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LAST CALL to Win a Solo Exhibition this March!
LAST CALL to Win a Solo Exhibition this March!
Mital Patel
Mital Patel
Mital Patel

Mital Patel

Country: United States

Mital Patel is an internationally recognized nature and wildlife photographer who focuses on capturing beauty in all its forms—whether natural or manmade. From architecture and landscapes to the creatures of the wild, Patel has a distinct passion for capturing the most remarkable elements of life through his visual representation of movement, emotion and mood. From behind the lens, he strives to bring viewers his very unique view of nature, telling a story without words and conveying a feeling in the abstract. He challenges his audience to let their imaginations run free, taking the journey with him on his travels and opening their minds beyond the confines of static photography.

In each of his pieces, Patel hopes to offer his audience a way to view the world around them a bit differently – to appreciate the beauty of moments and places that are often overlooked. An intrepid traveler and lover of adventure, Patel’s passion for creative and imaginative photography is a great asset to his exploration of the world, which spans six out of the seven continents. His work is admired worldwide for its unique and artistic perspective.

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Takayuki Nakamura
Takayuki Nakamura is a photographer from Japan with a background in modern art history. He earned his master’s degree in the field at a Japanese graduate school, where he completed a thesis on the theme of “War and Art.” During his studies, he discovered the Naniwa Photo Club, Japan’s oldest photography organization founded in 1903, and soon became a member. Though largely self-taught in photographic technique, his artistic vision was deeply shaped by the legacy of the club’s pioneering figures, including Nakaji Yasui, Kiyoshi Koishi, and Yoho Tsuda. Much of his photographic work is dedicated to Japanese culture, capturing subjects such as ikebana, traditional performing arts, craft artists, and the artistry of the kimono. For more than 15 years, however, he wrestled with finding themes that resonated deeply enough to develop into cohesive series. Before the pandemic, he exhibited at art fairs through galleries in Osaka, yet broader recognition within the art world has remained elusive. Statement "My style is heavily influenced by avant-garde works, shaped both through my art history research and my activities with the Naniwa Photography Club. Because of my shy personality and a life spent suppressing my own assertiveness, I struggled for years to find subjects I considered worthy of photographing. I tried many directions, including artistic photography, yet none brought me true satisfaction. It was only after the pandemic, when I finally embraced street photography—a field I had avoided until then—that I discovered something essential. I realized that I was not consciously selecting subjects within this space at all. Instead, I became convinced that this approach could serve as a way to better understand my own thoughts. Drawing from the ideas I had studied for years, I recognized the potential of applying the Surrealist technique of automatic writing—except through photography, guided by the subconscious. My work now fuses two elements: a way of shooting without deliberate choice and the documentary nature of photography. In doing so, it captures scenes and events overlooked by passersby, hidden within the ordinary fabric of the street. What I present to the viewer is not simply the record of what I have seen, but an invitation to value the multiplicity of perspectives embedded in reality." Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 37, 2025
Davide Bertuccio
Davide was born in Messina in 1991. He is a photojournalist based in Milan. He graduated with honors in 2016 at IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) at the school of visual arts in photography. Since the end of 2016, he focused on the theme of globalization, looking for stories that would give voice to the small realities crushed by that indefatigable desire for equality. In 2019 He decided to follow his passion for science and environmental problems with the realization of a work about the problem of plastic pollution in the Mediterranean Sea. Davide, inserted in 2014 among the 10 best under 25 Italian talents and nominated in 2019 by 6X6 World Press Photo Global Talent Program, has been published by National Geographic USA, National Geographic Italia, Il Reportage and his works received national and international awards. Accross the River's Flow Saxons are a community with German roots. Since XI century, together with Hungarians and Romanians, they’ve been living in the green heart of Romania. From this very land, a major migration is now taking place which marks the decline of centuries of history. Saxons are disappearing and their culture, their tongue and traditions along with them. “Across the river’s flow” aims to be a work about the disappearing of ethnic minorities, overwhelmed by the pace of modern life and by an ever-growing globalization. Saxons are an example of how authenticity is wiped out to make room for a fictitious daily routine and how entire ethnic groups and populations must surrender to outside forces such as racism.
Newsha Tavakolian
Newsha Tavakolian (born 1981) is an Iranian photojournalist and documentary photographer. She has worked for TIME Magazine, The New York Times, Le Figaro, and National Geographic. Her work focuses on women's issues and she has been a member of the Rawiya women's photography collective which she co-established in 2011. Tavakolian is a full member of Magnum Photos. Born and brought up in Tehran, at age 16, Tavakolian took a six-month photography course, after which she began working as a professional photographer in the Iranian press. She started at the women's daily newspaper Zan, and later worked for other nine reformist dailies, all of which have since been banned. She covered the July 1999 student uprising, using her Minolta with a 50mm lens, and her photographs were published in several publications. However, she was forced to go on hiatus from her photojournalist work following the "chaos" of Iran’s presidential election in 2009. During this time, she began other projects focusing on art using photography as well as social documentary. Tavakolian’s photographs became more artistic and involved social commentary. She got her international break in 2001 at age 21, when she met J.P. Pappis, founder of Polaris Images, New York at a photography festival in Perpignan, France. She began covering Iran for Polaris Images, in the same year, and started working as a freelancer for The Times in 2004. Tavakolian has worked internationally, covering wars, natural disasters and social documentary stories in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen. Her work has been published by international magazines and newspapers such as TIME Magazine, Newsweek, Stern, Le Figaro, Colors, New York Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, NRC Handelsblad and National Geographic. Common themes in her work are photo stories of women, friends and neighbors in Iran; the evolving role of women in overcoming gender-based restrictions; and contrasting the stereotypes of western media. Her photo projects include Mother of Martyrs (2006), Women in the Axis of Evil (2006), The Day I Became a Woman (2010) and Look (2013). Tavakolian was part of the 2006 Joop Swart Masterclass organized by World Press Photo. In 2007 she was a finalist for the Inge Morath Award. Her work has been exhibited and collected at institutions such as the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Somerset House, London. (April 2014), where she was one of eight Iranian photographers featured in the critically acclaimed Burnt Generation exhibition. In June 2015 Tavakolian became a nominee member of Magnum Photos and in 2019 a full member. She lives and works in Tehran and is married to the Dutch journalist Thomas Erdbrink. In 2019, the Iranian authorities barred her from working in the country.Source: Wikipedia Newsha Tavakolian is known for her powerful work covering wars in Iraq and social issues in her native Iran. With clarity and sensitivity, Tavakolian has photographed female guerilla fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria and Colombia, prohibited Iranian female singers and the lives of people living under sanctions. Over the years, her practice has shifted from photojournalism to photography as art. A self-taught photographer, Tavakolian began working professionally in the Iranian press at the age of 16, at women’s daily newspaper Zan. At the age of 18, she was the youngest photographer to cover the 1999 student uprising, which was a turning point for the country’s blossoming reformist movement and for Tavakolian personally as a photojournalist; a year later she joined New York-based agency Polaris Images. In 2003, she started working internationally, covering the war in Iraq. She has since covered regional conflicts, natural disasters and made social documentary stories. Her work has been published in international magazines and newspapers such as Time Magazine, Newsweek, Stern, Le Figaro, Colors, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, NRC Handelsblad, The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic. Commercial clients include Qatar foundation, who commissioned her to make a book about education around the world and Shiseido, who commissioned a two-year assignment looking at the meaning of beauty in Paris, France.Source: Magnum Photos
Martin Elkort
United States
1929 | † 2016
Martin Edward Elkort (April 18, 1929 - November 19, 2016) was an American photographer, illustrator and writer known primarily for his street photography. Prints of his work are held and displayed by several prominent art museums in the United States. His photographs have regularly appeared in galleries and major publications. Early black and white photographs by Elkort feature the fabled Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York City, showing its ethnic diversity, myriad streets and cluttered alleys. The Coney Island amusement park in Brooklyn was another favorite site during that period. His later work depicts street scenes from downtown Los Angeles and Tijuana, Mexico. Throughout Martin Elkort's long career as a photographer, he always showed the positive, joyful side of life in his candid images. Born in the Bronx, New York City, Martin Elkort grew up during the Great Depression. Elkort took his first professional photograph at the age of 10 while on a car trip with his parents to Baltimore. During the trip, he took photographs of flooded streets. The Baltimore Sun purchased his photographs of flood scenes and featured one of them on its front page. At the age of 15, he suffered a bout with polio and spent four months in the hospital. When he returned home, his parents gave him his first Ciroflex, a twin-lens reflex camera, that cost them about a week’s salary. After his recovery from polio, he set out around Manhattan taking pictures of whatever interested him. While studying at New York City's Cooper Union School of Art, Elkort joined the New York Photo League, an organization of photographers that served as the epicenter of the documentary movement in American photography. There he studied under successful photographers including Paul Strand, Aaron Siskind, Sid Grossman, Lou Stoumen, Imogen Cunningham and Weegee, learning to become adept at what he refers to as "stealth photography". With a more refined Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera strapped around his neck, he would roam the streets peering down into the 2×2 inch ground glass. He developed the skill of walking right up to a person and taking their photo without them even realizing it. His goal was to capture this post-war period's general optimism and innocence. During this period he worked at the Wildenstein & Company Gallery and later, the Stephen Michael Studio in Manhattan where he further enhanced his photographic knowledge and technique. In 1948, Elkort showed his pictures of Hasidic Jewish boys playing in the streets to Edward Steichen, who was curator of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art and probably America's most famous photographer at the time. Steichen rejected his photos, describing Martin's skills as "no better than the other 35 million amateur photographers in the country." Dejected but determined, Elkort worked tirelessly to improve his craft and two years later, he met with Steichen again. This time the famous curator bought three of his images for the museum's collection: Soda Fountain Girl, Puppy Love, and The Girl With Black Cat, all uplifting images of children at Coney Island. Elkort's photographs (c. 1951) of recently liberated Jewish immigrants learning new work skills at the Bramson ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation and Training) School in Brooklyn offer a rare and intimate glimpse into of their optimistic struggle to integrate into a new society after World War II. Some of his pictures show Jewish workers bearing tattoos evidencing their incarceration in Nazi concentration camps during The Holocaust. In 1951, more than 20,000 Jews received vocational training at the Bramson ORT School. Seamstresses, tailors, pattern makers, pressers; here they learned a trade that was much needed in New York’s growing fashion and garment district. In 2008, Elkort donated 33 of his vintage ORT photographs to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.. Elkort was a member of New York Photo League from 1948–1951; an editorial associate and contributor to New Mexico Magazine in 1957; a founding member in 2002 of Los Angeles League of Photographers (LALOP); a contributing editor and contributed photographs to Rangefinder Magazine in 2006; and a member of the Photography Arts Council at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After receiving a digital camera for his 70th birthday, Martin's photographic career re-ignited. He began to show his current and older work in galleries around the country. He also found a renewed interest in the New York Photo League. In 2002, he co-founded the Los Angeles League of Photographers along with David Schulman and David Stork. Modeled after the New York Photo League, its mission is to expose the wider public to photography's essential social, political and aesthetic values. He also writes articles for magazines dealing with photography including Rangefinder and Black & White Magazine. As of March 2014, Elkort's work is widely exhibited and can be found in the permanent collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; The Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in New York City; the Columbus Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; as well as many corporate and private collections.Source: Wikipedia
Asako Naruto
Japan
1974
Asako Naruto is a Japanese photographer living in Madrid since 2005. After obtaining a BA of Science of Design in Tokyo, she studied Art History, specializing in El Greco until she completed doctoral studies. Although she has been taking photographs for some time, it was around 2020 that she began to rediscover and immerse herself in photography as a personal creative activity. Her photographic style is characterized by a sense of introspection while using a street snapshot approach. In 2022, she won the annual Grand Prix of Digital Camera Magazine (Impress, Japan). Since then, she has received numerous awards from various international photography competitions including VIEPA, PISPA, IPA, BIFA, TIFA and many more. Recently, she has been working on a series of fantastical urban fragments using prismatic filters, one of which, "Reverve+Graphy", won the Gold Medal at the Paris International Street Photography Awards (2023). Statement: Press the shutter button to take a picture. I like the simplicity of it. For me, the real pleasure of photography lies in this physicality of moving my hands and feet and feeling the connection between sight and brain. For me, photographic expression may be an attempt to translate my inner thoughts, which are difficult to verbalize, while capturing fragments of my daily life with a camera. I feel that I want to be a storyteller more than an observer. I try to reveal or represent the scenes I collect in the city by overlaying them with the stories that unfold in my mind. Nevertheless, I carefully avoid encouraging the viewer to have a fixed interpretation of my work by explaining in detail the message it may contain. I want my work to be open to gradations of interpretation and to stimulate the viewer's personal emotional recall.
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Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Anastasia Samoylova
Anastasia Samoylova is an American artist whose photographic practice is shaped by close observation and a deep attentiveness to place. Working between documentary and formal exploration, she photographs landscapes, architecture, and everyday scenes with a sensitivity to light, structure, and atmosphere. Since relocating to Miami in 2016, her work has increasingly focused on how environments—both natural and built—carry social, cultural, and emotional traces. We asked her a few questions about her practice and her way of seeing, to better understand the thoughts and experiences that shape her work—while allowing the images themselves to remain open and speak in their own time.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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.
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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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.
Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #55 Women
Publish your work in our printed magazine and win $1,000 cash prizes