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Win a Solo Exhibition in April 2026!
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Szymon Barylski
Szymon Barylski
Szymon Barylski

Szymon Barylski

Country: Poland
Birth: 1984

Szymon Barylski Polish freelance photographer born in 1984 based in Ireland. He has been published, among others, The Irish Times, National Geographic Poland, The Eye of Photography, Edge of Humanity Magazine. He has had a number of exhibitions in many countries including 3rd Documentary Photography Days in Istambul, MIFA Photography, The SE Centre for Photography- Documentary Photography. His pictures were awarded in many competitions. Szymon is involved in documentary photography and photo essays. Photographing for he is a tool for exploring and learning about the world. He tries to tell a story and show it directly. In his opinion, people are an inexhaustible topic and a source of inspiration. Szymon said: „When traveling, I meet people; as a result, I create the image of my relation with them. The exploration of the environment where I take photos allow me to create emotional and convincing scenes.“ He thinks you cannot photograph the things you do not know well. That is why he prepares himself for each project individually, accurately, going into detail in the newspapers and on the Internet. Next, he looks for an inspiration in other photographer’s photos and conversations, as a result, he can create real pictures. His own narrative presented in his photos are at the same time very personal and common. Szymon thinks that a lot of people can identify themselves with his works. Photographer wish his photos could increase individual and collective awareness about the social, political and economic need and urge people to act, be part of positive changes.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

 Mam’AT
France
1970
Born in 1970 in France, Mam'AT was initially a researcher in economics before leaving it all behind to settle in a tiny, remote village in the mountains of central France (Cantal) and dedicate herself to photography. She works on landscapes and their perception. These are not dreamy landscapes with majestic reliefs and/or flamboyant colors; on the contrary, the atmospheres are dull, gray, white, cold, and the landscapes are ordinary. A simple fence, a road, a tree, or a buron is enough to catch her photographic eye. Mam'AT is not a photographer who travels the world. She photographs close to home and always when the weather conditions are unfavorable: snow, fog, and rain transform the world, making it more poetic or dramatic. How can we achieve the "Sharawadji," that is, reveal an aesthetic within these chaotic atmospheric conditions? That is the question at the heart of her photographic work. With climate change, Mam'AT's photographs may serve as a record of the last snowfalls in Cantal, the mid-altitude mountain range in France where she lives. Statement In all of her work, Mam'At strives to bring out of (meteorological) chaos an order beyond the visible ; to reach “ Sharawadji “(the moment when beauty and plenitude are born from apparent disorder). The choice of color (series « colorité » or « last snow ») or black and white (series « on the road » or « Apology of the Clouds ») is decisive. It is not neutral and influences the perception of the landscape, making it poetic or dramatic, epic or prosaic. It is then up to the viewer to let themselves be carried beyond the visible. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 51
Mario Testino
Mario Testino is a Peruvian fashion photographer. His work has been featured in magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. His career highpoint came when he was chosen by Princess Diana for her Vanity Fair photoshoot in 1997. Testino has been regularly employed by the British royal family ever since. Aaron Hicklin of The Observer described him as "the world's most prolific magazine and fashion trade photographer". His persistence in shooting Gisele Bündchen is widely credited with elevating her to supermodel status. Testino was born and grew up in Lima, the eldest son of a businessman. He was one of six children in a middle class family. When he was young he wanted to be a priest. Testino studied economics at Universidad del Pacífico. In 1976 he went to London to study photography. Living in an unconverted floor of a hospital, without much money, he funded himself by working as a waiter. He had his hair dyed pink which helped him get noticed as a photographer. He is one of six children born to an Italian father and an Irish mother. He attended the Catholic school Santa Maria Marianistas. Testino attended the Universidad del Pacifico, the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru and the University of San Diego. In 1982 Testino moved permanently to London. Testino has become one of the world's most well known and celebrated fashion photographers. His work has been featured across the globe in magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and V, and he has crafted and contributed to the imagery of leading fashion houses such as Burberry, Gucci, Versace, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Salvatore Ferragamo, Estee Lauder and Michael Kors, among others. As well as having published seven books of his work and edited one other dedicated to contemporary art and artists from his native Peru, Mario Testino has had many successful exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world. In 2002, The National Portrait Gallery in London staged the landmark exhibition “Portraits” by Mario Testino that to date remains its second most successful exhibit. For ten years it had the highest attendance of any exhibition ever to be held there. Over the next four years the exhibition went on tour to Milan, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Tokyo, Mexico City, and Boston. Testino has also received royal commissions, including The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William, Prince Harry, The Duchess of Cambridge, Diana Princess of Wales, The Duke of Kent, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, Prince Nikolaos of Greece, Prince Willem-Alexander and Maxima of the Netherlands, Prince Haakon Magnus and Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Her Majesty Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan.Source: Wikipedia Mario Testino OBE is widely regarded as one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers of our times. His photographs have been published internationally in magazines such as Vogue, V Magazine and Vanity Fair. He has contributed to the success of leading fashion and beauty houses, creating emblematic images for brands from Gucci, Burberry, Versace and Michael Kors to CHANEL, Estée Lauder and Dolce & Gabbana. Alongside his 40-year practice as a photographer, Testino has realised a body of work as a creative director, guest editor, museum founder, art collector/collaborator and entrepreneur. In 2007, at the request of his clients to provide full creative direction services, he formed MARIOTESTINO+ which today is a growing team of individuals who support Testino to realise the breadth of his creative output.Source: www.mariotestino.com
Milos Nejezchleb
Czech Republic
1978
The Czech photographer Miloš Nejezchleb was born in 1978. He lives in the Czech Republic and has got three children. He has only been involved in conceptual photography since 2016; however, he has already won several prestigious international awards. He is the absolute winner of the Fine Art Photography Award in London (2021), where he won the FINE ART PHOTOGRAHER OF THE YEAR title. He is the winner of the Malta International Photo Award (2020), two-time gold medalist in the Trierenberg Super Circuit competition in Linz and he is also, among others, silver medalist in IPA 2021 - International Photography Award. The most characteristic features of his photographs are noticeably colorful elements with a clear focus on the art of photography. Miloš often chooses current social topics, which he processes as stories using photographic series. These stories are narrated by people. He works on such series on his own and ensures the entire Art direction. He himself designs styling, looks for locations and carries out post-production. Besides conceptual art, where he points out currently discussed topics, Miloš has 2long-term thematic photographic cycles which document stories of real people. The most famous of them is photographic cycle "Stronger", in which Milos takes photos of people who have gone through hard times in their lives, and thanks to this experience they have become stronger personalities. Milos is at the beginning of his photographic career. He was fascinated by art photography when he bought his first camera. It happened before the birth of his first daughter. He is currently working on other production-intensive projects.
Norman Parkinson
United Kingdom
1913 | † 1990
Sir Norman Parkinson, CBE (21 April 1913 – 15 February 1990) was a celebrated English portrait and fashion photographer.Parkinson (birth name Ronald William Parkinson Smith) was born in London, and educated at Westminster School. He began his career in 1931 as an apprentice to the court photographers Speaight and Sons Ltd. In 1934 he opened his own studio together with Norman Kibblewhite. From 1935 to 1940 he worked for Harper's Bazaar and The Bystander magazines. During the Second World War he served as a reconnaissance photographer over France for the Royal Air Force. In 1947 he married the actress and model Wenda Rogerson. From 1945 to 1960 he was employed as a portrait and fashion photographer for Vogue. From 1960 to 1964 he was an Associate Contributing Editor of Queen magazine. In 1963 he moved to Tobago, although frequently returned to London, and from 1964 until his death he worked as a freelance photographer.Parkinson always maintained he was a craftsman and not an artist. From his early days as a photographer up to his death he remained one of the foremost British portrait and fashion photographers. His work, following the lead of Martin Munkacsi at Harper's Bazaar, revolutionised the world of British fashion photography in the '40s by bringing his models from the rigid studio environment into a far more dynamic outdoor setting. Humour played a central role in many of his photographs which often included himself. As well as magazine work he also created celebrated calendars featuring glamorous young women.(Source: en.wikipedia.org)
John Divola
United States
1949
John Divola is an American contemporary visual artist born in 1949 in Los Angeles, CA. He received a B.A. from California State University, Northridge in 1971 and later received an M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1974. He has held residencies at many institutions including the California Institute of the Arts. He has held the position of Professor in the art department at the University of California Riverside since 1988. His work has been featured in many solo exhibitions across the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia. He participated in 1978, 1989, and 2000 Museum of Modern Art group exhibitions and in the 1981 Whitney Biennial. Divola received awards as Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1973, 1976, 1979, 1990 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986. He published four books: Continuity, Isolated Houses, Dogs Chasing My Car In The Desert, and Three Acts. In Zuma project, he has described being interested in the relationship between real artworks and representations of them, and the issues of the natural and the artificial. Divola said "I attempted ... to develop a practice in which there could be no distinction between the document and the original." In his series of photographs from 1977, he used deserted houses on Zuma Beach and covered their walls in graffiti. He photographed the ocean from the house's interior through windows and cracks. Divola states: "On initially arriving I would move through the house looking for areas or situations to photograph. If nothing seemed to interest me I would move things around or do some spray painting. The painting was done in much the same way that one might doodle on a piece of paper. At that point, I would return to the camera and explore whatever new potentials existed." These cyclical images skillfully juxtapose romantic skies and sunsets with a seaside structure that, frame by frame, deteriorates into ruin as it is vandalized by the artist and others who eventually set it on fire. Divola's works trace a schematic desire for escape, movement, and transcendence. "My acts, my painting, my photographing, my considering, are part of, not separate from, this process of evolution and change. These photographs are not so much about this process as they are remnants from it. My participation was not so much one of intellectual consideration as one of visceral involvement." Dogs Chasing My Car In The Desert are images of dogs in the desert captured in the midst of running wildly after the car. Emphasizing the grain of the image, these black and white photographs capture a haunting moment in which there is a duality between a sense of absence and presence. The behavior of the dogs suggests a lack of previous stimuli, and loneliness at the same time as an all-consuming reaction to the now, a presence. "It could be viewed as a visceral and kinetic dance. Here we have two vectors and velocities, that of a dog and that of a car and, seeing that a camera will never capture reality and that a dog will never catch a car, evidence of devotion to a hopeless enterprise". In the Dark Star series, dark circles have been painted on the walls of an abandoned house. Creation and destruction are held in a delicate equilibrium, the white rooms of the house, are tattered and derelict. The domestic ruins suggest social collapse, secret renditions of something darkly sinister illuminating our conflicted recent history, updating Zuma and Vandalism for our age of foreclosure. In the As Far As I Can Get project, he made photographs by pushing the self-timer button on his camera. An exposure is made in 10 seconds. John Divola currently lives and works in Riverside, CA. Divola works in photography, describing himself as exploring the landscape by looking for the edge between the abstract and the specific.Source: Wikipedia
Elise Boularan
France
1984
Elise Boularan grew up in the South of France and has a Master's degree in Creation and Artistic Research from the University of Toulouse. She also studied photography at the Toulouse School of Photography. After finishing her academic research and studies, she moved to Paris. She currently lives between Paris and Toulouse, pursuing a career as a photographic artist.She develops a photographic work turned to the story, realizing images loaded with ellipses and silences. This work does not shy away from the world, but intends to build an interpretation, where something deaf, undefinable is very present. Her preoccupations concern the human reality of our time, trying to reveal what can be secret at the individual's.She has been published extensively and has exhibited in Europe and the USA, notably in Madrid, Denmark, and New York, as well as the French Institute of Ukraine, The Museum of New Art (Mona) and The Russell Industrial Center (Mona Detroit) in Detroit; the Instituto Cultural de México, San Antonio, Texas Hill Country, Usa. Her work is in several private collections.Elise Boularan works also for international & national press and collaborates with musicians and other artists, making the universe of songs match perfectly with her poetical vision.All about photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?I had already done specialized studies in photography, but I remember I really got caught by the photographer' syndrome when I was in Belgium.Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose?After the shooting. there is a lot of work. I don't retouch a lot my images or give this impression... But I spend a great deal of time to select and to see which images work together. It's a difficult and very interesting work.The compliment that touched you most?Indeed, there is a compliment which particularly touched me some years ago in Paris. A compliment coming from one of my references photograph, a famous photographer who has a remarkable work. When we met us, she wanted to discover my work and it was unexpected for me to have compliments on my work from her. And the next day, she phoned me to thank me, because my work had motivated her to boost in her creations again. Is there another job you could have done?No, I don't think so. But it's a good question because we should make no mistake about it, the artistic crafts aren't easy so we can have this kind of questions. But my answer is no.
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