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FINAL CALL TO ENTER AAP MAGAZINE PORTRAIT: PUBLICATION AND $1,000 CASH PRIZES
FINAL CALL TO ENTER AAP MAGAZINE PORTRAIT: PUBLICATION AND $1,000 CASH PRIZES
Kevin Lyle
Kevin Lyle
Kevin Lyle

Kevin Lyle

Country: United States
Birth: 1951

I am, for the most part, self taught. I first became interested in art around the age of 12. Art class became the most interesting part of school. After high school I attended the Cleveland Institute of Art for one semester before realizing that art school was not for me at that time. After moving to Chicago my first job turned into a career in computers and systems management and I did little or no art for many years. I've always had an inclination to collect. Collecting African masks and the process of photographing them for documentary purposes led to a broader interest in photography. When I began going for long walks to search for photographic material I soon realized the exercise and fresh air were an added bonus to this pursuit of collecting images.

Artist Statement

As long as I can remember, I've been curious about incidental objects and environments and their potential for a sort of extraordinary/ordinary beauty. I find this quality in the work of photographer Eugene Atget, composer Erik Satie and singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie. These great artists are a constant source of inspiration. My process is fueled by an innate hunter/gatherer impulse. Most of my images are collected within walking distance of my home on Chicago's north side. Contemplative wandering in the urban analog world, away from the preponderance of drama delivered digitally via television and the Internet, reveals evidence of real life - evidence of what may be, may have happened or may yet occur. Sometimes mundane, sometimes oblique, askew or atypical. Mostly overlooked, until documented.
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Grace Weston
United States
Grace Weston creates narrative photography in her studio with miniature staged vignettes that address psychological themes. Among her many honors, most recently Weston made the Top 50 in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2023, and from that was awarded the additional prize of a solo show for 2025 at the Southeast Center for Photography. Weston was awarded both First Place Overall Portfolio category as well as Gold Winner in the Fine Art Portfolio category in the 2021 Tokyo International Foto Awards. She has earned fellowships from both the Oregon Arts Commission and Artist Trust (Washington State), nominations for Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards (Oregon), and numerous grants during her career spanning more than 25 years. In 2012, she had her first European solo exhibition at Paci Contemporary in Brescia, Italy. An extensive exhibition of her work was shown at the Center for Photography in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2021. She has exhibited widely in the US, as well as Europe, Scandinavia, Russia and Japan. In 2009, she was a finalist in PhotoEspana’s Descubrimientos exhibition in Madrid and named one of the “Nine to Watch” in the Whatcom Museum Photography Biennial (Washington) in 2008. Weston's work has been acquired by the Portland Art Museum (OR), the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth, TX), the University of the Arts (Philadelphia PA), Seattle Public Utilities Portable Artworks Collection (WA), King County Public Art Collection (WA), Photographic Center Northwest (WA), Portland Community College (OR), King County 4Culture (WA), the City of Seattle Portable Works (WA), as well as numerous private collections in the US, Europe and Japan. Weston’s signature photography has been commissioned for print magazines and book covers in the United States, Italy, Spain, China, and the Netherlands, including O, the Oprah Magazine, Discover magazine, and Geo Magazine (Italia). She is included in the book Microworlds (Laurence King Publishing, UK 2011). In 2020 Peanut Press published a monograph of her work entitled The Neighbors Will Talk, and self-published Character Studies in 2023. Statement I am an interdisciplinary artist working in the genre of staged photography, creating miniature narrative scenes with characters, props and sets that I source, alter, or fabricate from scratch, to then light and photograph. Although I never depict actual people in my photographs, the human psyche is undeniably at the center of my work. Power dynamics, gender roles, clandestineness, mythos, mystique, and feelings of isolation and alienation are explored in my work, all with a deceptively playful overlay. Reclaiming the Muse My staged miniature photography series, RECLAIMING THE MUSE, reframes historic artworks and stories in contemporary terms. In centering the women, historically cast as objects of beauty or scorn, I strive to revitalize the muse with agency, furthering the issues important to me as a contemporary female artist, flipping the patriarchal gaze on its head. The Long Night In these miniature narrative Noir scenes, lone characters appear in decidedly suburban environments: cul-de-sacs, dark and empty roads, the small-town bar, private basements and bedrooms, all offering an impression of seclusion, ripe for clandestine schemes. The scenarios take place at night, with minimal lighting, heavy with mystery and tension. We get to squirm with the sense of being voyeurs. These images are inspired not only from the television and film mysteries and spy stories of my childhood, but also from the sense of being a silent observer of the shadowy grown-up lives around me. My props and characters may come from a child’s world, but these are adult stories. Escaping Gravity: Breathing, Dying, Swimming, Flying I presented a multi-media installation at Nine Gallery in Portland, Oregon in 2018 about loss, its lifelong ripples, release, and liberation. There were two chambers in this installation, one being the Pond, the other, the Pool, symbolizing my older brother’s death by drowning when he was eight-years old, and my learning to swim very late in life.
Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Japan/United States
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Yasuhiro Ishimoto was a well-known Japanese-American photographer known for his distinct style and contributions to the field of modernist photography. Ishimoto was born in San Francisco on June 14, 1921, and spent his childhood in Japan before returning to the United States in 1939 to further his education. Ishimoto enrolled at the Chicago Institute of Design in the early 1940s, where he studied under influential photographers such as Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. During this time, Ishimoto developed his signature style, which is distinguished by dynamic compositions, bold geometric forms, and a keen sense of light and shadow. In both Japan and the United States, Ishimoto's work frequently focused on architecture. He photographed the interplay of lines, shapes, and textures to investigate the relationship between humans and their built environment. His images of famous architectural landmarks, such as the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, demonstrated his ability to infuse tranquillity and contemplation into his photographs. Ishimoto documented street scenes and everyday life in both Japan and America, in addition to architectural photography. He had an uncanny ability to capture candid moments and the essence of the people he met, providing a glimpse into the cultural and social fabric of the time. Ishimoto received numerous awards and accolades for his work throughout his career. His photographs have been shown all over the world, and he has written several books, including Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture and Chicago, Chicago. Ishimoto's work helped to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western photographic traditions. Yasuhiro Ishimoto died on February 6, 2012, but his photographs will live on. His artistic vision and technical mastery continue to inspire photographers all over the world, and he has left a body of work that reflects his commitment to capturing the beauty and essence of the world around us.
Rory Doyle
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Rory Doyle is a working photographer based in Cleveland, Mississippi in the rural Mississippi Delta. Born and raised in Maine, Doyle studied journalism at St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. In 2009, he moved to the Mississippi Delta to pursue a master's in education at Delta State University in Cleveland. He has remained committed to photographing the Delta, with a particular focus on sharing stories of overlooked subcultures. He was a 2018 Mississippi Visual Artist Fellow through the Mississippi Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts for his ongoing project about African American cowboys and cowgirls, "Delta Hill Riders." Doyle won the 16th Annual Smithsonian Photo Contest, the 2019 Southern Prize from the South Arts organization, the 2019 Zeiss Photography Award, the 2019 ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography, and the 2019 Michael P. Smith Award for Documentary Photography from the New Orleans Photo Alliance. He has had solo exhibitions in New York City, London, Atlanta and Mississippi. Doyle's work has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Guardian and CNN. Delta Hill Riders Historians agree that just after the Civil War, one in four cowboys were African American. Yet this population was drastically underrepresented in popular accounts, and it is still. The "cowboy" identity retains a strong presence in many contemporary black communities. This ongoing documentary project in the Mississippi Delta sheds light on an overlooked African American subculture - one that resists historical and contemporary stereotypes. The project began January 2017 when I attended a black heritage rodeo in Greenville, Mississippi. The body of work reveals how deep and diverse this community is. I've been invited to black heritage rodeos, horse shows, trail rides, "Cowboy Nights" at black nightclubs across the Delta, and to subjects' homes across the region. The project aims to press against my own old archetypes - who could and could not be a cowboy, and what it means to be black in Mississippi - while uplifting the voices of my subjects.
Iness Rychlik
Iness Rychlik is a Polish-born photographer and filmmaker with a particular interest in historical drama. Despite her severe myopia, she has been dedicated to visual storytelling for over a decade. Iness graduated with First Class Honours in Film from Screen Academy Scotland. Set in Victorian London, her final-year film ‘The Dark Box' follows an unhappily married woman, who pursues photography to escape from her oppressive relationship. ‘The Dark Box' premiered at Camerimage, where Iness received a Golden Tadpole nomination for her cinematography. Rychlik is recognised for her dark feminine erotica. She is fascinated by the idea of conveying sexuality and cruelty in a subtle evocative way. Her conceptual self-portraits aim to provoke the viewer's imagination, rather than satisfy it. ARTIST STATEMENT Although greatly influenced by historical drama, my work is deeply personal and symbolic in nature. I suffer from a hyper-sensitive skin condition. As a teenager, I would often attempt to cover it up; I resented being asked if I had accidentally burnt myself. Throughout the years, I have learnt to see my skin as a canvas of expression, rather than an ugly inconvenience that should be kept hidden. I use my very own body to explore the themes of solitude and objectification, often employing antique garments or props to depict the parallels between my experiences and the inferior female position in Victorian Britain. I honour the concept of transforming hidden pain into art – exposed, disturbing and beautiful.
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Born in 1958 in Elgin, Illinois, Sandro Miller is an American photographer (working professionally as "Sandro") known for his expressive images and his close work with actor John Malkovich and the other ensemble members of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Sandro is married to multi-media artist Claude-Aline Nazaire and is the father of two children, Nathan and Natalia. As a young teen, Sandro embraced the idea of making photographic portraits after seeing the portrait imagery of Irving Penn. He began photographing in Chicago at the age of sixteen and has since devoted his thirty-plus-years career to creating expressive images from his elegant Ukrainian Village studio. With numerous award-winning commercial campaigns to his credit, Sandro is one of today's most respected commercial and fine art photographers. He has photographed many national advertising campaigns for a long alphabetical list of clients including: Adidas, Allstate Insurance, American Express, Anheuser-Busch, BMW, Champion, Coca-Cola, Dove, Gatorade, Honda, Milk, Microsoft, Miller/Coors, Motorola, Nike, Nikon, Pepsi, Pony, UPS, and the US Army. In 2001 Sandro was invited by the Cuban government to photograph that country's greatest national treasure – its athletes. This project was the first US‑Cuban collaboration since the diplomatic and trade embargo was imposed in 1960. Sandro's editorial work has been featured in Communication Arts, Details, Esquire, ESPN Magazine, Eyemazing, Forbes, GQ, Graphis, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Russian Esquire, Stern, TIME Magazine, Vibe, Wired and has been exhibited worldwide. Sandro has a working relationship with the camera giant Nikon and is responsible for introducing their latest technology to the professional photographic world. He has worked on many award-winning projects with Nikon: a portrait session with actor John Malkovich in Croatia; a series of motorcycles racing in Brainerd, Minnesota; a still and video shoot of the roller derby team The Windy City Rollers; a video of the world-renowned high-wire artist Philippe Petit; and most recently, a short cinematic video entitled "Joy Ride”, featuring a motorcyclist racing through the early morning streets of Chicago on a mysterious mission. Throughout his career, Sandro has contributed his talents and staffed studio time to community-based and national charitable organizations by creating compelling campaigns that solicit contributions for such organizations as the AIDS Chicago, AIDS New Jersey, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, Arts for Life, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Milwaukee, Dance for Life, Evans Life Foundation, Food Depository of Chicago, The Good City, Marwen Foundation, The Maestro Cares Foundation and Off The Street Club. At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, in July 2011, Sandro was presented a Saatchi & Saatchi Best New Director Award for his short video "Butterflies" featuring John Malkovich. Sandro traveled to Morocco in November 2013 and shot portraits of two hundred thirty tradesmen, nomadic people, snake charmers, fossil diggers, and Gnawa musicians. In 2014 Sandro re-created forty-one hallowed photographs in homage to the world’s greatest photographers. The project, titled Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters, has a costumed John Malkovich as the subject in each image. On November 2, 2014, in New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Lucie Foundation honored Sandro with the International Photographer of the Year award for his achievements in photography. On October 27, 2015, for the 2nd year in a row, Sandro was honored with the Lucie Foundation’s International Photographer of the Year award for his photography of the Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters images. For the past five years, in juried competitions within the industry, Sandro has been voted one of the top 200 advertising photographers in the world.Source: www.sandrofilm.com
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