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Enter AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Enter AAP Magazine 54 Nature: Landscape, Wildlife, Flora & Fauna
Cig Harvey
© Sam Adler
Cig Harvey
Cig Harvey

Cig Harvey

Country: United Kingdom
Birth: 1973

The photographs and artist books of Cig Harvey have been widely exhibited and remain in the permanent collections of major museums and collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; and the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Cig began working in a darkroom at thirteen and has been dedicated to photography ever since. She grew up in the deep valleys of Devon in the UK, and came to the States for her MFA in 1999, after years spent living in Barcelona and Bermuda.

Cig Harvey's first monograph, You Look At Me Like An Emergency (Schilt Publishing, 2012,) is a collection of ten years of pictures and written vignettes. It sold out in all printings and was named one of PDNʼs Best Books of the Year 2012. Cig had her first solo museum show at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo, Norway, in conjunction with the release. The book was well reviewed in a number of publications, including The Independent, Aesthetica, the Boston Globe, Blink, and PDN. Pro Photographer magazine ran an in depth feature, "Chance: Cig Harvey's deceptively simple photographs tap into the universal elements of the human experience: love, loss, longing and belonging. She's in demand for editorial and commercial work-as well as her for her fine art prints and books."

Cig Harvey's second monograph, Gardening at Night (Schlit Publishing, 2015,) was published in conjunction with solo shows at Robert Mann Gallery, New York, Robert Klein Gallery, Boston and Paul Kopeiken Gallery, Los Angeles. The book received critical acclaim with features and reviews in Vogue, The Telegraph, the International Wall Street Journal, the International New York Times, and Aesthetica among others. The International Wall Street Journal said of the series, "Though the subjects and setting are familiar to us, we cannot help but feel that Cig Harvey has led us through the looking glass to a world of wonder. In the way that twilight is not quite day and not quite night, the photographs of Gardening at Night are stories not yet fully developed, while still capturing the unexpected yet oddly harmonious moments that surround us daily."

Cig Harvey's work has been displayed at Paris Photo, Art Miami, and AIPAD every year since 2006. She has been a nominee for John Gutmann fellowship and the Santa Fe Prize, and a finalist for the BMW Prize at Paris Photo and for the Prix Virginia, an international photography prize for women.

Cig's devotion to visual storytelling has lead to innovative international campaigns and features with New York Magazine, Harper's Bazaar Japan, Kate Spade, and Bloomingdales. Cig teaches workshops and regularly speaks on her work and processes at institutions around the world. She is known for her high energy, sense of humor and creativity. She brings a profound sense of optimism to all that she does.

Cig lives in a farmhouse in the Midcoast of Maine with her husband Doug (who has the profile of an emperor on a Roman coin), their wayward daughter Scout, and Scarlet the dog (the original baby). The slow passing of time and the natural surroundings of her rural home has made her alert to the magic in the mundane.

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More Great Photographers To Discover

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
Ming Smith
United States
1973
Ming Smith is an American photographer. She was the first African-American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Smith was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Columbus, Ohio. After graduating from Howard University in 1973, she moved to New York City, where she found work modeling. While in New York she met photographer Anthony Barboza, who was an early influence. Smith's approach to photography has included in-camera techniques such as playing with focus, darkroom techniques like double exposure, collage techniques and paint on prints. Her work is less engaged with documentation of events than with expression of experience. It has been described as surreal and ethereal, as the New York Times observed: "Her work, personal and expressive, draws from a number of artistic sources, preeminently surrealism. She has employed a range of surrealist techniques: photographing her subjects from oblique angles, shooting out of focus or through such atmospheric effects as fog and shadow, playing on unusual juxtapositions, even altering or painting over prints." Smith's early work was composed of photos that were shot quickly to produce elaborate scenes, and due to this process many of her photos have double dates. She has used the technique of hand-tinting in some of her work, notably her Transcendence series. Ming Smith has photographed many important black cultural figures during her career, including Alvin Ailey and Nina Simone. In 1973 Smith was featured in the first volume of the Black Photographers Annual, a publication closely affiliated with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Smith had her first exhibition at Cinandre, a hairdressing salon, in 1973 as well. At Cinandre, she met Grace Jones, whom she photographed wearing a black and white tutu on occasion. Smith recalls that she and Jones would talk about surviving as black artists. Smith reflects on the memories by saying: "We came out of Jim Crow. And so just coming to New York and trying to be a model or anything was new." Two years later (1975), Smith became the first female member of the Harlem-based photography collective Kamoinge, under director Roy DeCarava. The Kamoinge Workshop was founded in New York in 1963 to support the work of black photographers in a field then dominated by white men. The collective, which still exists today, has undertaken a range of initiatives, including exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and the publishing of portfolios for distribution to museums. Smith participated with Kamoinge in three groups shows in New York and Guyana. Smith dropped off a portfolio at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), where the receptionist mistook her for a messenger. When she returned, she was taken into the curator's office. Susan Kismaric named a price for Smith's work, which Smith declined due to the price not paying off her bills. Kismaric asked Smith to reconsider, which she eventually did. Shortly after, she became the first Black woman photographer to be included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City. In addition to the MOMA, Smith's art has been featured at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Smith has twice exhibited at the Bellevue Hospital Centre in Morristown, New Jersey, through their Art in the Atrium exhibitions. The first was in 1995, for Cultural Images: Sweet Potato Pie, an exhibit curated by Russell A. Murray. In 2008 she contributed as part of the exhibition New York City: In Focus, part of Creative Destinations 2008 Exhibition of African American Art. Smith's photographs are included in the 2004 Ntozake Shange book The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family and Life. In 2010, her work was included in MOMA's exhibition Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography. This exhibition recontextualized Smith's work alongside that of Diane Arbus and marked a growing interest in Smith's work. Organized by curator Roxana Marcoci, it was curated by Sarah Meister through the Department of Photography. In 2017, a major survey exhibition of Smith's work was held at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York. The exhibition featured 75 vintage black-and-white prints that represented Smith's career. Smith has collaborated with filmmaker Arthur Jafa in the Serpentine Sackler Gallery's 2017 show, Arthur Jafa: A Series of Utterly Improbable, yet Extraordinary Renditions (Featuring Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo and Missylanyus). That same year, she was featured in the Tate Modern group exhibition Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, curated by Mark Godfrey and Zoé Whitley. The show received international acclaim before traveling to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Broad, the de Young Museum of San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Since then, Smith's work was featured in solo presentations by Jenkins Johnson Gallery both at Frieze New York and Frieze Masters in 2019, the former of which receiving the Frieze Stand Prize. In 2020, Ming's work will be included in the group exhibition Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA. From there, the exhibition will travel to The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.[19] Smith's work is in museum collections including the National Gallery of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Some of Smith's work displayed in the Museum of Modern Art depicts motherhood in Harlem. These photos are taken using a documentary style way of photographing these subjects. Ming Smith lives and works in New York City.Source: Wikipedia Ming Smith is known for her informal, in-action portraits of black cultural figures, from Alvin Ailey to Nina Simone and a wide range of jazz musicians. Ming’s career emerged formally with the publication of the Black Photographer’s Annual in 1973. She was an early member of the Kamoinge Workshop, an association of several generations of black photographers. Ming has traveled extensively, showing her viewers a cosmopolitan world filled with famous landmarks and extraordinary landscapes. People continue to be her most treasured subjects. This is most apparent in her series depicting African American life. Ming’s early style was to shoot fast and produce complicated and elaborate images in the developing and post-printing processes, so that many of her pictures carry double dates. She experimented with hand-tinting in My Father’s Tears, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (1977/1979). Ming continues to expand the role of photography with her exploration of image and paint in the more recent, large-scale Transcendence series. Ming’s place in photography’s 175-year history was recognized by her inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art’s groundbreaking exhibition Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography in 2010. Ming Smith's photography is held in collections in the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum & Center for African American History and Culture, Washington, DC and the AT&T Corporation.Source: Steven Kasher Gallery
Agata Vera Schiller
Agata Vera Schiller was born in 1980 in Inowroclaw, Poland. Grew up in the countryside surrounded by loving family and beautiful nature. She has graduated at the Faculty of Journalism in Poznan in 2003. Lived for several months in Scotland, spending time drawing and taking pictures of landscapes with her first camera Zenit. In 2006, she has made Masters at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, drawing workshop. Moved to Warsaw and began postgraduate studies at the Department of Interior Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, which she graduated in 2009. Worked for several years as an interior and furniture designer. In 2010 she moved to Beijing for 3 years, working, living and taking lifestyle pictures. In Beijing began her journey in darkroom focused on discovery old techniques of classical photography such as wet plate. Beijing is also a place, where was held her first solo exhibition „Sol oriens” in 2011 at the Polish Embassy in Beijing, and then at the Chaoyang Culture Center in Beijing. She took part in several collective photo exhibitions in Poland. Her photography is not only a lifestyle photography looking for a beauty in simplicity of Scandinavian interior style and magic of everyday life. But the closest to her heart are nostalgic portraits of women, found somewhere between the worlds, living in a dreams. Agata’s fine art photography is characterized by tension between sensual experience and intellectual construction. Agata currently lives and works in Warsaw as a freelance photographer.
Bastiaan Woudt
The Netherland
1987
Bastiaan Woudt (1987, NL) is a sought-after photographer that started a mere ten years ago without formal training. Besides his raw talent, he owes his rise in the art world to a strong work ethic and an entrepreneurial edge. From emotive portraits to mystic landscape photography, he is known to capture monochrome minimalism at its finest. Bastiaan Woudt began his journey into photography both by diving into photography books and experimenting with modern techniques. He learnt from the masters such as Irving Penn and Richard Avedon while exploring his own artistic instinct. Soon enough, Woudt was winning International awards and saw his work hung up in high-end galleries. With charcoal tones and elegant compositions, his photography feels like stepping into a modern painting. Light and shadow dance elegantly. You'll find a hint of surrealism as the sober shades ask you to see only the essence and awakens every detail. His work is minimalistic yet moves, playing with the beauty of imperfection — again, inspired by 50s, 60s and 70s photography. He honours this photography while exploring how modern in-camera methods and post-production can elevate the style of today. Woudt uses his gut feeling to guide the process. You’ll rarely find mood boards in his studio or detailed shooting lists. He stumbles on his subjects by letting people and places catch his eye. He distinguishes himself with a signature style and the high-end, artistic quality of his imagery. Besides intricate portraits and minimalistic nudes, he uses his talent to capture places like Nepal and Morocco. Woudt’s work has been exhibited widely at international fairs and museums such as Paris Photo, AIPAD New York, Photo London, Photo Shanghai and Fotografiska. His portfolio includes work for clients such as Harper's Bazaar, British Vogue, New York Magazine and Numéro Paris — to name a few. Besides being a renowned photographer, Bastiaan Woudt has an entrepreneurial side too. A love for photography books and elevated aesthetics inspired him to start his own business. 1605 Publishers is a platform for emerging and established artists and a publishing house for his own photography books as well as those of others. He also offers products like book stands and continues to explore the many possibilities of his business edge. Source: www.bastiaanwoudt.com Bastiaan Woudt has seen a meteoric rise within the world of contemporary photography. After starting his own photography practice from scratch a mere five years ago, with no experience or formal training, Bastiaan Woudt has developed into a photographer with his own distinct signature style - abstract yet sharp, with a strong focus on detail. As a student of the history of photography through devouring photobooks and visiting museums and fairs, Bastiaan Woudt has a strong preference for classic subjects, such as portraits and nudes, and we see references to illustrious periods from photography throughout his work, such as Surrealism and the documentary photography of the 1960s and 70s. But through a sophisticated use of both camera and post-production techniques, which he has taught himself by heavily experimenting with both, Bastiaan Woudt gives his own graphic and wholly contemporary twist to the classical. Bastiaan Woudt has a longstanding fascination with the African continent and photographing the Ugandan countryside, where the Marie-Stella-Maris Foundation supports local drinking water projects, thus was a dream coming true. Bastiaan Woudt went to visit Mukono (Uganda) in October 2017. There, in addition to a commission for the Marie-Stella-Maris Foundation, Bastiaan Woudt was given the opportunity to make his own work. In the short time of this journey, he admirably succeeded to connect with the people of Mukono. This resulted in a wide range of impressive monochrome (b/w) portraits, and surreal impressions of the local landscapes. Altogether, these autonomously produced images very much highlight Bastiaan Woudt's typical, sober and yet very dynamic, aesthetic 'signature' which, despite the early stage of his career, already has brought him wide and international recognition.Source: Jackson Fine Art
Mona Singh
Gurgaon, (India) based street/ travel photographer. Capturing emotions is one of the key ingredients in Mona Singh’s work. She firmly believes in making photographs that she resonates with. Even though it is the emotions of her subjects that she is documenting, she finds a reflection of herself in them. Her love for the unexpected and candid moments gives her the ability to find visual order within the chaos of the world and an unparalleled creative vision. She loves to creatively capture the weird and wonderful fleeting moments as they unfold in front of her eyes. She beautifully fuses emotions and art to tell stories through her pictures. Photography for her has been a life-transforming experience. Photography is the love of her life and traveling is like blood in her veins. She loves waking up to new horizons, making new friends and exploring the world. About Silent Colors "Who doesn't like colors? Well, we all do... but these women are considered a curse and have lost the joy and privilege of having colors in their lives. These are the widows of Vrindavan, the abandoned and forgotten souls in one of the holiest cities of India. Thousands of them have made this city their home and the place is known as 'The city of widows'. Sitting cross-legged in a dingy room with a noisy fan, plaster peeling off the walls, watching her favorite Bengali serial on an old T.V. set, Purba (name changed) greeted me by saying 'Radhe Radhe', the only popular way to greet in Vrindavan. She left her family in Bengal and came to the Widows Ashram in Vrindavan after her husband’s death. Many others like her in the room have either been abandoned by their families or have decided to stay away from the societal pressures and people ostracizing them. Breaking the age-old rigid Indian tradition, these widows celebrate Holi, the vibrant festival of colors at the ancient Gopinath temple. Soaked in colors, they throw rose and marigold flower petals at each other and dance with joy. It is a blissful experience for all. It is mesmerizing to see such a sight. Their white saris turn bright and colorful. It is like getting revived in the most tender way."
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