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Win a Solo Exhibition in April 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Win a Solo Exhibition in April 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Marios Forsos
Marios Forsos
Marios Forsos

Marios Forsos

Country: Greece
Birth: 1971

I am a travel and assignment photographer and storyteller working to bring faraway interesting stories to life. I try to venture beyond simply pretty isolated images to evoke emotion and real interest into the lives and stories of the people in my images, hoping my audience will stop and look closer, empathise with the people in each frame.

After more than 100 countries (and growing), hundreds of different and challenging assignments - some good and very successful, some unavoidably less so - many international awards and the incredible good fortune of having worked for the amazingly talented and passionate people over at National Geographic, Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveller, GEO and many other, I hope my images bring with them a different, more paced, thoughtful and stylised approach to storytelling.

We need to grow closer, not grow our distance the way modern fast-food, social-media driven image consumption drives us towards. To learn how to live together with knowledge and compassion for peoples both near and far, to be sensitive to cultures and customs not our own but beautiful and worth preserving all the same. I want my images to tell the story of a Turkana woman the same way it tells the story of the Malian wood scavenger or a french farmer because they are all a part of this amazing, beautiful, infuriating overpopulated, largely polluted world of ours and its people.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Robert Hecht
United States
1941
For over fifty years, Robert Hecht has been a dedicated fine art photographer. He is largely self-taught, having learned his craft primarily by studying the prints and books of many of the medium's greats, and then by attempting to apply what he absorbed from them in the darkroom (and later in the digital darkroom). In addition, he studied briefly with photographer and teacher Ruth Bernhard in the 1970's, and considers that experience meaningful for giving him direct contact and exchange of ideas with a master. His work has been exhibited internationally, purchased for both private and public collections, and showcased in many of the leading photography periodicals. Professionally, he has worked primarily as a producer-director of educational film and video programs, first at Stanford University and then in his own video production business for the past several decades. He and his wife live in Portland, Oregon. Statement I consider photography a way, if you will, to bring my experience of the visual world into clearer focus. Practicing the art of photography, which I consider a way of life in and of itself, has heightened my awareness of how in our everyday lives we are constantly surrounded by interesting subject matter. In contrast, during my early years of doing this work, I looked mainly to the classic landscape for inspiration, often pursuing dramatic vistas with large-format cameras. However, over time I came to see that I do not necessarily have to "go out shooting" or travel to impressive locales to find subjects—rather, I merely have to keep my eyes open to what is right here around me in my immediate environment and, without actually searching for a picture, simply be prepared should a picture jump out of the random visual chaos and present itself to me. This shift in focus has led me to a more spontaneous approach to making images, often enabling me to find great beauty in the most mundane materials at hand.
David Octavius Hill
Scotland
1802 | † 1870
David Octavius Hill was a Scottish painter, photographer and arts activist. He formed Hill & Adamson studio with the engineer and photographer Robert Adamson between 1843 and 1847 to pioneer many aspects of photography in Scotland. Hill was born in 1802 in Perth. His father, a bookseller and publisher, helped to re-establish Perth Academy and David was educated there as were his brothers. When his older brother Alexander joined the publishers Blackwood's in Edinburgh, Hill went there to study at the School of Design. He learned lithography and produced Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire which was published as an album of views. His landscape paintings were shown in the Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland, and he was among the artists dissatisfied with the Institution who established a separate Scottish Academy in 1829 with the assistance of his close friend Henry Cockburn. A year later Hill took on unpaid secretarial duties. He sought commissions in book illustration, with four sketches being used to illustrate The Glasgow and Garnkirk Railway Prospectus in 1832, and went on to provide illustrations for editions of Walter Scott and Robert Burns. In the 1830s he is listed as living at 24 Queen Street, in Edinburgh's New Town. In 1836 the Royal Scottish Academy began to pay him a salary as secretary, and with this security he married his fiancée Ann Macdonald the following year. After the birth of their daughter, Charlotte Hill, Ann was invalided, and died on 5 October 1841, aged 36, and was buried with her family in Greyfriars Churchyard in Perth. Charlotte Hill went on to marry the author Walter Scott Dalgleish LLD and is buried in Grange Cemetery. During this period he lived at 28 Inverleith Row in Edinburgh's northern suburbs and he continued to produce illustrations and to paint landscapes on commission. Hill was present at the Disruption Assembly in 1843 when over 450 ministers walked out of the Church of Scotland assembly and down to another assembly hall to found the Free Church of Scotland. He decided to record the dramatic scene with the encouragement of his friend Lord Cockburn and another spectator, the physicist Sir David Brewster who suggested using the new invention, photography, to get likenesses of all the ministers present. Brewster was himself experimenting with this technology which only dated back to 1839, and he introduced Hill to another enthusiast, Robert Adamson. Hill and Adamson took a series of photographs of those who had been present and of the setting. The 5 feet (1.5 m) x 11.4 feet (3.5 m) painting was eventually completed in 1866. Hill moved to "Calton Hill Stairs" in 1850. Their collaboration, with Hill providing skill in composition and lighting, and Adamson considerable sensitivity and dexterity in handling the camera, proved extremely successful, and they soon broadened their subject matter. Adamson's studio, "Rock House", on Calton Hill in Edinburgh became the centre of their photographic experiments. Using the calotype process, they produced a wide range of portraits depicting well-known Scottish luminaries of the time, including Hugh Miller, both in the studio and outdoors, often amongst the elaborate tombs in Greyfriars Kirkyard. They photographed local and Fife landscapes and urban scenes, including images of the Scott Monument under construction in Edinburgh. As well as the great and the good, they photographed ordinary working folk, particularly the fishermen of Newhaven, and the fishwives who carried the fish in creels the 3 miles (5 km) uphill to the city of Edinburgh to sell them round the doors, with their cry of "Caller herrin" (fresh herring). They produced several groundbreaking "action" photographs of soldiers and - perhaps their most famous photograph - two priests walking side by side. Their partnership produced around 3,000 prints, but was cut short after only four years due to the ill health and death of Adamson in 1848. The calotypes faded under sunlight, so had to be kept in albums, and though Hill continued the studio for some months, he became less active and abandoned the studio, though he continued to sell prints of the photographs and to use them as an aid for composing paintings. In 1862 he remarried, to the sculptor Amelia Robertson Paton, 20 years his junior, and around that time took up photography again, but the results were more static and less successful than his collaboration with Adamson. He was badly affected by the death of his daughter and his work slowed. In 1866 he finished the Disruption picture which received wide acclaim, though many of the participants had died by then. The photographer F.C. Annan produced fine reduced facsimiles of the painting for sale throughout the Free Church, and a group of subscribers raised £1,200 to buy the painting for the church. In 1869 illness forced him to give up his post as secretary to the RSA, and he died in May 1870. Hill is buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh - one of the finest Victorian cemeteries in Scotland. He is portrayed in a bust sculpted by his second wife, Amelia, who is buried alongside him.Source: Wikipedia
Gilles Peress
France
1946
Gilles Peress (born December 29, 1946) is a French photographer and a member of Magnum Photos. Peress began working with photography in 1970, having previously studied political science and philosophy in Paris. One of Peress’ first projects examined immigration in Europe, and he has since documented events in Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, the Balkans, Rwanda, the U.S., Afghanistan, and Iraq. His project, Hate Thy Brother, a cycle of documentary narratives, looks at intolerance and the re-emergence of nationalism throughout the world and its consequences. Peress’ books include Telex Iran; The Silence: Rwanda; Farewell to Bosnia; The Graves: Srebrenica and Vukovar; A Village Destroyed; and Haines. Portfolios of his work have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine, Du magazine, Life, Stern, Geo, Paris Match, Parkett, Aperture and The New Yorker. Gilles Peress’ work has been exhibited and is collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMA PS1, all in New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Victoria and Albert Museum in London; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée Picasso, Parc de la Villette and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; Museum Folkwang, Essen; and Sprengel Museum in Hannover. Awards and fellowships Peress has received include a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants, Pollock-Krasner and New York State Council on the Arts fellowships, the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography and the International Center of Photography Infinity Award. Peress is Professor of Human Rights and Photography at Bard College in New York and Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley. Peress joined Magnum Photos in 1971 and served three times as vice president and twice as president of the co-operative. He and his wife, Alison Cornyn, live in Brooklyn with their three children.Source: Wikipedia Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Gilles Peress made his first photographic series in 1970 after attending the Institut d'Études Politiques (1966-68) and the Université de Vincennes (1968-71). By 1971, he had established himself as a freelance photographer, publishing work in Du, the London Sunday Times, The New York Times Magazine, Photo, and other periodicals. In 1972 he joined Magnum, the international cooperative photography agency founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger, and Chim (David Seymour); he has served twice as the organization's president. A National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1979 allowed him to travel to Iran, where he made the photographs published as Telex: Iran--In the Name of Revolution (1984), his first book. Other major projects include his documentation of the Irish civil war from 1971 to 1979, published as An Eye for an Eye: Northern Ireland (1986), and Hate Thy Brother, an ongoing cycle of photographs documenting the resurgence of extreme nationalism around the world. Peress's work has been included in group exhibitions at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, ICP, and elsewhere. He has received, among other honors, a W. Eugene Smith Award, the Ernst Haas Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and ICP's Infinity Awards for Journalism in 1995 and for his publication The Silence in 1996. Gilles Peress's photography demonstrates his uncommon ability to navigate and communicate the atmosphere and urgency of volatile political environments. While his early work identified him as a "concerned photographer," his more recent work suggests an increasing concern with form and a more obvious sense of subjectivity. In this respect, Peress's photographs echo the photojournalism of Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose conflation of aesthetics and reportage set the precedent for artistic photojournalism earlier in the century.Source: International Center of Photography
Nhien Hong Do
Vietnam
1962
I got into street photography as a passion after long days of work. I started exploring it in 2016, and I’ve found that street photography allows me to tell daily stories through images, capturing people with my vision and emotions. It’s about seeing each character through my lens and presenting them in a carefully chosen frame. I don’t focus too much on the technical side of my Fujifilm camera; instead, I focus intensely on discovering something unique or even unsettling in each person’s character to convey a story. Street photography brings me joy by letting me capture fleeting moments that reveal something about the people in my images. Over time, I’ve learned a lot by studying photo books and award-winning photography. I take time to appreciate each photo from other photographers, often wondering, "How did they capture this? What made them choose this specific moment?" Through this reflection, I realized that every photographer has their own way of seeing and capturing street life, and I respect their individual approaches. I’ve adopted bits of their skills into my work, but instead of copying, I’ve built my own unique style. In the end, my goal is to create street life photography that brings what I see to your soul. My talent in street photography has been recognized and featured in several publications and exhibitions. My work captures the essence of urban life and has found its place in notable books and projects dedicated to the art of street photography. In 2023, my photography was included in Urban Unveils the City and Its Secrets – Volume 08, a project by the Urban Photo Awards in Italy, which highlights the hidden sides of urban landscapes. In 2017, I was featured in Soul of Street – Volume 12, published by Photography & Philosophy Magazine in Germany, showcasing street photography that resonates with human stories and philosophical insights. That same year, my work was included in Street Photography in the World – Volume 1, a collection from Italy celebrating street photography from across the globe. Back in 2016, I contributed to Street Photography from Around the Globe in collaboration with the We Street collective, a project dedicated to street photographers worldwide. Additionally, in 2016, I had the opportunity to exhibit my work in Bucharest, Romania, where my photographs were displayed as part of a curated exhibition. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 46
Leslie Gleim
United States
1955
Leslie Gleim is a Honolulu-based fine art photographer known for her distinctive visual narratives created through aerial and macro perspectives. Her ongoing work seeks to understand the complex relationships and tensions between the natural, climatic, and human impacts upon the Hawaiian ʻāina (land). With a particular focus on the volcanic ecology of Hawai’i, she captures the regenerative and dynamic process shaped by the volcanic activity and explores the profound changes that are created by those powerful forces on the ʻāina. By documenting this delicate balance between nature and human influence, she hopes to inspire and provoke thoughtful dialogue about environmental stewardship of our planet. Leslie's work has been widely exhibited and published locally, nationally, and internationally. Her work Life Of The Land was recently purchased into the Art in Public Places Collection of the Hawai’i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Artist Statement "Life Of The Land” In 2017, I became curious about the volcanic activity on Hawai’i Island and chartered my first helicopter flight over Kīlauea’s Halemaʻumaʻu crater. Struck by the volcanic power and the resilience of the land, that flight marked the beginning of a photographic narrative documenting the life of the land. Ancient lava flows, cones, and fissures etch themselves eloquently across the landscapes of Hawaiʻi, their presence akin to pages torn from an ancestral geological journal spanning millennia. Each formation reveals a fragment of Hawai’i's narrative (mo’olelo), bearing witness to its evolution and adaptation, each element telling a tale of resilience and renewal. The photographs are not merely snapshots of geological features; they are windows into the soul of the land, revealing the timeless forces that have shaped the landscape. Each image is freshly written onto the pages of a present-day journal that provides the reader/viewer with both historical and current insights into the story of the land. Simultaneously, it unveils the volcanic cleansing and birthing processes that shapes the ‘aina (land), giving rise to new landscapes from its apocalyptic beginnings. Are we witnessing glimpses of a future defined or foretold in the Anthropocene era? As we confront the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change, these photographs serve as reminders of the delicate balance between humanity and nature. What stories will endure for future generations, and what legacies will we leave behind?
Iris Brito Stevens
United States
I was born and raised in Salinas, California (U.S.), a farming community known for its lettuce. As a daughter of Mexican immigrants, I became aware of, and sensitive to, the differences between the immigrant and non-immigrant communities and their perspectives, which at times felt narrow and somewhat limiting. Growing up surrounded by family grounded me deeply, yet an insatiable curiosity and passion for learning about the world beyond me, called out. I spread my wings and traveled to destinations that were completely foreign, often under the auspices of humanitarian and educational endeavors. The lens through which I saw the world opened-up and expanded my perspective, just like a camera. Through first-hand experience, I became aware of the lives and conditions of marginalized and oppressed peoples globally. This new dimensionality helped me to confront certain realities, to grow, and to self-reflect on what it means to be human. It also led me toward activism and social documentary photography, which enabled me to blend visual narrative with the stories of other people through projects or partnerships in Uganda, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Spain, San Francisco and more. My photographic work is my passion, and it serves to create awareness and a more intimate human connection, by encouraging a path that looks beyond our limited and inherent perceptions and conditioning. Statement In America, we place so much value on individuality and independence, that we forget how truly interdependent we are on one another, both on a local and global scale. We have become hyper-focused on the self and are losing our ability to empathize and see the intense vulnerability around us—though considering recent events, this appears to be shifting. As a social documentary photographer, I am drawn towards people and the conditions that are relevant in their lives, as individuals and as members of a family, community, or society. Our perception of the world can be limited to our own multi-faceted forms of conditioning; I utilize the impact of visual narrative to bring awareness of the human condition worldwide. There is so much beauty in diversity. I want to validate that diversity through photography, to help others grow in that appreciation, to demonstrate that we are all a part of something collectively - that life's experience doesn't begin and end with us, as individuals. Dominance consciousness is so pervasive in society; it's like a box with thick walls and nothing to see, nowhere to go, devoid of any inspiration. It kills curiosity and ideas. I want us all to be inspired and curious by the diversity we see and experience in everyday life. Diversity is beautiful.
Michael Jackson
United Kingdom
1966
British b.1966, in Wokingham, Berkshire. Jackson trained as a painter at West Dean College, England. After moving to Wales In 2007 he started work on an extensive study of a single remote beach, Poppit Sands, which lasted for eight years until 2015. Jackson won the Chris Beetles Award in 2013 and became a Hasselblad Masters Award finalist three times in 2008, 2009 and 2012. Now regarded as a leading exponent of the luminogram process, he works with uniquely developed techniques and response mirroring using silver gelatin paper in the darkroom. In 2017 his luminogram work was paired with theologian Edwin A.Abbott in a book published by 21st Editions, titled after Abbott's famous work 'FLATLAND' and premiered at the Grand Palais in Paris. His work is held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the collection of the University of Minnesota. Artist Statement "I am a British photographer based in rural Wales, UK. Born 1966. Studied art at West Dean College then apprenticed under the landscape painter Christopher W. Baker. Since moving to Wales in 2007 I have been photographing a single beach - Poppit Sands. This seems to be something that I am compelled to do as I have not yet tired of it. My goal is to keep on looking harder and hope that through studying a single subject I can find something new. The images have toured with the Hasselblad Masters On Tour twice and have been exhibited in Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Beijing, Berlin, New York, Cardiff, London & Los Angeles as well being featured in magazines such as LENSWORK, SILVERSHOTZ and SHOTS as well as blogs such as LENSCRATCH, CNN & FEATURESHOOT. The images have also reached the Hasselblad Masters Finals three times."Source: www.mgjackson.co.uk
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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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