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

Matteo Bastianelli

Country: Italy
Birth: 1985

Matteo Bastianelli (b. 1985) is a documentary photographer and filmmaker based in the Metropolitan City of Rome, Italy. He is a National Geographic Magazine contributor and a member of Italy's National Order of Journalists. Above all he works on personal projects and commissions related to social, environmental and human rights issues with a keen interest in the themes of memory, identity, inclusion and sustainability.

His photographic and film projects have been regularly published and commissioned by Al Jazeera, CNN, Internazionale, The New York Times, National Geographic, Newsweek, The Guardian, Voice of America, Washington Post, among others. Since 2016 he has also been working on commission for NGOs such as Amnesty International, AVSI, Doctors Without Borders/MSF, Human Rights Watch and International Committee of the Red Cross. His projects have been widely shown in group and solo exhibitions and screenings around the world. A selection of Bastianelli’s accolades includes National Geographic Society’s Covid-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists, Emerging Talent Award at Reportage by Getty Images, AP32- American Photography Awards, PDN’s Photo Annual, Canon Young Photographers’ Award, Italian Doc Screenings Development Award for best documentary film and "Vittorio de Seta" prize for the director of the best documentary film at BIF&ST.

He spent almost five years working in the former Yugoslavia, where he produced his early series. In 2012 was released his first monograph and documentary film, "The Bosnian Identity". In 2013 he started working on "Souls of Syrians", an ongoing project which stems from the concern to document the personal story of a Syrian youth who fled his country in search of salvation in Europe. In 2018 Bastianelli documented the world’s worst humanitarian disaster caused by the ongoing civil war in Yemen, focusing his attention on the resilience of civilians trapped in a life of violence and disease. His documentary film "Yemen Unveiled" was screened during the 2019 Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin, Germany and has been included in the Official Selection of the Health for All Film Festival 2020, organized by the World Health Organization in Geneva. In recent years, he has been continuing his research work on personal and small stories that, by synecdoche, represent a mosaic of contemporary history: from immigration to climate change, from social inclusion to the metamorphosis of the contemporary landscape.


Movies:
The Bosnian Identity
Mal di Mare

Agency

Reportage by Getty Images

Websites

www.matteobastianelli.com

@bastianelli_matteo

 

Matteo Bastianelli's Video

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Mauro De Bettio
Mauro De Bettio
Italy
I was born and raised in a little village in the Italian Alps, now based in Barcelona. Although it is difficult to express, I think that the photograph represents my way of speaking and what I try to do through my language is to capture the sense of what I breathe. Not only in appearance but also, and especially, in the essence; trying to express nuances and subtleties contained in a single frame. I think that's part of my personality and my work fully expresses what I am. My story, my soul. Despite often the conditions and situations in which I am, are not easy, I always do my best to capture smiles and glances. It's extremely important for me to show those particular emotions because they represent strength and resilience. I am convinced It's a source of inspiration for all of us because it shows that anything is possible when you face something with the hearth and the courage from within. The determination these people show, in the images I take, is an extraordinary example of how every challenge can be converted into opportunity. Reproducing all these different moods into images is to evoke an emotion in someone else. Draw public attention to real-life situations. Stop people and make them think. His pictures are a visual story able to highlight unseen or ignored realities. A vital tool that can help bring about social changes. Photography is a fantastic storytelling medium. Just ask yourself what story you want to tell and photography can bring you there.
Hsuan Chung
Hsuan Chung
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Hsuan Chung is a passionate photographer who started his interest in photography when he was seventeen. During his college years in Taiwan, he taught himself all the skills and techniques of photography and became a professional newspaper journalist before graduation. He wasn't satisfied with his works and wanted improvement. That is when he decided to relocate to Atlanta to work on his M.F.A degree in Photography at Savannah College of Art and Design. During his time working on his degree, he participates in many events and works hard to promote his photography works. With less than a year from graduation, he plans to participate in fundraisers, exhibitions, and other artwork presentation platforms in order to show his works to the public and spread his messages. Edge Since ancient times, human beings have continuously given life to the land and civilization. We constantly create stories and memories in each land which has its own temperature and culture. Everything on the land experiences a cycle of weathering, squeezing, and accumulating, then they disintegrate, and reconstruct to irregular solids. The project is based on my thoughts about the boundary between sea and land. The gravel in the soil is cracked by hitting each other under the lap of the waves, thus forming a new state. The minerals and gravel are brought back to the sea by the waves and become nutrients for microorganisms. The boundary between the sea and the land, that surges at all times but exists forever, is the birthplace of land and life. For me, that is also the end of human civilization. I used the square composition of a medium format camera to metaphorically refer to the concept of 'time' in nature that only humans have. I pressed the shutter after a series of precise calculations, and each square perfectly framed the time and scenery of the moment. In order to let the negative and the seawater fully interact, I soaked the negative in the seawater took from the shooting location. So that the salt and minerals in the seawater are able to remain on the negative. During the development, sea salt and minerals that stay on the negative produce chemical reactions with chemistry and silver halides. Human intervention and uncertain chemistry allow the whole process to create a memory journey between the earth and the sea, human beings and nature. The final images fulfill the purpose of recreating memories of different times and spaces and making them eternal. They not only record the memory of the ocean for 4500 million years but also witness the vitality of everything and the inseparable connection between human beings and the earth.
Kathryn Oliver
Kathryn Oliver
United States
Kathryn discovered a love for making pictures as a small child and developed a rich inner life of impressions. As she grew, creative aspirations led her to bring this inner world forward through art. Self taught, her creative journey has repeatedly taken her into the field of metaphor and myth as a way to express something eternal within herself. Her professional arts background of painting, theater and dance feeds the photography she does now as she blends hints of all these elements into her images. She currently creates and exhibits black and white fine art photography and photo encaustics, teaching workshops on the midcoast of Maine throughout the year. Drawn to the symbolic language of myth and archetypes, I am forever on a quest, seeking a visual narrative that evokes an internal recognition of nature — something in exile, lost, or hidden — yet leaves an impression inwardly known.About the series The Wild Garden Of Childhood: When I was a child the best part of me was wild. The Wild Garden Of Childhood is an exploration into the untamed vitality and sacred beauty of being young. That universality of raw spirit, where emotional authenticity reigns naturally and fiercely -- dancing on the edge of innocence. Arising from my own fragmented memories, inspired by the open innocence and un-self conscious freedom of my subjects, a world is conjured, somewhere between the real and imagined - where the fertile ground of being is at play. The most precious of stories are stored away for safe keeping, Somewhere In the wild garden of childhood awaiting becomingness
Fabian Muir
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Fabian Muir is an award-winning Australian photographer based in Sydney. The principal motivation behind his projects and practice is visual storytelling with a focus on humanist issues. He is an Eddie Adams alumnus (USA) and represented by Michael Reid in Sydney and Berlin. He speaks fluent German, French and Spanish, while his Russian sputters with the determination of a Lada on a rather steep incline. His images have featured in major solo and group exhibitions and festivals around the world and have been acquired by numerous significant collections. His fine art series addressing social challenges and injustice confronting refugees, entitled 'Blue Burqa in a Sunburnt Country' (2014) and 'Urban Burqa' (2017), as well as his two-year survey of daily life in the DPRK (North Korea) have attracted global press, television and radio coverage. He has also spent years surveying the legacy of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of its disintegration. Outlets include The Guardian / The Atlantic / VICE / BBC World TV / CNN International TV / LensCulture / SPIEGEL / Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung / BBC Asian Network / BBC Digital / FotoEvidence / PDN / Vogue Entertaining + Travel / Sueddeutsche Zeitung / Channel 9 Australia / BuzzFeed / World Photography Organisation Blog / Leica Magazine / Vision (China) / ZEISS Lenspire / France Culture (Radio France) / Photographic Museum of Humanity (PHmuseum) / Marie Claire / CNU (China) / El Observador (Portugal) / The Sydney Morning Herald / Fotoblogia (Poland) / LIFO / Bird in Flight / FAHRENHEITº Magazine / MindFood Magazine / Ampersand Magazine / Studio Magazine / Bios Monthly (Taiwan) / La Repubblica / Lenta.ru / The Age / Black + White Magazine / Konbini / Capture Magazine / Photojournalink / Expert-Russkiy Reporter / Street Photography Magazine / Feature Shoot / Gulf News (UAE) / The National (UAE) / PhotogrVphy Magazine / Musée Magazine New York / Forbes Magazine / London Telegraph / Lenscratch / Aesthetica Magazine / Portrait of Humanity book published by Hoxton Mini Press, London / The Independent / London Times / Huck Magazine / British Journal of Photography
Yang Bin
Yang Bin
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Oliver Raschka
Oliver Raschka
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Robb Johnson
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Lauren Welles
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Lauren is a freelance photographer, and former attorney, based in New York City. Her street photography has received several awards and has been exhibited at various venues around the world, including: "The Fence" at Photoville, NYC; the Museum of the City of New York, NYC; Arsenal Gallery in Central Park, NYC; PhotoLeiden, The Netherlands; Gudberg Nerger Gallery, Hamburg, DE; and the Center For Fine Art Photography, HistoryMiami Museum, and Rayko Photo Center, in the US. Her work and interviews have been published in a variety of publications, including PDN Online; ViewFind; CBS News; New Yorker Magazine; Slate Magazine; All-About-Photo.com; Il Repubblica; YourDailyPhotograph.com; Desert Leaf Magazine; Rangefinder Magazine, World Photography Organization, the Phoblographer, Street Photography Magazine, and the Hamburg Journal. Lauren takes candid photos of people in her surroundings. Her only prerequisite is that each photo tell its own story—one that changes with each viewer. Find out more about the project Coney Island in this article
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All About Photo Awards 2026
Win a Solo Exhibition in February
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All About Photo Awards 2026
$5,000 Cash Prizes! Juror: Steve McCurry
© Fernando Morales Roca
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