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Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Ed Sievers
Untitled (Self portrait in mirror), Venice Beach, CA, 1976
Ed Sievers
Ed Sievers

Ed Sievers

Country: United States
Birth: 1932 | Death: 2002

Ed Sievers was born in 1932 in St. Louis, MO, the son of a family doctor that made house calls and an aspiring opera singer. He attended Grinnell College, graduating with a degree in Speech in 1954. His first job was as a creative writer for Hallmark Cards. The slogans he penned were notable for the wry wit and wisdom with which he commented on the human condition. At the same time, his interest in the arts was expanding from the literary to the visual, and would ultimately lead him in a new direction.

In 1966 he was accepted into the MFA program at the Rhode Island School of Design to study photography with Harry Callahan. Upon graduation in 1968 he joined the faculty of California State University, Northridge, as a specialist in fine art photography. He took up residence in the Carlton Hotel in Venice Beach and soon realized he had walked into a street photographer's dream.

Originally designed as a resort community modeled after its Italian namesake, Venice had fallen on hard times. Buildings were in disrepair and rents were cheap. Influenced by the Bohemian lifestyle of its poets, artists, students and a struggling lower class, the boardwalk suddenly sprang to life. There were musicians, dancers, jugglers, mimes, magicians, comedians, roller skaters, fortune tellers, gritty street people and colorful hippies. And, of course, there was the sprawling nude beach. Throngs of gapers flocked from throughout Southern California to enjoy the expressive spirit of the moment.

But that was only on weekends. A quieter, more sensitive mood prevailed during the week. The gentle gestures of holocaust survivors at the Israel Levin Center. The recovering alcoholics quietly heading home after Al-Anon meetings. The homeless searching for food and drink. The once cheerful cottages longing for attention. The iconic murals. The myopic murals. The motions of a people not sure of what lay ahead.

Within a decade the Venice that Ed knew had been swallowed up by rampant commercialism and the inexorable influx of the nouveau riche. Upon his death in 2002, the Edwin R. Sievers Memorial Award was established to share his vision with future students; "His approach to photography was straight forward: use the nuances of available light to enhance the subject, whatever that may be: ordinary, quirky, or sublime."

Source: Robert Mann Gallery

 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Constant Puyo
France
1857 | † 1933
Constant Puyo, born in France on August 10, 1857, was a pioneering photographer who made significant contributions to the art of photography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He was instrumental in the growth of Pictorialism, an artistic movement that aspired to raise photography to the realm of fine art through creative techniques and an emphasis on aesthetic expression. Puyo began his artistic career as a painter, where he studied under great artists such as William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. His exploration of photography, however, was what truly released his creative potential. Puyo joined the Photo-Club de Paris in the 1890s and began experimenting with the Pictorialist style, which aspired to move photography beyond basic documentation and into a medium for artistic expression. Puyo's images had a dreamlike aspect to them, with soft focus and diffused lighting. To produce a painterly impression in his photos, he used a variety of processes, including gum bichromate printing. His pictures, in particular, were admired for capturing the inner essence of his subjects, showing their emotions and personalities. Puyo's work in the invention of autochrome photography was one of his noteworthy contributions to the Pictorialist movement. He investigated the possibilities of color photography with the Lumière brothers at a period when the medium was largely black and white. His mastery of color and ability to create ethereal, atmospheric images distinguishes him as a top figure in the area. Puyo's themes frequently centred around beauty, femininity, and the natural world. He used female models frequently, photographing them in poetic settings filled with flowers, textiles, and delicate objects. His images radiated nostalgia and romanticism, closely fitting with the ideas of the Art Nouveau movement. Puyo exhibited frequently throughout his career and received acclaim for his contributions to the art world. His images have been shown at prestigious exhibitions such as the Salon de la Société Française de Photographie and the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Puyo's photographs have also appeared in prestigious journals such as Camera Notes and Photo-Gazette. Puyo's influence also expanded beyond his personal photographic practice. He taught and mentored prospective photographers, passing on his knowledge and techniques to the next generation. He co-founded the Pictorial Photographic Society of France in 1909, cementing his status as a pivotal participant in the Pictorialist movement. Constant Puyo's legacy as a pioneer of Pictorialist photography goes on, reminding us of the power of artistic expression in the field of photography. His ability to capture the fleeting and provoke emotions through his photos continues to inspire photographers and artists all around the world.
Margo Ryan
United Kingdom
Morris Engel
United States
1918 | † 2005
Morris Engel (April 8, 1918 - March 5, 2005) was an American photographer, cinematographer and filmmaker best known for making the first American film "independent" of Hollywood studios, Little Fugitive (1953), in collaboration with his wife, photographer Ruth Orkin, and their friend, writer Raymond Abrashkin. Engel was a pioneer in the use of hand-held cameras and nonprofessional actors in his films, cameras that he helped design, and his naturalistic films influenced future prominent independent and French New Wave filmmakers. A lifelong New Yorker, Morris Engel was born in Brooklyn in 1918. After joining the Photo League in 1936, Engel had his first exhibition in 1939, at the New School for Social Research. He worked briefly as a photographer for the Leftist newspaper PM before joining the United States Navy as a combat photographer from 1941 to 1946 in World War II. After the war, he returned to New York where he again was an active Photo League member, teaching workshop classes and serving as co-chair of a project group focusing on postwar labor issues. In 1953, Engel, along with his girlfriend, fellow photographer Ruth Orkin, and his former colleague at PM, Raymond Abrashkin, made the feature film Little Fugitive for $30,000, shooting the film on location in Coney Island with a hand-held 35 millimeter camera Engel had designed himself. This camera was compact and lightweight so it would be unobtrusive shooting in public. As such, it did not allow simultaneous sound recording; the sound was dubbed later. The film, one of the first successful American "independent films" earned them an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story and a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The film told the story of a seven-year-old boy, played by Richie Andrusco, who runs away from home and spends the day at Coney Island. Andrusco never appeared in another film, and the other performers were mainly nonprofessional. Though their first film was a critical success, Engel and Orkin, who had since married, had a hard time finding funding for their next film, Lovers and Lollipops, which was completed in 1956. The film was about a widowed mother dating an old friend, and how her young daughter complicates their budding relationship. Like the first one, Lovers and Lollipops was filmed with a hand-held compact 35 mm camera, with sound dubbed in post-production. This was followed two years later by the more adult-centered Weddings and Babies, a film about an aspiring photographer than is often seen as autobiographical. This was Engel's first film to have live sound recorded at the time of filming, and is historically the first 35 mm fiction film made with a portable camera equipped for synchronized sound. In 1961, Engel directed three television commercials, including an award-winning one for Oreo cookies. The other two were for Ivory soap and Fab detergent. A half-hour short film The Dog Lover was made the following year, a comedy about a shop merchant whose life is turned upside down by the stray dog his kid brings home. He made a fourth feature in 1968 called I Need a Ride to California, which followed a group of young hippies in Greenwich Village. Post-production was shelved until 1972 when it was finally completed, but for unknown reasons, it was never released during his lifetime. It finally received its premiere in October 2019 at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); it was first released on home video in March 2021. In the 1980s, Engel began taking panoramic photographs on the streets of New York City. Engel and Ruth Orkin remained married until Orkin's death in 1985. In the 1990s, he returned to filmmaking, this time working on video. He completed two feature-length documentaries: A Little Bit Pregnant in 1994 and Camellia in 1998, each revolving around a different child in the Hartman family. First, in A Little Bit Pregnant Engel focused on the 8-year-old Leon's reactions, anxiety and wonderment to the impending birth of his baby sister Camellia. For the second film, two years later, Engel returned to the same family, who gave him a year of access to the now 2-year-old daughter Camellia, capturing her daily life and routines, and her relationships with her family and others. Both films were shown in private screenings, but never had a public release due likely to the Hartman family presumably holding the rights. Engel died of cancer in 2005.Source: Wikipedia Morris Engel was born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents from Lithuania. An early interest in photography led him to enroll in a class at New York’s Photo League, a group dedicated to raising social consciousness through modern photography. Some of the most influential photographers of the time were associated with the Photo League; Engel worked closely with Aaron Siskind on the project Harlem Document from 1936-40 and later assisted Paul Strand in filming Native Land. Like many Photo League photographers, Engel documented life in New York City, producing and exhibiting photo essays on Coney Island, the Lower East Side and Harlem. In 1939 he had his first exhibition at New York’s New School. In 1940 he joined the staff of the newspaper PM, but he left the publication one year later to sign on with the U.S. Navy as a member of a combat photo unit. He participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. In 1951 Engel momentarily quit still photography to pursue a career in filmmaking. He made a series of low-budget films with a custom 35 mm camera. His first feature film, Little Fugitive (made with his wife, the renowned photographer Ruth Orkin), earned an Academy Award nomination in 1953 for Best Original Screenplay and was screened in more than 5,000 theaters across the United States. Engel’s photographs are widely exhibited and found in the collections of the International Center of Photography (New York), the Museum of the City of New York, the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.). His films continue to be screened at venues such as the Whitney Museum of Art (New York), the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of the Moving Image (New York).Source: American Photography Archives Group
Morteza Nikoubazl
I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1974 and studied art and photography there. I started work as a freelance photographer for Iranian daily and weekly newspapers. I began working with the Reuters team as Freelance photographer since 1999 till 2013. After Reuters I worked with the New York Times International magazine, Polaris Images, Zuma Press and SIPA PRESS photo agencies and now I am working with the NurPhoto press photo agency. I am also UNHCR trusted photographer in Iran. Sense of death amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran Today is about one year after Government announced officially the COVID-19 cases in Iran and death still is everywhere. I could see patients who were infected by the new coronavirus in COVID-19 wards of hospitals who were breathing and after two hours they were died. In fact, life seems gone, time were stoped and people were looking for an empty hospital bed for their relatives. Sense of death is covered the daily life of people who have to fight with a new invisible enemy, and it will be getting worse when a country is under International sanctions. I was in the city of Bam for covering the earthquake in 2002-2003 and could see a U.S. Military cargo airplane landed after about 25 years since the Victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and I could see how the humanity could pass over the politic, but today I am witness how politic cover the humanity, sanctions still work and it pushed Iran to the end of the line of vaccine. People die left and right also medical personnel, But they hear about barriers to the import of the COVID-19 vaccines from western countries. When it comes to people's health, politics should be the last priority of countries, but it seems the politic is the first priority for the U.S., Iran and the European countries. On the other hand, Iranians cannot trust the China- Made, or Russian-Made vaccine and prefer the Iranian one, but they must wait until next year and try to be alive.
Yas Crawford
United Kingdom
1961
Yas Crawford was born in Pembrokeshire in Wales where the geological landscape and biological make-up have subliminally influenced her work. Yas has had a career in geology, microbiology and life sciences, only later finding her way into photography. She now works in the 'Grey Space' between disciplines, connecting them via internal and external human landscapes often revealing micro and macro environments intertwined. She attempts to explain the emotion, not necessarily the science. She examines the point where science falls short and art steps in. Using digital and analogue photography, Yas's work has naturally developed in a fine art form because this is how she imagines the condition or the situation. Her multidisciplinary background enables her to explore abstraction, recognise areas of ambiguity often through topographical and geometrical shape. The repetitive nature of Yas's images reveals her scientific thinking: the constant production of sets of images produced as if they are a scientific experiment, carefully catalogued for success or failure and reflected in the images' numbering. The abstraction in her images gently removes the objectivity, however, and leaves her imagery open to everyone for interpretation, making it a safe place for her audience to absorb the information. Yas's work has been exhibited internationally, won several awards for her work and a finalist at the RPS Science Photographer of the Year 2019 with 'Oxygen Ib' A Biological Journey Biology defines us, it's almost rule-less unlike physics and chemistry, which are laden with laws, regulation and procedure, a necessity but limited. The path of the cycle of life remains in the 'Grey Space' that space in-between disciplines and is challenging. The Holocene Epoch; a journey of geological creation, the first life on earth, adapting genetics, human behaviour and interaction, environmental change and viral contamination remains a biological mystery undefined, ambiguous, unknown and often uncontrolled by humankind. Working within the 'Grey Space' I anticipate a journey tracing time, stimulating our senses, finding consciousness in the subconscious and allowing us to live, for a moment, in the present.
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