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Win a Solo Exhibition in April 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
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Alexander Anufriev
Alexander Anufriev
Alexander Anufriev

Alexander Anufriev

Country: Russia
Birth: 1988

Alexander Anufriev is a Russian photographer, born in Ukhta (Komi Republic, Russia) in 1988. Before photography, Anufriev worked in international advertising agencies. Currently, he is a Moscow-based photographer who works on projects describing and analysing social landscape of contemporary Russia.

Alexander Anufriev’s Russia Close-Up series is a zoomed-in look at what makes a modern Russia, through a highly subjective lens. He got the idea for it while he was studying at The Rodchenko Art School in Moscow, after becoming disillusioned with documentary photography. “At the time, it was important for me to tell stories and for them to be the truth, but it started to feel like a little bit of a lie,” he explains. “Even if you’re trying to be totally objective, it is always a bit subjective."

“I stopped shooting for six months, and I was about to quit photography, but then I thought, ‘What if I tried to be completely subjective?’ So I cropped the images very tightly, and included only the elements I wanted to show. It was a farewell to convention.” Unconventional it may be, but the series has already had some success, exhibited in Cardiff, Sydney, and Saint Petersburg, and winning third place in the Moscow Photobookfest Dummy book award.

Anufriev’s past projects have included a series on homeless people celebrating New Year’s Eve in a Moscow train station, and portraits of market sellers on the city’s streets. But for this project, he wanted find a way to visualise the mood of a whole country. Born in 1988, he doesn’t remember life in the Soviet Union, behind the Iron Curtain. But over the last few years, against a backdrop of political apathy, he has began to realise the underlying forces of patriotism and nationalism in modern Russia. This series is an attempt to bring the image of Russia up to date, he says.

“There are inner processes that are not obvious to the rest of the world,” he adds, “the strengthening of censorship and propaganda. This series is an attempt to visualise these processes.”

Source: British Journal of Photography


 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

 Nadar
France
1820 | † 1910
Nadar was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon. Nadar was born in April 1820 in Paris (though some sources state Lyon). He was a caricaturist for Le Charivari in 1848. In 1849 he created the Revue comique and the Petit journal pour rire. He took his first photographs in 1853 and in 1858 became the first person to take aerial photographs. He also pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography, working in the catacombs of Paris. Around 1863, Nadar built a huge (6000 m³) balloon named Le Géant ("The Giant"), thereby inspiring Jules Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon. Although the "Géant" project was initially unsuccessful Nadar was still convinced that the future belonged to heavier-than-air machines. Later, "The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier than Air Machines" was established, with Nadar as president and Verne as secretary. Nadar was also the inspiration for the character of Michael Ardan in Verne's From the Earth to the Moon. On his visit to Brussels with the Géant, on 26 September 1864, Nadar erected mobile barriers to keep the crowd at a safe distance. Up to this day, crowd control barriers are known in Belgium as Nadar barriers. In April 1874, he lent his photo studio to a group of painters, thus making the first exhibition of the Impressionists possible. He photographed Victor Hugo on his death-bed in 1885. He is credited with having published (in 1886) the first photo-interview (of famous chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, then a centenarian), and also took erotic photographs. From 1895 until his return to Paris in 1909, the Nadar photo studio was in Marseilles (France). Nadar died in 1910, aged 89. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Source: Wikipedia
Nick Turpin
United Kingdom
1969
Nick Turpin is a British street photographer and advertising and design photographer. He is based in London and near Lyon, France. He studied an art and design foundation course at the University of Gloucestershire, specializing in photography; then a BA in photography, film and video at the University of Westminster. Whilst at university he showed his second-year photojournalism stories to the picture editor at The Independent and in 1990, aged 20, quit his course to be a press photographer for the newspaper. He left The Independent in 1997 for a career in advertising and design photography that would finance his street photography (for example he photographed the cover of Bridget Jones's Diary (1995) by Helen Fielding). Turpin established the first international collective of street photographers, In-Public, in 2000 with the intention of bringing together like-minded photographers to hold exhibitions, produce books, and conduct workshops. Colin Westerbeck, writing in Time in 2011, said Turpin was "notable for having been instrumental in a collaborative documentary project", namely In-Public. He left the collective in 2018. His work has been published in his own book, On The Night Bus (2016), and in various survey publications, as well as being included in a number of group exhibitions. He publishes through Nick Turpin Publishing, makes short films, and gives workshops on street photography.Source: Wikipedia Artist Statement "There is something about the making of photographs in public places that resonates with me more than any other kind of photography. I think it simply suits my personality. It’s nice, when taking pictures in the street, not to have to participate in any way in the stream of life passing you by. It makes me feel special to be there but not to be chatting, not to be shopping or not even to be heading for somewhere else. I feel like I am invisible to the passing crowds. This in turn leads to a loss of my sense of self, which is the finest feeling of all. Having worked for several years both in newspapers and advertising, I am fascinated by the things that I ‘choose’ to photograph when I leave the house with my camera but without a ‘story’ or ‘brief’ to fulfill. These ‘choices’ are revealing,in some way, of who I am. I go to the busiest, public places to discover something very personal and private. It is an inescapable truth that the resulting photographs are as much about my inner state as they are about the external world they were made in. They are all self-portraits. It is important to me that my personal pictures don’t have to ‘do’ anything. They don’t have to sell in a gallery or sit well beside the ads in a magazine. I don’t have to make pictures that are easily categorised. They are not reportage, there is no subject, they are not art, there is no great technical craft or aesthetic beauty. They are just pictures about life. For these reasons, Picture Editors, Art Directors and Curators don’t know what to do with them, where to put them. I like that." -- Nick TurpinSource: In-Public
Jon Enoch
United KIngdom
1979
Jon Enoch discovered his love of photography on a round-the-world-trip, which he won in a competition while in his first year of university, studying geography. He bought a simple point-and-shoot camera and discovered a passion and a skill for portrait and lifestyle photography - looking for an unusual shot, rather than a standard tourist snap. He returned to university to complete his degree in geography, but was still out every weekend working on his own portraiture projects. After he left university, he did a one year course in newspaper photography and began a career in press photography. Jon started developing his bold portraiture style while freelancing at The Times, and now specialises in photo shoots for CEOs, sportspeople and celebrities, as well as advertising and lifestyle shoots. Describing his work as 'bold and uncomplicated', Jon loves playing with light, and how it affects the mood of the work. Jon still works on his own personal projects, and his 'Bikes of Hanoi' set of street images of moped delivery drivers earned him numerous industry accolades and awards, including the, Sony World Photography Awards 2020, Smithsonian Grand Prize Winner 2020, Portraits of Humanity 2020; Lens Culture Portrait Prize 2020 and a gold at the Prix de la Photographie Paris. Statement Jon said: "I continue to develop my skills and my style at every opportunity I get. I had some great personal photography projects in the planning before Covid-19 hit, so hopefully I will get to pick up those plans again before long. During the UK lockdown, I spent my time developing my directing skills. Mixing stills and moving images is something clients increasingly want and I find it an interesting creative challenge. The two worlds are in many ways so similar but at times so different. Being able to tackle both is something I really enjoy. Essentially I want to take stunning images that people connect with. " Exclusive Interview with Jon Enoch
Michael Nguyen
Germany
1958
Michael Nguyen is a photo artist and documentary photographer living near Munich, Germany. He takes photographs since 1988. He has been living in Munich since 2007 and moved to Gauting near Munich in 2015. After a long break in the cultural sector and after a sickness he has dedicated himself 2018 entirely to art again. He is an artist and a photographic poet who moves away from the mainstream, at the same time blurs genres. Most of the time, he focuses on small, ordinary things but through the subjective lens, he give them new perspectives, a new soul. I found my way to photography when I was a journalist for art and culture. One of my main subjects was "Greece", and there was a lot to do with photography. Then, in close cooperation with Dr. Matthias Harder (now Director of the Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin), we laid the foundation for understanding the photographs of Herbert List and Walter Hege. Since then, photography has opened up a whole new world to me. 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In addition to his artistic activities, Michael Nguyen is in Editor-in-chief of the online magazine for photography and art: Tagree. End of March 2021 Michael Nguyen is nominated for the Tassilo Culture Prize of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) is a German national daily newspaper. It is published in Munich. SZ is the second largest daily newspaper in Germany (as of October 2020). Promoting the cultural sector in the Munich area and motivating creative artists (these are the goals of the Tassilo Culture Prize), which the Süddeutsche Zeitung is offering for the eleventh time this year. The SZ Prize is named after the Bavarian Duke Tassilo. Statement Our head is round so that thinking can change direction - a sentence by the writer and artist Francis Picabia, who inspired me as a young man interested in art and the art scene. Art broadened my perspectives and saved my soul. In the 1980s and 1990s I was a journalist, poet, photographer and event manager. After almost two decades, I found my way back to art in the dark times of my life in early 2018. Yes, once again art has saved my soul. Everywhere I go, my eyes and senses are in motion. With my camera I capture little things that we often don't notice in everyday life. The power of design and the contradictions between art and life Munich's most colorful shopping center facade by Prof. Dr. Rainer Funke When will the containers be loaded? Such a question comes to mind when approaching the shopping mall built in 2008 from a distance. But stop! The intense colors of the seemingly stacked cubes and their sophisticated composition immediately give rise to other associations. As if someone had created a special order out of building blocks. One wonders whether this is already the perfect final state, as one tries to create with the Magic Cube, for example. The variety of combinations seems too great for this. Both that of the colors and that of the surface structures. Added to this are the manifold reflections and the astonishing visual dynamics. One does not seem to move past the building itself, but its facades begin to run, to turn, to flow. One is almost reminded of the dancing of the facades and interiors of baroque courtly buildings in downtown Munich. Instead of baroque figurativeness, however, here it is geometry. The closer one gets, the more details become visible. No, these are neither containers nor building blocks. The prismatic shape of the colored and reflective metal plates gives the building shell pronounced plasticity. One would not have expected so much sophistication from a shopping center, especially not here, where Munich hardly has anything typically Munich anymore and is fraying into the landscape. Whether red voluptuousness with bold blue, pastel sweetness, noble gold, lush, or pale green: the overwhelming power of color is, of course, the basic theme of the series of images, always in powerfully soaring, a contrast-rich vertical sequence of seemingly endless parallels. Michael Nguyen's imposing photographs take us very close to this color organ. They make us stand at attention on the parade ground of the verticals. Especially the severity of the composition in detail becomes a theme. This gesture appears once again mercilessly emphasized by Nguyen's camera, as refractions and disturbances emerge from close up. Two framed, square blue lockers, for instance, according to their dimensions probably placed on a blue ground with metallic fittings not colored blue - the attempt to hide them has failed. Nguyen places them in the center. The wonderful striped pattern is disturbed in this way, less perfect and also a bit more lifelike. 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People appear in two photos. They make us breathe a sigh of relief: yes, the whole thing is made for people. The two people in a picture, shot somewhat voyeuristically behind a lamppost, could, however, already be a bit tighter, more upright, and perhaps defilade past the facade in step! The man with his shopping cart, on the other hand, seems to want to save himself from the austerity of the backdrop into the organic world of the leafy settlement. In an impressive way, Michael Nguyen presents us with this photo series of a building as a work of art and thus points us to the power of design but also to the contradictions between art and life. Prof. Dr. Rainer Funke researches and publishes on design-theoretical issues from a semiotic, cultural-theoretical and philosophical perspective and works as a design consultant for companies. He teaches design theory at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences. After studying philosophy at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, he earned his doctorate in semiotics and subsequently worked in design-theoretical research at Burg Giebichenstein - University of Art and Design Halle. In 1992, he was appointed to Potsdam as the founding dean of the Department of Design. Rainer Funke was the owner of a design agency, chairman of the board of the Brandenburg Design Center, and visiting professor at the University of Art and Industrial Design Linz. Design theory is supposed to motivate in an enlightening way by conveying methods for the analysis of design, especially for the manifold relations between perceptible forms of artifacts and their meanings in the context of the process of use. Design theory explicates modes of action and historically founded developmental relationships of design and their various influencing factors. (Prof. Dr. Rainer Funke) Exclusive Interview with Michael Nguyen
Bruno Barbey
France
1941 | † 2020
Bruno Barbey is a Moroccan-born French photographer. Throughout his four-decade career he has traveled across five continents, photographing many wars. Barbey was born in Morocco and in 1959-1960 he studied photography and graphic arts at the Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Vevey, Switzerland. During the 1960s he was commissioned to photograph European and African countries by Editions Rencontre in Lausanne. In 1964 Barbey began a relationship with Magnum Photos, becoming an Associate member in 1966, and a full member in 1968, at which time he was photographing student riots in Paris. He eventually served as Magnum vice president for Europe in 1978 and 1979 and from 1992-1995 as President of Magnum International. He spent 1979 to 1981 photographing Poland, resulting in his book Portrait of Poland. He rejects the label of 'war photographer', although he has covered civil wars in Nigeria, Vietnam, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Northern Ireland, Iraq, and Kuwait. From 2005 Barbey has, among other work, been pursuing a project on Istanbul. Source: Wikipedia Bruno Barbey was born on Feb. 13, 1941, in Berrechid, Morocco, just south of Casablanca, and grew up in various parts of the country: Rabat, Salé, Marrakesh and Tangiers. His father, Marc, was a diplomat; his mother was Marie Clement-Grandcourt. From a young age he knew he wanted to travel the world like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French writer and aviator. Bruno’s parents sent him to Paris for high school, where he was a “dunce and a thwarted lefthander,” he wrote in his retrospective photographic book, Passages (2015). He and his friends skipped classes to see movies by Italian neorealist filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Mr. Barbey entered Ecole Des Arts et Métiers in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1959 to study photography and graphic arts, but left after a year, because his courses had focused on advertising and industrial photography. He craved the freedom to pursue a single subject for an extended period as the Swiss documentary photographer Robert Frank did in his groundbreaking book The Americans, which was published in France in 1958. Following Frank’s example, Mr. Barbey drove through Italy in a used Volkswagen in the early 1960s, photographing its people in black-and-white in a neorealist style. “My goal,” he wrote in Passages, “was to capture the spirit of the place.” He caught dozens of moments in the life of a nation: a family racing along on a scooter, each person ebullient save for the pregnant mother; a group of girls whose joyful expressions contrast with that of a doleful beggar holding out his hand behind them; little boys playing with realistic-looking weapons; and a host of other characters like prostitutes, priests, old men and Mafiosi. The photographs - which would later be published as The Italians in 2002 - brought him to the attention of Magnum, where he worked for more than 50 years. In addition to the Paris demonstrations, he covered conflicts in the Middle East, Nigeria, Vietnam and Cambodia and recorded life in China, Brazil, India, Japan and Spain. He spent much of 1981 in Poland during the rise of the Solidarity trade union, capturing Poles in a period of turmoil and torment. He collected the pictures in Portrait of Poland (1982). “He brought genteel attention to the human experience — with a lot of kindness,” Gilles Peress, another Magnum photographer, said in a phone interview. Mr. Barbey, whose photographs have been widely exhibited, received the French National Order of Merit and was elected a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, Institut de France, in 2016. He served as a Magnum executive at two different times. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Aurélie Barbey; a son, Igor; two sisters, Loïse Barbey-Caussé and Adelaïde Barbey-Guissinger; two brothers, Dominique and Guy; and four grandchildren. Although he left Morocco at age 12, Mr. Barbey kept returning there, lured by its rich colors, light and architecture. Many of his photographs were of quiet moments: a bride showing off her hands decorated with a henna design; a golden-hued interior with a distant figure in a black-and-white striped robe blending into the floor’s design; red hides drying in the sun; and a person in black walking down a lane bracketed by pink walls. “Its very difficult to photograph there,” Mr. Barbey was quoted as saying on Magnum’s website, “because in Islam photography is supposed to bring the evil eye.” He added: “You have to be cunning as a fox, well-organized and respect some customs. The photographer must learn to merge into walls. Photos must either be taken swiftly, with all the attendant risks, or only after long periods of infinite patience.”Source: New York Times
Mario Algaze
Cuba / United States
1947
Mario Algaze (born 1947 in Havana, Cuba) is a Cuban-American photographer whose work celebrates the culture of Latin America. At the age of thirteen he was forced to exile Cuba in 1960 and relocated to Miami, Florida. Miami offered a rich cultural mecca and a vibrant melting pot of culture which encouraged him to travel to Central and South America where he worked as a freelance photojournalist for national and international publications. These trips allowed him a glimpse of belonging within a familiar culture. In finding his identity after exile, he began photographing Latin America in the 1970’s while reconnecting with the feeling of home. His photographs embody the everyday of Latin life. Between his travels in the late 70’s, Algaze studied visual art at Miami Dade College. Algaze’s masterful command of light illuminates his street scenes that detail the struggles and victories of Latin culture. Mario Algaze is the recipient of various acclaimed awards, including the Florida Artist Fellowship from the Florida Arts Council (1985), the Cintas Foundation Fellowship in Photography (1991), the Visual Arts Fellowship and the SAF Artist Fellowship sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1992, he received the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Photography. A retrospective collection of his work is showcased in the important monograph, Mario Algaze: Portfolio, published by Di Puglia Publisher, 2010. Additional monographs by the artist include, Mario Algaze: Portafolio Latinamericano, Mario Algaze: Cuba 1999-2000, and A Respect for Light: The Latin American Photographs: 1974-2008. Algaze's documentary work is highly sought after by institutions and collectors worldwide. His work can be found in permanent collections at every corner of the world including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Santa Barbara Museum; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, DePaul University, Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art.Source: PDNB Gallery Mario Algaze was born in Havana, Cuba but emigrated to the United States in 1960, settling in Miami, Florida. In 1971, at the age of 24, he began a career as a freelance photojournalist. Although Algaze left Cuba as a teenager he has frequently turned to Latin America as the subject of his photographs, traveling extensively throughout the region. In his carefully composed black and white photographs, he captures people alone or in small groups on the streets and in cafes and parks. Many of his photographs of these everyday settings are infused with a soft light and marked by shadows, giving them a serene or mysterious quality, or evoking the passage of time. The region's conflicts and political activities, frequent subjects of photojournalism, are largely absent in his imagery; instead, he lends quiet insight into the cultural diversity of Latin America and the shape of daily life in countries as far spread as Mexico, Ecuador, and Argentina.Source: Museum of Contemporary Photography
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