All about photo.com: photo contests, photography exhibitions, galleries, photographers, books, schools and venues.
Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Aaron Blum
Aaron Blum
Aaron Blum

Aaron Blum

Country: United States
Birth: 1983

Aaron Blum is an eighth generation West Virginian, and creates art deeply linked to his home. Most of his work centers around a single question, what does it mean to be Appalachian? Through this question he address many different artistic concepts from idealized memory vs. stereotypes to ideas of folk taxonomy. His creation process is a diversified approach of image-based media to create a glimpse into his own concepts of Appalachia, and the social fabric of a very large and misrepresented people and place. He pays close attention to the quality of light and the landscape as well as cultural markers to produce a unique version of life in the hills. After graduating with degrees in photography from West Virginia University and Syracuse University, Aaron immediately began receiving recognition for his work including Center of Santa Fe, Silvereye Center for photography, Critical Mass, and FOAM.

About The Prevailing Winds of Hills and Heritage
Appalachia pulls at me like a haunted memory. There is an ineffable force that compels me to suspend reality and embrace superstition and myth. It is a longing to hold on to my culture and history in spite of the modern world. The nebulous forests, enveloping moss and dark corners seem to tell a purer truth.

Storytelling in Appalachia has a long-standing tradition, and it infuses the region with mystery. Using lore, pseudo-scientific study, and personal experiences as a compass I see this place through idealized eyes of wonder, and these images become my personal folklore. They bring to life the fantasies and memories I carry with me. This is a place where you can wash away sin in cool stream waters, where corpse birds come to ferry away souls to the next life, rocks burn and kudzu conceals. This is the place where the prevailing winds whisper old stories to those who know how to listen.
 

Inspiring Portfolios

Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #59 Shapes
Publish your work in our printed magazine and win $1,000 cash prizes
 
Stay up-to-date  with call for entries, deadlines and other news about exhibitions, galleries, publications, & special events.

More Great Photographers To Discover

Beth Moon
United States
1956
San Francisco Bay Area artist, Beth Moon, has gained international recognition for her large-scale, richly toned platinum prints. Since 1999, Moon’s work has appeared in more than sixty solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Italy, England, France, Israel, Brazil, Dubai, Singapore, and Canada. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, and the Fox Talbot Museum in Wiltshire, England. In 2013, Between Earth and Sky, the first monograph of her work, was published by Charta Art Books of Milan. In 2014, Abbeville Press published, Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time, with a third book to follow that same year from Galerie Vevais, La Lange Verte. Moon studied fine art at the University of Wisconsin before moving to England where she experimented with alternative photographic processes and learned to make platinum prints. Source: www.vervegallery.com Beth Moon was born in Neenah, Wisconsin and studied fine art at the University of Wisconsin. Classes in painting, life drawing, sculpture, and design would set the groundwork for her work in photography, which was to come years later. Moving to England, a country with a love for all things arboreal, gave her a fresh look at a land that boasts the largest concentration of ancient trees. Inspired by these trees she decided to make a series of their portraits. Unhappy with the photographic tonality and stability of ink-jet printing, she started to experiment with alternative printing processes, learning platinum/palladium printing, an ideal process for her vision. She concentrated on mastering this printing technique, doing all of her own printing. “By using the longest lasting photographic process, I hope to speak about survival, not only of man and nature’s but to photography’s survival as well. For each print I mix ground platinum and palladium metals, making a tincture that is hand-coated onto heavy watercolor paper and exposed to light. There are many steps involved in creating the final print and these are as important to me as the capturing of the image," said Moon. A platinum print can last for centuries, drawing on the common theme of time and survival, pairing photographic subject and process. Source: www.josephsaxton.com
Georges Rousse
France
1947
Georges Rousse (born July 28, 1947) is a French photographer, painter, and installation artist. He has been taking photos since receiving his first camera at the age of nine, but he never formally attended art school to pursue photography. Instead, he attended medical school in Nice, but studied photography and printing on the side. He currently lives in Paris.Source: Wikipedia When he was 9 years old, Georges Rousse received the legendary Kodak Brownie camera as a Christmas gift. Since then, the camera has never left his side. While attending medical school in Nice, he decided to study professional photography and printing techniques, then opened his own studio dedicated to architectural photography. Soon, his passion for the medium led him to devote himself entirely to photography, following in the footsteps of such great American masters as Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams. After he discovered Land Art and Malevich's Black Square against a white field, Georges Rousse altered his relationship to photography, inventing a unique approach that shifted the relationship of painting to space. He began making installations in the types of abandoned or derelict buildings that have long held an attraction for him--creating ephemeral, one-of-a-kind artworks by transforming these sites into pictorial spaces that are visible only in his photographs. From the early 1980s on, Georges Rousse has chosen to show his photographs on a large scale, so that his viewers participate in the work and experience the sense of space in a compelling way. Collapsing the usual restrictions between artistic mediums, his unique body of work quickly made its mark on the contemporary art world. Since his first exhibition in Paris, at the Galerie de France in 1981, Georges Rousse has continued creating his installations and showing his photographs around the world, in Europe, in Asia (Japan, Korea, China, Nepal.), in the United States, in Quebec and in Latin America. He is represented by several European galleries and his works are included in many major collections the world over. Georges Rousse was born in 1947 in Paris, where he currently lives andworks.Source: www.georgesrousse.com French artist and photographer Georges Rousse, converts abandoned or soon-to-be-demolished buildings into surprising visions of color and shape. Rousse translates his intuitive, instinctual readings of space into masterful images of several “realities”: that of the actual space, wherein the installation is created; the artist’s imagined mise-en-scène, realized from a single perspective; and the final photograph, or the reality flattened. Since his first exhibition in 1981 at the Galerie de France in Paris, Rousse has continued creating his one-of-a-kind installations and photographs around the globe. His work has exhibited in the Grand Palais (Paris), Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, D.C.), Haggerty Museum (WI), House of Culture (La Paz, Honduras), Sivori Museum (Buenos Aires), and National Art Museum of China, among hundreds of others. In 1988, he received the International Center of Photography Award. In 2008, Georges Rousse succeeded Sol LeWitt as an associate member of the Belgian Royal Academy.Source: Sous Les Etoiles Gallery
Stephen Albair
United States
1942
Stephen Albair was born in Massachusetts and raised in New Hampshire. He currently lives and works in San Francisco. Educated at Illinois State University in Design, he is a self-taught photographer, lecturer and a college teacher, for over 40 years. His work in tableau photography began in 1974 with the purchase of a 35mm Nikkormat, which has remained the only camera for his work. Numerous exhibitions and installations have been staged in the US and Thailand. He has authored three books with a fourth book currently in progress. The images are mostly rooted in memoir built on found objects with Art Historical references. The focus is not so much on a series of images but rather a board range of subject matter, from early memories, to the current political landscape. His photos represent intuitive responses to ideas through self-reflection. By mastering the techniques of tableaux photography he has created a significant body of work that have enhanced his skill as an artist and storyteller. Statement Photography is a unique way of seeing the world. Life's ambiguities, love, loss, and longing, are my subject matter. These ideas evolve through a meaningful search for content, with no specific audience in mind. Ultimately, an audience perceives all content based on their own personal experiences. Familiar objects trigger our memory, reminding us of how we understand the world. I constantly search for unique objects that speak to me. My set-ups are arranged to illustrate an intention, an action that something has just happened -or is about to. Tableau photography provides the stage, much like actors in a play. The procedure of building a photograph creates an air of playfulness that allows for a different way of thinking about common human experiences. The audience is delivered thought-provoking ideas tinged with humor in a fabricated world. This process playfully exposing the surreal nature of reality and questions what is real or simply realistic—leaving the viewer to decide. Articles: Hidden Gardens - Secret Views SPECTACLES: A Memoir of Jewelry and Photography Miss Nude World For the Love of DOGS
Pierre Verger
France
1902 | † 1996
Pierre Edouard Leopold Verger, alias Fatumbi or Fátúmbí was a photographer, self-taught ethnographer, and babalawo (Yoruba priest of Ifa) who devoted most of his life to the study of the African diaspora - the slave trade, the African-based religions of the new world, and the resulting cultural and economical flows from and to Africa. At the age of 30, after losing his family, Pierre Verger took up the career of journalistic photographer. Over the next 15 years, he traveled the four continents, documenting many civilizations that would soon be effaced by progress. His destinations included Tahiti (1933); United States, Japan, and China (1934 and 1937); Italy, Spain, Sudan (now Mali), Niger, Upper Volta, Togo and Dahomey (now Benin, 1935); the West Indies (1936); Mexico (1937, 1939, and 1957); the Philippines and Indochina (now Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, 1938); Guatemala and Ecuador (1939); Senegal (as a conscript, 1940); Argentina (1941), Peru and Bolivia (1942 and 1946); and finally Brazil (1946). His photographs were featured in magazines such as Paris-Soir, Daily Mirror (under the pseudonym of Mr. Lensman), Life, and Paris Match. In the city of Salvador, Brazil he fell in love with the place and people, and decided to stay for good. Having become interested in the local history and culture, he turned from errant photographer to a researcher of the African diaspora in the Americas. His subsequent voyages are focused on that goal: the west coast of Africa and Paramaribo (1948), Haiti (1949), and Cuba (1957). After studying the Yoruba culture and its influences in Brazil, Verger became an initiated of the Candomblé religion, and officiated at its rituals. During a visit to Benin, he was initiated into Ifá (cowrie-shell divination), became a babalawo (priest) of Orunmila, and was renamed Fátúmbí ("he who is reborn through the Ifá"). Veger's contributions to ethnography are embodied in dozens of conference papers, journal articles and books and were recognized by Sorbonne University, which conferred upon him a doctoral degree (Docteur 3eme Cycle) in 1966 — quite a feat for someone who dropped out of high school at 17. Verger continued to study and document his chosen subject right until his death in Salvador, at the age of 94. During that time he became a professor at the Federal University of Bahia in 1973, where he was responsible for the establishment of the Afro-Brazilian Museum in Salvador; and served as visiting professor at the University of Ifé in Nigeria. The non-profit Pierre Verger Foundation in Salvador, which he established to continue his work, holds more than 63,000 photos and negatives taken until 1973, as well as his papers and correspondence. Source: Wikipedia
Myrtie Cope
United States
1950
Myrtie Cope is an Atlanta photographer with a focus on architecture and nature. Ms. Cope completed the Summer Intensive and Advanced Intensive certificate programs at Rocky Mountain School of Photography. She is pleased to have both architectural and nature photos in several private and public collections around Atlanta including the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport, Emory University Hospital, Broadstone Yards, and the Huntley on Park Avenue. Ms. Cope was honored to receive the Denis Diderot Scholarship to Chateau Orquevaux Artist Residency in Orquevaux, France, in October 2021 and was accepted to the Atelier AIR artist residency in Dangeau, France for Fall 2023. Ms. Cope's work has been included in numerous group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her ongoing project photographing historic theaters in the Southeast - ''Second Act'' -was exhibited at Spalding Nix Fine Art in September-November 2021. Ms. Cope was the Nonprofessional winner of the Nature Category in the 19th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers, and she recently won Honorable Mentions in both the Nonprofessional - Nature Category and the Architecture Category in the 20th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers which will be exhibited in Barcelona, Spain. Ms. Cope recently began combining her photography with her sewing skills by embroidering her photographs and creating quilts with cyanotypes on fabric. She is still exploring these techniques and discovering new ways of looking at photography.
Jacob Aue Sobol
Denmark
1976
Jacob Aue Sobol (born 1976) is a Danish photographer. He has worked in East Greenland, Guatemala, Tokyo, Bangkok, Copenhagen, America and Russia. In 2007 Sobol became a nominee at Magnum Photos and a full member in 2012. Four monographs and many catalogues of his work have been published and widely exhibited including at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York and at the Diemar/Noble Photography Gallery in London. Born in Copenhagen, Sobol lived in Canada from 1994 to 1995. Back in Europe he first studied at the European Film College and from 1998 at Fatamorgana, the Danish School of Art Photography. In the autumn of 1999, he went to the remote East Greenland village of Tiniteqilaaq to photograph. The visit was only supposed to last a few weeks but after meeting a local girl, Sabine, he returned the following year and stayed there for the next two years, living the life of a fisherman and hunter. In 2004 Sobol published Sabine, which in photographs and narrative portrays Sabine and describes his encounter with Greenlandic culture. The pictures in the book express the photographic idiom he developed at Fatamorgana. In the summer of 2005, Sobol went with a film crew to Guatemala to make a documentary about a young Mayan girl's first trip to the ocean. The following year he returned to the mountains of Guatemala, this time by himself, to stay with an indigenous family for a month to document their everyday life. In 2006 he moved to Tokyo to spend 18 months photographing the city for his book I, Tokyo. Commenting on the book, Miranda Gavin appreciates how "the sensitivity of his approach shines through the work and sets him apart as one of a new generation of photographers with the ability to allow eroticism and danger to seep through his images without becoming sordid or clichéd." Sobol became a nominee of Magnum Photos in 2007 and a full member in 2012. In 2008, Sobol worked in Bangkok where he photographed children fighting for survival in the Sukhumvit slums, despite the country's growing economic prosperity. In 2009, he moved back to Copenhagen. Since then he has worked on projects at home as well as in America and Russia.Source: Wikipedia Following his time in Tokyo, Jacob worked extensively in Bangkok, resulting in the 2016 book By the River of Kings. In 2012 he began photographing along the Trans-Siberian Railroad and spent the next five winters photographing in the remote Russian province of Yakutia for his project Road of Bones. He has ongoing projects in Denmark (Home) and the United States (America).Source: www.jacobauesobol.com
Nikos Economopoulos
Nikos Economopoulos (b.1953) is a Greek photographer known for his photography of the Balkans and of Greece in particular. Born in Kalamata, Economopoulos studied law at university and worked as a journalist. He only started taking photographs at 25 when a friend in Italy showed him a book of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, which had an impact that was both instant and lasting. Cartier-Bresson "showed me a new way to see things... What I saw in his work was not only geometry and composition, but a kind of ambiguity." Economopoulos recalls that even then he did not start photography for over two years but instead bought photography books. Then he started photography: "I never photographed sunrises or made souvenir pictures of my children. For about eight or nine years I photographed at weekends and during my holidays, always in a serious way, working from morning to night." As early as 1984, Economopoulos says, "it bothered me ideologically that Greeks and Turks were enemies", and he visited Turkey to take photographs. "No Greek at that time would go to Turkey on holiday", he writes, and his Greek friends were incredulous; but Economopoulos quickly felt at home in Turkey, where the atmosphere "was exactly the same as when I was a kid in the 1960s." (Much later, he would add that Greece and western Turkey had replaced tavernas with McDonald's, while east Turkey still preserved the values of the past.) In 1988, Economopoulos finished work as a journalist and set off on a two-year photographic survey of Greece and Turkey. Nikos Economopoulos was encouraged to join Magnum Photos by the Greek-American photographer Costa Manos, and became an associate member in 1990 and, after his work in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and the former Yugoslavia, a full member in 1994. His early work won him the 1992 Mother Jones Award for Documentary Photography. In 1993, Frank Viviano, who had first met Economopoulos in Timișoara just after the fall of Nicolae Ceauşescu, wrote that: "Economopoulos says his intention is to document the existence of what he calls the 'Balkan Man': to knit together the skeins of a collective identity in a region whose historical convulsions have made its name a synonym for implacable differences. It would appear to be a fool's errand. But almost anyone who has crossed the madman's web of frontiers and borders that stretches over the Balkans, from Istanbul to the Italian border, is likely to agree with Economopoulos's premise — and to recognize, in his work, the contradictions that sum up Balkan truth." With support from the Little Brothers of the Poor, in 1994 Economopoulos photographed gypsies in Greece, and in 1995–96 lignite miners and Muslims in Greece. In 1997–98 he concentrated on people living on the "Green Line" separating Northern Cyprus, illegal migration across the Albanian–Greek border, and young people in Tokyo; and for the next two years Albanians fleeing Kosovo. He also worked on a commission from the University of the Aegean on storytelling in the region. Economopoulos was dissatisfied with the assignment in Japan, as he felt unable to communicate with people and was just as estranged after three weeks of work as he had been on his arrival. By contrast, he writes that "I prefer to spend my time in my corner of the world, south Europe and west Asia, where I understand the codes and can make connections." This does not mean that the Balkans are an open book to him: Economopoulos has also written of the paradoxes apparent in Albania; and also across the Balkans, where faces can be sad even in wedding parties. Economopoulos's photography of Turkey won him the 2001 Abdi İpekçi Award for promoting friendship between Turkey and Greece. Painfully aware of the bitterness often encouraged in both Greece and Turkey toward the other, he has written appreciatively of the personal welcome given to him by the Turks that he meets. "There are no real differences [between Greeks and Turks]. I love Turkey and I can live there. I can't live in Paris or in London. But Istanbul — I can live there." Economopoulos's photographs have been published in The Guardian, The Independent, Le Monde, Libération, The New York Times, El País, and Die Zeit. He feels that there is no future in photojournalism. There is a loss of quality in photographs in newspapers, and Robert Capa would not take photographs if he were living today. But he concedes that Abbas and James Nachtwey would be among those who disagree.Source: Wikipedia In the mid-1990s, he started photographing the Roma and other minorities. In 2000, he completed a book project on the Aegean islands storytellers, commissioned by the University of the Aegean. A retrospective of his work titled Economopoulos, Photographer was published in 2002 and later exhibited at the Benaki Museum, Athens. Returning to Turkey, he pursued his long-term personal project, where he received the Abdi Ipektsi award (2001), for peace and friendship between Greek and Turkish people. He has recently turned to the use of color. Currently, he is spending most of his time away from Greece, traveling, teaching and photographing around the world, in the context of his long-term On The Road project.Source: Magnum Photos
Advertisement
AAP Magazine #59 Shapes
Win a Solo Exhibition in July
AAP Magazine #59 Shapes

Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Trevor Cole: Pastoral Peoples and Practices
For this interview, we wanted to focus specifically on The Face of the Mundari and the wider Pastoral Peoples and Practices series. We spoke with Trevor about his long-term work among the Mundari, what continues to draw him back to their cattle camps, and the experience of documenting a culture whose identity remains deeply connected to livestock, tradition, and the natural environment.
Exclusive Interview with Frank Meo
In our latest exclusive feature for All About Photo, I speak with veteran photography representative Frank Meo about what it truly takes to build a sustainable creative career today. Frank brings decades of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, major agencies, and documentary photographers to the table. We dive into the critical business skills often left out of art school curriculums, the power of mentorship, and the inspiring evolution of PROJECTIONS—his international salon platform for visual storytellers. It’s an essential read for anyone navigating the commercial or editorial photography landscape today.
Exclusive Interview with Carolyn Moore
American photographer Carolyn Moore explores the inner landscape of emotion, memory, and personal transformation through a deeply intuitive photographic practice. Her work unfolds as a quiet dialogue between artist and viewer, where images become a space for reflection, vulnerability, and connection.
Exclusive Interview with Luca Desienna and Laura Estelle Barmwoldt
For over seven years, Of Lilies and Remains has explored the depths of the goth and darkwave underground, unfolding in Leipzig—a city long associated with a vibrant and enduring subcultural scene. Moving between iconic gatherings such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen and more intimate moments on the fringes, the project offers a rare and immersive glimpse into a world often misunderstood, yet rich in expression and community. Created by Luca in collaboration with Laura Estelle Barmwoldt, the work embraces a cinematic and deeply personal approach. Rather than documenting from a distance, it moves within the scene itself, capturing its atmosphere, its codes, and its quiet contradictions. The title Of Lilies and Remains hints at this duality—where beauty and darkness, fragility and strength coexist. As the book prepares for its release, we spoke with both artists about the origins of the project, their process, and what it means to document a subculture that continues to evolve while remaining true to its spirit.
Exclusive Interview with Matthew Finley
American photographer Matthew Finley turns inward, using photography as a way to explore identity, memory, and emotional truth. Based in Los Angeles, his practice moves between performance, gesture, and found imagery, creating a visual language that is both intimate and deeply personal
Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Dutch photographer Jan Janssen explores universal human experiences through his long-term project It Matters, winner of the May 2025 Solo Exhibition. Begun in 2016, the series captures intimate moments of everyday life—love, loss, connection, and belonging—across Central and Eastern Europe. Working in countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, Janssen spends extended time within communities, building relationships based on trust and respect. His approach allows him to move beyond observation, revealing deeply human and authentic moments. Rooted in travel and personal discovery, It Matters reflects Janssen’s search for what connects us all in an increasingly divided world. The project is ongoing and will culminate in a photobook scheduled for publication in 2026.
Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
German photographer Henk Kosche turns his lens toward the streets of Halle an der Saale, capturing everyday life in the late years of the former German Democratic Republic. At the time, Kosche was studying design and exploring the city with his camera, drawn to the atmosphere of its industrial landscape and the quiet rhythms of daily life. His series Street Photography at the End of the 80s, selected as the Solo Exhibition for July 2025, revisits a body of work created just before a period of profound change. Rediscovered decades later in a small box of 35mm negatives, these photographs offer glimpses of a city and its people at a moment suspended between the familiar and the unknown.
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.
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.
Call for Entries
Win A Solo Exhibition in July
Get International Exposure and Connect with Industry Insiders