winner of an Art Directors Club Cube Award. Taschen released The Godfather Family Album: Photographs by Steve Schapiro in 2008, followed by Taxi Driver (2010), both initially in signed limited editions. This was followed by Then And Now (2012), Bliss, about the changing Hippie Generation (2015), BOWIE (2016), Mercicordia (20126) an amazing facility for people with developmental problems, and in 2017 books about Muhammad Ali and Taschen's The Fire Next Time with James Baldwin's text and Schapiro's Civil Rights photos from 1963 to 1968. Since the Metropolitan Museum of Art's seminal 1969 exhibition, Harlem on my Mind, which included a number of his images, Schapiro's photographs have appeared in museum and gallery exhibitions world-wide. The High Museum of Art's Road to Freedom, which traveled widely in the United States, includes numerous of his photographs from the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr. Recent one-man shows have been mounted in Los Angeles, London, Santa Fe, Amsterdam, Paris. And Berlin. Steve has had large museum retrospective exhibitions in the United States, Spain, Russia, and Germany. Schapiro continues to work in a documentary vein. His recent series' of photographs have been about India, Music Festivals, and Black Lives Matter. Schapiro's work is represented in many private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Museum, the High Museum of Art, the New York Metropolitan Museum and the Getty Museum. He has just Received the James Joyce Award and fellowship to University College in Dublin/ Previous recipients included Bishop Tutu, Jesse Jackson and J.K. Rowling Discover Steve Schapiro's Interview
František Drtikol
Czech Republic
1883 | † 1961
František Drtikol was a Czech photographer of international renown. He is especially known for his characteristically epic photographs, often nudes and portraits. In 1901, aged 18 and after an apprenticeship, Drtikol enrolled in the Teaching and Research Institute of Photography in Munich, a city that was a major center of Symbolism and Art Nouveau and which was influential on his career. From 1907 to 1910 he had his own studio, and until 1935 he operated an important portrait photo studio in Prague on the fourth floor of one of Prague's remarkable buildings, a Baroque corner house at 9 Vodičkova, now demolished. He was a contributor to the illustrated weekly Pestrý Týden. Jaroslav Rössler, an important avant-garde photographer, was one of his pupils. Drtikol made many portraits of very important people and nudes which show development from pictorialism and symbolism to modern composite pictures of the nude body with geometric decorations and thrown shadows, where it is possible to find a number of parallels with the avant-garde works of the period. These are reminiscent of Cubism, and at the same time his nudes suggest the kind of movement that was characteristic of the futurism aesthetic. He began using paper cut-outs in a period he called "photopurism". These photographs resembled silhouettes of the human form. Later he gave up photography and concentrated on painting. After the studio was sold Drtikol focused mainly on painting, Buddhist religious and philosophical systems. In the final stage of his photographic work Drtikol created compositions of little carved figures, with elongated shapes, symbolically expressing various themes from Buddhism. In the 1920s and 1930s, he received significant awards at international photo salons. Drtikol has published Le nus de Drtikol (1929) and Žena ve světle (Woman in the Light)Source: Wikipedia Frantisek Drtikol was a founder of Czech modernist photography and a seminal figure in Czech photography before the Second World War. Now recognized as a modern master, Drtikol produced a monumental body of work--from early Pictorialist and Art Nouveau portraits and landscapes to the influential nude studies of the 20s and 30s--that has permanently established his place in the history of photography. The son of a grocer in the Central Bohemian town of Príbram, Drtikol showed early promise in drawing and painting. Desiring to see his son enter a more practical profession, Drtikol's father arranged for an apprenticeship with a local photographer, Antonín Mattas. During the next three years, Drtikol learned the basics of copying, retouching, toning, and other photographic tasks, but could devote little time to his own photography. In 1901, at the age of 18, Drtikol completed his apprenticeship and left home to attend the Teaching and Research Institute of Photography in Munich. The two-year course of study at the Institute set the course for Drtikol's entire career as an artist. Fin-de-siècle Munich was a thriving German art capital and one of the major European centers of Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Aspects of both movements preoccupied Drtikol throughout his life. In 1907, after several years of travel and work for other photographers, Drtikol returned to Príbram to open his own photographic studio, which he moved to Prague in 1910. In those years, while making his living from custom portrait photography in the Art Nouveau style, he experimented with oil and gum printing and other Pictorialist techniques, producing lyrical landscapes and some of the earliest fine-art nudes produced in Bohemia. Eventually, the nude would become Drtikol's primary mode of photographic expression. In the 1920s he developed the unique style for which he is best known, using Cubist and Art Deco sculptural motifs, elements of Expressionist dance, and ingenious geometric patterns of shadow and light to create dynamic nudes in which the body, no longer serving an illustrative or metaphorical purpose, became a purely aesthetic and erotic motif. In 1935, Drtikol abandoned photography and devoted himself to painting and to the theosophical, Buddhist, and other philosophical studies that had informed much of his art.Source: The National Gallery of Art
Stéphan Gladieu
Stéphan Gladieu was born in 1969 and lives in Boulogne-Billancourt. He is represented by Olivier Castaing of the School Gallery in Paris and Artco Gallery in Germany, Cape Town and Joshua Tree. He began his career in 1989, covering war & social issues, travelling across Europe,Central Asia, the Middle East (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan) and Asia (India, Nepal, Vietnam, China, etc). Going back to his beginnings, he very quickly enriched his photographic writing by using portraiture to bear witness to the human condition in the world. His main focus is on his personal and artistic work through series of portraits in which DNA is colour and the play of contrast between subject and background in natural settings. Stéphan Gladieu plays on the iconic character of the frontal image and on the frontier between the real and the unreal. His portraiture has included covering the Saudi Princes, Princesses in Nepal, actors & directors behind the scenes at Cannes Film Festival, politicians, intellectuals, but also everyday people the world over. Stephan still realize international features and portraits series, for international magazines but he is mainly focused on is personal work: human story through colorful portrait collection. On the side of his journalist activity, Stephan is working with private company (LVMH, Danone, TOTAL…) and International institutions (World Bank, UNICEF) to work on their visual identity. Nowadays, Stephan Gladieu’s work is published in leading publications in France and internationally.Source: www.stephangladieu.fr Exclusive Interview with Stephan Gladieu
Giacomo Brunelli
Giacomo Brunelli (b. Perugia, Italy, 1977) graduated with a degree in International Communications in 2002. His work has been exhibited at The Photographers’Gallery (Uk), The New Art Gallery Walsall (Uk), The Barbican Centre (Uk), BlueSky Gallery, Portland (Usa), Format Festival, Derby (Uk), Triennial of Photography Hamburg (Germany), Nordic Light Festival (Norway), Noorderlicht Photofestival (The Netherlands), StreetLevel Glasgow (Uk), Photofusion, London (Uk), Delhi PhotoFestival (India), Fotofestiwal Lodz (Poland), Athens Photo Festival (Greece), Daegu PhotoBiennal (South Korea), Angkor PhotoFestival (Cambodia), Tabernacle (London, Uk), Griffin Museum (Boston, Usa) and at commercial galleries such as Peter Fetterman Gallery (Santa Monica, Usa), Robert Morat Galerie (Berlin, Germany), Galerie Camera Obscura, (Paris, France), Arden & Anstruther (Petworth, Uk), Galleria Belvedere (Milan, Italy). He has won the Sony World Photography Award, the Gran Prix Lodz, Poland and the Magenta Foundation “Flash Forward 2009”. He has also been featured widely in the art and photography press including BBC (Uk), The Guardian (Uk), The Telegraph (Uk), Eyemazing (Holland), European Photography (Germany), B&W Magazine (Usa), Creative Review (Uk), Foto+Video (Russia). His work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (Usa), The New Art Gallery Walsall, Uk Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (Japan) and Portland Art Museum (Usa). Brunelli has published “The Animals” (2008) and “Eternal London” (2014) by Dewi Lewis Publishing, “Self Portraits” (2017) and "Hamburg" (2021) by Editions Bessard, “New York” (2020) by Skinnerboox and "Venice" has been self-published by TantoPress in 2022. In 2012, he was commissioned by The Photographers’Gallery to do the “Eternal London” series and in 2015 by the Deichtorhallen to produce “Hamburg". Interview with Giacomo Brunelli: All About Photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? I remember when more that 10 years ago, I found my father's camera in a drawer and immediately wanted to be able to use it. Did't know exactly to do what but since then I have been using it to shoot my ideas." Where did you study photography? "I graduated in Communications in 2002 and attended a six month course in photojournalism in Rome." Do you remember your first shot? What was it? "I don't remember my first shot but I started shooting people, lanscapes and animals since the beginning. I have been soon fascinated by the idea of being outside taking pictures of what you like." What or who inspires you? I take inspiration from exhibitions, books, walks, stories and music." How could you describe your style? Street Photography." What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film? "Since the very beginning, I have been using a Miranda Sensomat 35mm, a japanese film camera from the '60. Although I have tried the 28mm and 135mm when I started, I use the 50mm lens only and 1.8 1/500 as combination diaphragm/shutter speed. For a recent commission I got from The Photographers'Gallery two years ago on London, I started using 1/1000 also. Regarding the film, I like Kodak Tri-x 400 and I print the images myself in my darkroom on Agfa Fiber Based paper." Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose? "Editing is crucial and I love spending time looking at my images as a body of work and select the ones I feel are the strongest to communicate my vision." AFavorite(s) photographer(s)? "I grew up looking at the great masters such as Lartigue, Muybridge, Giacomelli, Frank, Klein and Winogrand so I think I have been deeply influenced by the way they managed to express their own ideas through photography." What advice would you give a young photographer? "Developing a coherent body of work takes time and energy; I would say just be prepared to work hard." What mistake should a young photographer avoid? "Not to be patient." Your best memory as a photographer? Publishing "The Animals" (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2008) has been great, seeing your pictures taking the form of a book is fantastic." Your worst souvenir as a photographer? "In 2005 I left my camera and my own things in a taxi in Bratislava."
Nanda Hagenaars
Netherlands
''El Duende'' is a word used by the Spanish people to describe it is what moves you, what drives you. It comes from inside you. El duende is a bodily reaction to art or artistic perfomance such as Flamenco. It comes from the soles of the feet and flows free throughout the body till the top of your head. El duende is the spirit of evocation. An emotional and physical reaction. It can make you smile or cry or both. This mysterious power which everyone can sense and no philosopher can explain is in sum the spirith of the earth. It touches you in such a magical way that you are moved instantly. Nanda Hagenaars was born in the Netherlands in 1988 and is currently living in Amsterdam. She studied International Business and Languages in Sevilla. This is where she felt the spirit of el Duende in such a strong way that this place instantly became like a harbour for her. Back in the Netherlands, Nanda started working in the advertising industry and after nearly 4 years left her office job and crashed fully into photography and art. After studying languages, she discovered a new kind of language; through photography. Between 2007 and 2017, Nanda traveled frequently back to south Spain where she somehow always felt touched by culture and the simple vibe of the magnificent gypsy city. In 2016, Nanda made her first documentary photography project in Sevilla, where she won a price for New Dutch Photo talent 2017. Nanda’s captivating black and white style blends poetry and intuition, delving into the eternal essence of life. Through her lens, Nanda captures stories and forges a profound connection with the portrayed. At times, she surrenders to the unknown, creating intuïtively and spontaneously. Through her art she aims to touch others, offering solace and unity through shared emotions. So.. to Nanda, photography is a way to translate, meditate, and communicate. A universal language. AAP Magazine Magazine #31 Portrait Article Exclusive Interview
Thomas Michael Alleman
Thomas Michael Alleman was born and raised in Detroit, where his father was a traveling salesman and his mother was a ceramic artist. He graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English Literature. During a fifteen-year newspaper career, Tom was a frequent winner of distinctions from the National Press Photographer’s Association, as well as being named California Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1995 and Los Angeles Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1996. As a magazine freelancer, Tom’s pictures have been published regularly in Time, People, Business Week, Barrons, Smithsonian and National Geographic Traveler, and have also appeared in US News & World Report, Brandweek, Sunset, Harper’s and Travel Holiday. Tom has shot covers for Chief Executive, People, Priority, Biz Tech, Acoustic Guitar, Private Clubs, Time, Investment Advisor, Diverse and Library Journal. Tom teaches “The Photographer’s Eye” at the Julia Dean Photo Workshops, and “Vision and Style” at the New York Film Academy, both in Hollywood. Tom exhibited “Social Studies”, a series of street photographs, widely in Southern California. He’s currently finishing Sunshine & Noir, a book-length collection of black-and-white “urban landscapes” made in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Sunshine & Noir had it’s solo debut at the Afterimage Gallery in Dallas in April, 2006. Subsequent solo exhibitions include: the Robin Rice Gallery in New York in November 2008, the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR, in October 2009, the Xianshwan Photo Festival in Inner Mongolia, China, in 2010 and California State, Chico, in 2011. In the summer of 2012, a dozen pictures from Sunshine & Noir were featured in the “Photo Menage” exhibiton at the St. Petersburg Mueum of Art, in Russia, and ten prints will be shown during the RAYKO Gallery’s annual Plastic Camera Show in San Francisco in March, 2013, where Tom will be the Featured Artist. Also in early 2013, Tom will mount his first LA solo show, at the Duncan Miller Gallery, and his second solo show at the Robin Rice Gallery in New York City,
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Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Susan Anthony
American photographer Susan Anthony brings a painter’s eye to documentary photography, creating nuanced portraits of people and places shaped by time, community, and tradition. Her work is rooted in observation, empathy, and a deep curiosity about the lives of others. Through long-term projects, she explores the relationship between individuals and the environments they inhabit, revealing the stories that connect people to a place and to one another.
Exclusive Interview with Carole Mills Noronha
Carole Mills Noronha is an Australian photographer whose deeply personal work explores memory, family, loss, and the fragile nature of identity. Living with epilepsy and a lifelong sensitivity to light, she has developed a distinctive photographic language rooted in observation, empathy, and emotional connection. Her images are shaped by lived experience, revealing intimate stories with remarkable honesty and tenderness.
Exclusive Interview with Trevor Cole: Pastoral Peoples and Practices
For this interview, we wanted to focus specifically on The Face of the Mundari and the wider Pastoral Peoples and Practices series. We spoke with Trevor about his long-term work among the Mundari, what continues to draw him back to their cattle camps, and the experience of documenting a culture whose identity remains deeply connected to livestock, tradition, and the natural environment.
Exclusive Interview with Frank Meo
In our latest exclusive feature for All About Photo, I speak with veteran photography representative Frank Meo about what it truly takes to build a sustainable creative career today. Frank brings decades of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, major agencies, and documentary photographers to the table. We dive into the critical business skills often left out of art school curriculums, the power of mentorship, and the inspiring evolution of PROJECTIONS—his international salon platform for visual storytellers. It’s an essential read for anyone navigating the commercial or editorial photography landscape today.
Exclusive Interview with Carolyn Moore
American photographer Carolyn Moore explores the inner landscape of emotion, memory, and personal transformation through a deeply intuitive photographic practice. Her work unfolds as a quiet dialogue between artist and viewer, where images become a space for reflection, vulnerability, and connection.
Exclusive Interview with Luca Desienna and Laura Estelle Barmwoldt
For over seven years, Of Lilies and Remains has explored the depths of the goth and darkwave underground, unfolding in Leipzig—a city long associated with a vibrant and enduring subcultural scene. Moving between iconic gatherings such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen and more intimate moments on the fringes, the project offers a rare and immersive glimpse into a world often misunderstood, yet rich in expression and community. Created by Luca in collaboration with Laura Estelle Barmwoldt, the work embraces a cinematic and deeply personal approach. Rather than documenting from a distance, it moves within the scene itself, capturing its atmosphere, its codes, and its quiet contradictions. The title Of Lilies and Remains hints at this duality—where beauty and darkness, fragility and strength coexist. As the book prepares for its release, we spoke with both artists about the origins of the project, their process, and what it means to document a subculture that continues to evolve while remaining true to its spirit.
Exclusive Interview with Matthew Finley
American photographer Matthew Finley turns inward, using photography as a way to explore identity, memory, and emotional truth. Based in Los Angeles, his practice moves between performance, gesture, and found imagery, creating a visual language that is both intimate and deeply personal
Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Dutch photographer Jan Janssen explores universal human experiences through his long-term project It Matters, winner of the May 2025 Solo Exhibition. Begun in 2016, the series captures intimate moments of everyday life—love, loss, connection, and belonging—across Central and Eastern Europe. Working in countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, Janssen spends extended time within communities, building relationships based on trust and respect. His approach allows him to move beyond observation, revealing deeply human and authentic moments. Rooted in travel and personal discovery, It Matters reflects Janssen’s search for what connects us all in an increasingly divided world. The project is ongoing and will culminate in a photobook scheduled for publication in 2026.
Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
German photographer Henk Kosche turns his lens toward the streets of Halle an der Saale, capturing everyday life in the late years of the former German Democratic Republic. At the time, Kosche was studying design and exploring the city with his camera, drawn to the atmosphere of its industrial landscape and the quiet rhythms of daily life. His series Street Photography at the End of the 80s, selected as the Solo Exhibition for July 2025, revisits a body of work created just before a period of profound change. Rediscovered decades later in a small box of 35mm negatives, these photographs offer glimpses of a city and its people at a moment suspended between the familiar and the unknown.
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