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Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
Carlos Chavarria
Carlos Chavarria
Carlos Chavarria

Carlos Chavarria

Country: Spain
Birth: 1985

Although Carlos Chavarria was born and raised in Madrid, Spain, his photography is strongly influenced by both the classic American documentary Photography and the New color American Photography, unlike the classic genres Carlos uses this aesthetic in his work to explore more conceptual subjects that are directly related to his own experience, moving away from the classic objective documentary approach. Common elements like isolation, identity or references to “the intermediate” are often found in his work. Carlos holds a Masters program in Photography from the European University of Madrid and in 2010 he was selected as one of the best emerging photographers to participate in the international award "Descubrimientos PhotoEspaña 2010",right after that he moved to San Francisco to continue working in his Photography, since that he's shown his work in several galleries and venues in Spain, France and United States, and has worked for magazines like TIME, Monocle, Sunset or Bloomberg Business Week among others.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Daniel Berehulak
Daniel Berehulak is an award-winning independent photojournalist based in Mexico City, Mexico. A native of Sydney, Australia, Daniel has visited over 60 countries covering history-shaping events including the Iraq war, the trial of Saddam Hussein, child labour in India, Afghanistan elections and the return of Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan, and documented people coping with the aftermath of the Japan Tsunami and the Chernobyl disaster. His work has been recognized with two Pulitzer prizes. In 2015, for Feature Photography for his coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and in 2017 for Breaking News Photography for his coverage of the so-called war on drugs in the Philippines, both for The New York Times. In 2011, he was also a Pulitzer finalist for his coverage of the 2010 floods in Pakistan. These are some of several honors his photography has earned including six World Press Photo awards, two Photographer Of The Year awards from Pictures of the Year International and the prestigious John Faber, Olivier Rebbot and Feature Photography awards from the Overseas Press Club amongst others. Born into a Ukrainian refugee family, Daniel grew up on a farm outside of Sydney, Australia. Their Ukrainian practicality did not consider photography to be a viable trade to pursue, so at an early age Daniel worked on the farm and at his father's refrigeration company. After graduating from The University of NSW with a degree in History, his career as a photographer started humbly: shooting sports matches for a guy who ran his business from his garage. In 2002 he started freelancing with Getty Images in Sydney shooting mainly sport. From 2005 Daniel was based in London and from 2009 in New Delhi, as a staff news photographer with Getty Images til June of 2013. As of July 2013, Daniel embarked upon a freelance career to focus on a combination of long-term personal projects, breaking news and client assignments. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times.
Monica Denevan
United States
1964
Monica Denevan studied photography at San Francisco State University. Her ongoing series, "Songs of the River: Portraits from Burma," began in 2000. Since then, she has returned to many of the same small villages in Burma/Myanmar, making intimate photographs of fishermen and their families in the spare and graphic setting of the Irrawaddy River. She travels with a medium format film camera, one lens, and bags of film, working with natural light and making composed images. Once home, she makes photographic prints in her traditional darkroom. Denevan's photographs have been exhibited internationally including solo shows at Scott Nichols Gallery (Sonoma, CA), Duncan Miller Gallery (Santa Monica, CA), Tao Gallery (Hong Kong) and Serindia Gallery Annex (Bangkok.) In 2020, she was one of 25 artists included in Photo-Eye Gallery's (Santa Fe, NM) first-ever juried exhibition. Her work is currently displayed on The Strand Cruise ship in Burma/Myanmar. She was a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 finalist in 2019 and 2012. In 2016, ten of Denevan's images were published in a book of Lao photographs published by Nazraeli Press and Friends Without A Border in NY. In addition, her photographs have been published in ZYZZYVA, LensWork, SHOTS, and Bangkok Airways Inflight Magazine among others. She is the All About Photo 2020 Photographer of the Year award recipient. Monica Denevan is represented by Scott Nichols Gallery. She lives and works in San Francisco. Statement In my ongoing series "Songs of the River: Portraits from Burma," I make portraits of fishermen and their families by the Irrawaddy River. Burma (Myanmar) has a long troubled history, which continues into the present and now receives much more international notice and condemnation since my first trip in 2000. However, little has changed in the quiet villages I often visit. Generations of families live together in thatched roofed huts built on stilts. Women wash clothes in the river. Girls collect river water in large plastic containers that they balance on their heads. Men and boys are often out all night fishing. In the evening, children play, sing, bathe, and joke around at the river's edge. The sounds echo over the water. When in the villages, I am most interested in making portraits of the people I spend my time with, some of whom I have photographed since I first visited the country. I am grateful to be allowed briefly into their lives. The nearby area is stark, minimal, and ever changing, and I use that environment in my photographs. The landscape becomes another subject, another portrait within the picture. As families grow, I incorporate new people into my images, combining the spare, external world with the physicality of the individual. To return to the same place annually and find a new way to see it or to look for what is different is a daily adventure that I enjoy.
Anna Laza
Romania
"I started to be in photography about 15 years ago. At that time I used to model and participate in shootings. But quite quickly I got bored with posing and was becoming more curious to stand on the other side of the camera. So slowly, but certainly I started my own way in the big universe of photography. I have principles in my shootings and always keep in focus my own style. It’s very important for an artist to both keep his/her unique style and progress in it at the same time. When I shoot women I avoid sexualizing them and even photographing naked bodies there’ll be no sexual vision in the image, but sensual and sophisticated." Anna Laza is an influential visual artist working in Art and Fashion photography. Her projects are focused on finding new innovative styles both shooting and post-processing. Her work has been rewarded and been exhibited internationally, she has won in a number of famous photo contests, including LensCulture, MonoVisions and Minimalist Awards. She is often published in photography magazines and regularly appears on prestigious jury lists for photographic events. Besides her own photography, she is also a creator of the magazine FotoSlovo, which highlights every year new emerging talents in photography from Russia & CIS counties. Metaphysical Body Landscapes "My childhood I've spent at my grandmother's house in Romania, near the Carpathian Mountains. Seeing human's strong bond with the earth, observing nature, landscapes around influenced my understanding of earth beauty and men's connexion with it. All being is something whole, indivisible. Earth, sky, plants, fruits, mountains, rivers, men, women, day, night- all merged together and flow into each other. This process is infinite and harmonious. Men came from the earth, lives on earth and will return to earth. And landscapes of the earth are seen in body curves. Growing up I moved to live in big cities, my grandmother passed away and I felt the loss of spiritual connexion with nature. To reconnect, I start to search the Landscapes in body in my photography."
Alena Grom
Ukraine
1976
Ukrainian artist and documentary photographer Alena Grom was born in Donetsk. In April 2014 she was forced to leave her hometown due to military events in Eastern Ukraine. Since 2017 she has lived in Bucha, a town outside of Kyiv. As a result of the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022, Grom and her family became refugees for the second time, but returned after the de-occupation of Bucha. These events largely affected her artistic practice. Photography became a salvation for Alena and a way to deal with the traumatic reality of war. Since 2016 Alena Grom’s work focuses on places affected by military aggression. Her lens captures victims of the war, migrants and refugees, and war-torn Ukraine in large. However, her photographs are not illustrations of pity or grief. Life in spite of everything is one of the main themes of the artist.Alena Grom’s projects were exhibited extensively in Ukraine and internationally; and recognised by a number of international photography awards Statement: I work at the intersection of conceptual photography and social reporting. Artists and war – these words’ combination evokes pictures sketched by the masters of a battle painting. The protagonist of such a genre is a soldier, a creator of victory. As a rule, society learns about a war from the perspective of a male about how to heroically fight, die and triumph. I narrate the war through subjective experience related to cultural memory, through the creative re-evaluation of my own life and as documented evidence for the events. The idea of my work prevails over the form. The aesthetics in my work is secondary: though being not completely eliminated, it does not constitute the major to me. The aesthetics in the name of a pure form converts things into being useless, and the reality into a dead one. I take a variety of approaches: from reportage to associations play, video, collages, using other people’s photography and archives. All these help me to express the idea and the feelings more deeply. I sincerely believe that art is a power that can encourage people to participate in public dialogue. I create my projects partly in protest against the indifference. I feel responsible to myself and to those who fell victim to the war. An artist holds a responsibility. Together we are constructing a new political reality and an idea for the future. Art always sounds in tune with what is happening around.
Frieke Janssens
Belgium
1980
Over the past 25 years, Frieke Janssens has acquired a reputation as a photographer of surreal staged tableaux and group portraits, often originating in a specific concept, and almost always stemming from an inexhaustible interest in human diversity. Her series often stand out because of their confrontational nature. Notable series include, among others, Smoking Kids, Your last shot, Diana's, Animalcoholics, and recently Lightness. In the same way that an oil painter builds up a work layer by layer, she too meticulously creates each image, down to the smallest detail. In every picture we can recognise the same artistic touch, the same technical perfection, combined with a playful duality between reality and fiction. At first glance, her images attract the viewer because of their pared-down beauty. Yet once one really starts to look in earnest, one realises that there are always multiple layers of meaning. It seems as if the people portrayed are trying to tell us something. However, they are silent, and consequently have to rely on the viewers to create the story for themselves. Frieke does not adopt any particular position, but aims to convey the feeling that one is not only looking at a photograph, but at a mirror as well. As such, she leaves the viewers free in their interpretation, yet never leaves them indifferent. She sometimes lends her pared-down style to clients with whom she has a good connection, like a cultural centre, or a campaign, or a newspaper or magazine. In recent years, Frieke Janssens has exhibited in New York, Chicago, London, Hull, Bilbao and obviously also in her own country, including in Antwerp and Knokke-Heist. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, Knack, De Morgen, De Tijd and NRC, among others. Her book The Sweetest Taboo won gold at the 2019 Henry Van De Velde awards. In 2022, her third book Lightness was published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition in Foto Knokke-Heist.
Sonia Melnikova-Raich
Russia/United States
1947
Sonia Melnikova-Raich was born in Moscow in 1947 and has been living in San Francisco since 1987. She was trained as an artist and architect, with a Master's degree from the prestigious Moscow Architectural Institute. Her approach to photography is shaped by her background in painting and architecture. Influenced by the vision of Russian Constructivists of the 1920s and the photography of the Bauhaus movement, she is interested in exploring the abstract in the material world, drawing the viewer's attention to the inner geometry of the photograph and its compositional structure. Her Light+Shadows series, which revolves around the mystery of perspective and geometry created by light and darkness in the architectural image, was inspired by the words of the famous American architect Louis Kahn: "The sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building." Distinct from her high-contrast architectural photography, many of Sonia's other works (Within My Sight, Råbjerg Mile Dunes, Waking Dreams, and other series) explore the poetry and mystique of low-light environments, capturing fleeting moments, barely visible, ambiguous or disappearing things. She feels a strong affinity with the Japanese philosophy and aesthetic of wabi sabi, with its reverence for the subtle beauty in old and simple things, and focus on transience and impermanence. She believes that photography is the best medium to express these concepts, as each photograph is inherently an image of disappearance, a reflective connection to the past forever stamped by time. Since 2005, Sonia's photography has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally. In addition to three solo gallery shows in San Francisco, her photographs have been exhibited at LoosenArt Gallery in Rome, Fotogalerie Friedrichshain in Berlin, and various venues in the USA, with some of her works in the permanent collection of the Lafayette Public Library in California. She has been among the winners in many juried competitions, had her works featured in professional photography journals, and was listed in 100 Hot Photographers of 2022 and 2023 by YourDailyPhotograph.com, the project by Duncan Miller Gallery in Los Angeles, an internationally recognized gallery specializing in 20th and 21st Century fine art photography. Winner AAP Magazine #30 Shadows
Peyman Naderi
Peyman Naderi is a Persian contemporary fine art and portrait photographer born in 1990. He is a self-taught photographer who started his first professional projects in the year 2013. As he began his career as a professional photographer, his first motto was to create original and creative photos through which his own perceptions of the world and art could be understood. Also, he is eager to represent a unique way of looking at various concepts in the world. "Concept" is one of the most important parts of his photography projects, and Peyman tries to spend enough time and energy on finding the right concept. To create and discover the right idea he usually listen to classical music during his free time or at nights. Such high-quality music can inspire him and help him to concentrate on finding ways to present the world in ways that he sees. Besides, the colors that he uses in his photos create the illusion of a painting, and, hence, most people usually mistake his works as paintings. Peyman has received several awards including Second Place In Portrait in Fine Art Photography Awards 2020, Particular Merit Mention in All About Photo Awards 2020, Bronze in Fine Portrait and Fine Art Other in One Eyeland Photography Awards 2019, 1st Place in Conceptual in Chromatic Awards 2019, 2nd Place in Fashion in Chromatic Awards 2019, Gold In Moscow International Foto Awards 2019 in Portfolio Category, Bronze In Fine Art Photography Awards 2019 In Fine Art Category, Bronze In PX3 2019 In Fine Art - People and Also Peyman has been chosen as a 100 Great Photographers of 2018 and also Took 2nd Place In Conceptual Photo In 35Awards 2018, and also he has been Winner in ND Awards, Tokyo International Foto Awards, PX3, and International Photography Awards and V Concurso International De Fotografía 'Alicante' 2019. His work has been published in international publications including Harper's Bazaar Magazine and The Exhibition was In Ontario, 2019 CONTACT Photography Festival and Also The Last Exhibition was in France, 2019 Voies Off, Galerie Des Arènes. Statement My name is Peyman Naderi, and I am a contemporary Persian fine art and portrait photographer. I am a self-taught photographer who started his first professional projects in the year 2013. As I began my career as a professional photographer, my first moto was to create original and creative photos through which my own perceptions of the world and art could be understood. Also, I am eager to represent a unique way of looking to various concepts in the world. My first experience as a subject of portrait photography was quite funny though. I remember that I was only six years old, and I was terrified by seeing various equipment and cameras. Trying to make me calmer, the photographer gave me a toy camera to play with while sitting on the chair. This memory, somehow, triggered my curiosity and interest in this art. I bought my first camera years later, in 2010, and started to take photos of my friends and family members. The more I got engaged in this art, the more I found out about my artistic talents and the passion I have for photography. I remember that I used to go to a burnt cotton factory located on the outskirt of Tehran, my hometown. Although the fire had ruined almost everything in the factory, a small hall with a high ceiling and golden walls was left intact. When I first entered this building, seeing this magnificent scenery inside a totally destroyed and abandoned building took my breath away and provoked my first fine art ideas inside me. As I started my first project, I used to go to this place every day to try different photography techniques and become master in them. Then, I started studio photography to learn about various lighting techniques. I tried to include my own ideas and perceptions here, and manipulate the lighting based on my perceptions and concepts. Winning the silver medal in the Victor Polynsky competition for one of my photos called Oblivion, further increased my self-confidence and my persistence in photography. In the years after that, I won several awards in many competitions like Moscow International Foto Awards, Chromatic Awards, ND Awards, Tokyo International Foto Awards, PX3 and IPA, and I had my works published in various international magazines. "Concept" is one of the most important parts of my photography projects, and I try to spend enough time and energy on finding the right concept. To create and discover the right idea I usually listen to classical music during my free time or at nights. Such high-quality music can inspire me and help me to concentrate on finding ways to present the world in ways that I see. Besides, the colors that I use in my photos create the illusion of a painting, and, hence, most people usually mistake my works as paintings. In this project, I tried to exhibit the mind and though barriers that humans face. To fully present my idea I decided to use handmade metals and natural flowers, and then I tried to expand my idea to show both emancipation and captivity at the same time. Also, I have been attempting to display my own viewpoint in all of my works and to enable the viewer to connect with the world that I see. I genuinely hope to create a permanent path in the art of photography inspire other talented and hardworking artists. AAP Competitions All About Photo Awards 2020 AAP Magazine 10 Portrait
Fokion Zissiadis
Fokion Zissiadis was born in Thessaloniki in 1956. He studied architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and went on to do a Masters degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia USA, graduating in 1983. His career to date has been in the hotel and tourism sector, continuing the family tradition as a shareholder in the well-known Sani Resort in Halkidiki and Vice President of Sani S.A. He first took an interest in photography - mainly photographing buildings and urban landscapes - during his years as an architecture student. Later it was nature, on a small or large scale, which became his narrative priority, while he gradually developed more personal, interpretative views of the landscapes he sought to capture. His photography expressed a desire to preserve a wide-angle "view through a personal window" on the world around him. An active man with a passion for the natural world and a love of adventure, he planned journeys to particular destinations where nature reveals the primitive building blocks of which she is made, where the great age of the natural landscape is to be seen, where the visitor is challenged to engage fully and completely with the natural world around him. His photographic work covers a wide range of geological phenomena and diverse terrains: deserts, glaciers, savannahs, volcanoes, rivers, seas, mountain ranges and uplands. He has visited and photographed locations as varied as Peking, Moscow, New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, the capital cities of Europe, Egypt, Patagonia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, the Bahamas, Israel, Cappadocia, Constantinople, Malta, Oman, Qatar, Dubai and, most recently, Iceland. His photographs use a keen geometrical sense to interpret the quintessence of the landscape with all those features through which the genius loci is expressed. Through his personal photographic idiom, Fokion Zissiadis expresses his own aesthetic sense of moment and place. The dwarfed human figures almost always included in his photographic compositions create a strong sense of the insignificance of man when confronted with the grandeur and majesty of the natural world. On all his photographic journeys he is accompanied by his lifetime partner and advisor - his wife Mata Tsolozidi Zissiadis. An active man with a passion for the natural world and a love of adventure "Passion under fate becomes pathos. The Aristotelian adage denotes not only my relationship with the Arctic Line, yet my overall feelings towards the area. Intimate sentiments about the burning issue of climate change become the vehicle for the lens to capture the unfathomable beauty of Greenland. Icebergs that flawlessly exemplify a celebration of random wandering and ceaseless transformation. Water as the ultimate procreator. Time that grows into one's living; life that metamorphoses into one's chronos. At the end, it's all about the Analogue Line. Nature seems to be on line. And so is myself. Perhaps, it is also a line that connected me to the publishing of my first book on Iceland with teNeues, and now to my fruitful collaboration with Rizzoli Libri and the upcoming printing, in 2020, of a book with my photos on Vietnam." - Fokion Zissiadis
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All About Photo Awards 2026
Win a Solo Exhibition in February
All About Photo Awards 2026

Latest Interviews

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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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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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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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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Call for Entries
All About Photo Awards 2026
$5,000 Cash Prizes! Juror: Steve McCurry