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JB Russell
JB Russell
JB Russell

JB Russell

Country: France/United States
Birth: 1961

Born in Long Beach, California in 1961, J.B. Russell is a Paris-based documentary photographer, filmmaker and educator. After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and Geography and working for two years as a geologist, J.B. decided to take a year or two off to pursue a passion for photography and to satisfy a genetic predisposition for wanderlust. Once on the road however, he never looked back. He has worked extensively throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America focusing on current events, the human consequences of conflict, human rights, the environment and development issues. His work appears regularly in major print and on-line publications worldwide, including: Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, French GEO, Paris Match, Le Monde, Stern, Der Spiegel, Corriere della Sera magazine, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, El Mondo magazine and many more.

J.B. collaborates frequently with international humanitarian organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, Save The Children, Mines Advisory Group, The Global Fund and others to produce images, video and written material on critical humanitarian issues for their communication needs.

His work has received numerous accolades, including the Public Prize at the Bayeux War Correspondents Competition, 1st place in the News Picture Story category of the POYi competition, his images have been selected on multiple occasions for the American Photography anthology, he received the Saint Brieuc Photoreporter Grant and his work has been exhibited and frequently featured at Visa Pour L'Image in Perpignan, France, among many other festivals and venues.

J.B.'s career has spanned the transition from analogue to digital photography and the profound changes that the Internet and Social Media have had on journalism and the press. He believes that honest, engaged journalism remains crucial to public information in today's media landscape. J.B produces independent documentary photography and video projects, embracing diverse story-telling forms and platforms. He is a dedicated teacher of photography, teaching and speaking regularly in diverse university programs, workshops and photography courses.

J.B. Russell is member of the Panos Pictures Agency and a core member of the Instagram collective #EverydayClimateChange.
 

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Jesús Umbría Brito
Jesús Umbría Brito is a photographer whose gaze not only observes, but also engages in dialogue with both the world and the passage of time. He has completed PHotoESPAÑA’s Master of Photographic Projects Program, as well as training in narrative and in the photobook discipline with Ricardo Cases. His work has been exhibited in major galleries, including the Bondi Pavilion in Sydney, House of Lucie in Athens, the Lúcio Craveiro da Silva Library in Braga, and the Royal Botanical Gardens of Madrid. He has been a finalist in awards, such as the Gomma Grant, Head On, ReFocus, Analog Sparks, and the Enaire Foundation Photography Awards. He was recently invited to participate in 2025 Chico Review. STATEMENT: The photographer's gaze often deals with the legacy of the past, constantly returning us to the present as the only place from which we can examine history and relive it. Some of the most powerful images of the 20th and 21st centuries emerged from the clash between gaze and otherness, in that interstitial space of encounter between the photographer and the communities that inhabit the margins. Retaguardia is part of that more underground tradition, establishing a stylistic bridge with the work of other photographers such as Bruce Davidson, Larry Clark and Mary Ellen Mark. Like them, the author asks himself: What does it mean to inhabit a subculture? How are identities forged on the edges of the norm? What is the role of photography in representing those who live outside the spotlight? Retaguardia is a photographic project that dwells in the edges of mass society, in the periphery of the normative, in its penumbra. Far removed from dogma and convention, it unfolds a portrait of post-pandemic youth identified with the counterculture surrounding punk music and aesthetics: a mosaic of faces and expressions that seek each other in the mirror of the past to shape their present. From there, the author weaves a dialogue between times and generations. This exercise in memory and exploration becomes a testimony, an act of resistance against oblivion. On the one hand, the author revisits his own memory, three decades ago, when he went through these very spaces of transgression and belonging. On the other, he immerses himself in the present, where new generations rewrite history, adopting yesterday's dilemmas and facing their own. Young people who wear nostalgia like a second skin, who dance to the rhythm of inherited sounds, reconstructing with their own pulse the aesthetics and ideals of times that still resonate in their bodies. In this back-and-forth, the images emerge as witnesses to an immutable life cycle: that of youth seeking its mark on the margins, in the rearguard of dogma and norms. Through portraiture, the artist not only documents, but also questions. He explores identity as a constellation of signs and gestures, the need for belonging as an unbreakable drive, and social transversality as a contested territory. His camera is not a mere observer, but an active accomplice of those who find their place in what is different. The gaze —of the artist, the subject, and the spectator—unfolds as a narrative resource, a temporal bridge connecting generations. It acts as that contact zone that calls us from the past and seeks answers in the present. In this way, the exchange of gazes activates the dialogue between the observer and the observed, engaging us emotionally, blurring the boundaries between time and space, subject and spectator.
Sim Chi Yin
Singapore
1978
Sim Chi Yin (born 1978) is a Singaporean photographer, based between Beijing, China, and London. She works as a documentary photographer and artist who pursues self-directed projects in Asia and is "interested in history, memory, and migration and its consequences". As well as photography she uses film, sound, text and archival material. The Long Road Home: Journeys Of Indonesian Migrant Workers was published in 2011. Sim is a nominee member of Magnum Photos. Sim Chi Yin was born in Singapore. She learned history and international relations at the London School of Economics on a scholarship. She worked as a print journalist and foreign correspondent at The Straits Times for nine years. In 2010 she quit to work full time as a photographer. Within four years she was working as a photojournalist, getting regular assignments from The New York Times. Her first major work was The Rat Tribe, about blue-collar workers in Beijing. It has been published widely and was shown at the Rencontres d'Arles in 2012. Sim spent four years photographing Chinese gold miners living with the occupational lung disease silicosis, published in the photo essay Dying To Breathe, much of it about He Quangui, also the subject of a short film. She was commissioned as the Nobel Peace Prize photographer in 2017 to make work about its winner, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Her photographs of similarities in landscapes related to nuclear weapons, both in the USA and along the China-North Korea border, were exhibited at the Nobel Peace Center museum in Oslo, Norway. In 2014 she became an interim member of VII Photo Agency, a full member in 2016 then left in 2017. In 2018 she became a nominee member of Magnum Photos. She has been awarded a Magnum Foundation Social Justice and Photography fellowship and the Chris Hondros Award. She is newly based in Berlin.Source: Wikipedia Sim Chi Yin’s work combines deep research with intimate storytelling. She explores history, memory, conflict and migration using photography, film, sound, text and archival material, in a multidisciplinary practice. Chi Yin was commissioned as the Nobel Peace Prize photographer in 2017 and created a solo show for the Nobel Peace Centre museum in Oslo on nuclear weapons, combining video installation and still photography. Other notable projects include One Day We’ll Understand, an ongoing excavation of histories from the anti-colonial resistance movement in British Malaya during the early Cold War, Dying to Breathe which chronicled the slow death of a Chinese gold miner from “Black Lung” disease and Shifting Sands, an on-going visual investigation into world’s dependence on a non-renewable resource. Her work has been exhibited in the Istanbul Biennale (2017), at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, the Annenberg Space For Photography in Los Angeles, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in South Korea, and other galleries and institutions in Europe, the United States and Asia. Her film and multimedia work have also been screened at Les rencontres d’Arles and Visa pour l'Image festivals in France, and the Singapore International Film Festival. She has worked on assignments for global publications, such as The New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, National Geographic, The New Yorker and Harper's Bazaar. Chi Yin read history at the London School of Economics and Political Science for her first two degrees and was a staff journalist and foreign correspondent for a decade before quitting to become an independent visual practitioner in 2011. She is currently also a PhD candidate on scholarship at King’s College London, in War Studies. Chi Yin became a Magnum nominee in 2018.Source: Magnum Photos Recent solo exhibitions include One Day We’ll Understand, Les Rencontres d’Arles (2021), One Day We’ll Understand, Landskrona Foto Festival, Sweden (2020), One Day We’ll Understand, Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong (2019) and Most People Were Silent, Institute of Contemporary Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore (2018), Fallout, Nobel Peace Museum, Oslo (2017). Her work has also been included in group shows such as Most People Were Silent, Aesthetica Art Prize, York Art Gallery, United Kingdom (2019); UnAuthorised Medium, Framer Framed, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Relics, Jendela (Visual Arts Space) Gallery, Esplanade, Singapore (both 2018); and the Guangzhou Image Triennial ( 2021), the 15th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2017). Sim was commissioned as the Nobel Peace Prize photographer in 2017, nominated for the Vera List Center’s Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice 2020.Source: chiyinsim.com
Martin Munkácsi
Hungary
1896 | † 1963
Martin Munkácsi (born Mermelstein Márton; Kolozsvár, Hungary, May 18, 1896; died July 13, 1963, New York, NY) was a Hungarian photographer who worked in Germany (1928–34) and the United States, where he was based in New York City. Munkácsi was a newspaper writer and photographer in Hungary, specializing in sports. At the time, sports action photography could only be done in bright light outdoors. Munkácsi's innovation was to make sports photographs as meticulously composed action photographs, which required both artistic and technical skill. Munkácsi's legendary big break was to happen upon a fatal brawl, which he photographed. Those photos affected the outcome of the trial of the accused killer, and gave Munkácsi considerable notoriety. That notoriety helped him get a job in Berlin in 1928, for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, where his first published photo was a race car splashing its way through a puddle. He also worked for the fashion magazine Die Dame. More than just sports and fashion, he photographed Berliners, rich and poor, in all their activities. He traveled to Turkey, Sicily, Egypt, London, New York, and famously Liberia, for photo spreads in the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. The speed of the modern age and the excitement of new photographic viewpoints enthralled him, especially flying. There are aerial photographs; there are air-to-air photographs of a flying school for women; there are photographs from a Zeppelin, including the ones on his trip to Brazil, where he crosses over a boat whose passengers wave to the airship above. On March 21, 1933, he photographed the fateful Day of Potsdam, when the aged President Paul von Hindenburg handed Germany over to Adolf Hitler. On assignment for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, he photographed Hitler's inner circle, although he was a Jewish foreigner. In 1934, the Nazis nationalized the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, fired its Jewish editor-in-chief, Kurt Korff, and replaced its innovative photography with pictures of German troops. Munkácsi left for New York, where he signed on, for a substantial $100,000, with Harper's Bazaar, a top fashion magazine. In a change from usual practice, he often left the studio to shoot outdoors, on the beach, on farms and fields, at an airport. He produced one of the first articles in a popular magazine to be illustrated with nude photographs. His portraits include Katharine Hepburn, Leslie Howard, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Jane Russell, Louis Armstrong, and the definitive dance photograph of Fred Astaire. Munkácsi died in poverty and controversy. Several universities and museums declined to accept his archives, and they were scattered around the world. Berlin's Ullstein Archives and Hamburg's F. C. Gundlach collection are home to two of the largest collections of Munkácsi's work.Source: Wikipedia
Julian Wasser
United States
1938
Julian Wasser started his career in photography in the Washington DC bureau of the Associated Press. While at Associated Press he met Weegee and rode with the famous news photographer as he shot photos of crime scenes in Washington. Weegee was a major influence on Wasser’s style of photography. After serving in the Navy in San Diego the former AP copyboy became a contract photographer for Time Magazine in Los Angeles doing assignments for Time, Life, and Fortune. His photographs have appeared in and been used as covers of Time, Newsweek, and People magazines in the United States. He has done cover assignments for The Sunday Telegraph, and The Sunday Times colour supplements in London. His photos have appeared in US Magazine, Vanity Fair, TV Guide, Paris Match, Der Spiegel, Oggi, Hello, Playboy, Elle, Vogue, and GQ and in exhibitions in galleries and museums.Source: www.julianwasser.com Perhaps his most notorious photo session was of groundbreaking artist Marcel Duchamp playing chess with a naked Eve Babitz in 1963 at the Pasadena Museum of Art during Duchamp’s first retrospective. Organized by Walter Hopps, then director of the museum (now the Norton Simon Museum), the exhibition was the first comprehensive survey of Duchamp’s storied career, which began in 1911 at the legendary Armory show in New York. Duchamp, by this time, was the most influential artist in the world, having revolutionized the modern art world with his unconventional concepts. At the time, he had retired from being an artist to pursue his passion for chess. His numerous works had never been shown collectively, and the landmark show is still considered to be one of the seminal exhibitions of all time. The opening night was a who’s who of the most highly-regarded artists and collectors of the era, and effectively inaugurated the establishment of the Pop art movement. Among the group of up-and-coming artists who attended were Andy Warhol, Billy Al Bengston and Ed Ruscha.Source: Juxtapoz In 1963 a long overdue retrospective for Marcel Duchamp, arguably the most significant and influential artist of the 20th century was held at the Pasadena Art Museum. The exhibition, curated by art world renegade and acting museum director, Walter Hopps, was Duchamp’s very first museum retrospective in the United States and a coup for the West Coast art world. Having produced some of the most groundbreaking examples of conceptual art since the early part of the century, Duchamp was a legendary figure by the 1960s and his presence in California was a pivotal moment in L.A. history and lore. Artists and luminaries including Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, Dennis Hopper and a very boyish Andy Warhol flocked to the opening gala of Duchamp’s retrospective and Time Magazine sent L.A. based photographer, Julian Wasser to cover the event. At the time, Wasser, who began his career as a teenager shooting crime scenes in Washington D.C., was unaware of Duchamp’s significance in the pantheon of art. But known for being in the right place at the right time and catching formative moments in L.A. history with an unmistakable eye, Wasser not only captured the energy of Duchamp’s opening reception, but produced several of the most iconic pictures of the artist ever made. Duchamp posing next to his groundbreaking readymade Bicycle Wheel, originally conceived in 1913 and Duchamp playing chess with a nude Eve Babitz were among the images Wasser took while on assignment. Though Time never published Wasser’s pictures, the latter photograph, inspired by one of Duchamp’s master paintings Nude Descending a Staircase and the artist’s obsession with chess, went on to become one of the most recognizable staged photographs of the 20th Century. The exhibition Julian Wasser : Duchamp in Pasadena Revisited brought the quintessential photographs of Julian Wasser, together with an installation of appropriated works of art produced primarily by L.A. based artist Gregg Gibbs to create an exclusive experience of the 1963 Duchamp retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum. Works on view originally produced by Duchamp and appropriated by Gibbs included early works such as Bicycle Wheel, Nude Descending a Staircase, I.H.O.O.Q, 1919; With Hidden Noise, 1916, and one of Duchamp’s masterworks (The Large Glass) The Bride Stripped Bare of Her Bachelors, Even 1915-1923. The piece de resistance was a life-sized recreation of Wasser’s now-infamous photograph of Marcel Duchamp and Eve Babitz playing chess at the museum in 1963.Source: Robert Berman Gallery
Ralf Dreier
Germany
1964
Ralf Dreier is a self-taught photographer with more than 25 years of experience. With a particular focus on minimalist black and white photography in the fields of architecture and landscape, he strives first and foremost to convey emotions and moods with his images. Statement: My pictures are essentially about conveying feelings and moods, so I don't really try to tell a story with them. These moods and feelings are what I feel when I look at a landscape that I would also photograph. It's about relaxation and letting go of everyday problems. But if a story does develop in the viewer's mind, it's definitely positive, because it's their very personal story that they associate with my pictures. However, it makes a difference whether we look at a landscape directly and immediately or whether we only look at a picture of it. Directly in the landscape, our brain is able to block out everything that distracts or disturbs us. At least this works if the distractions are not too dominant. In a photograph, small things often distract us and prevent us from finding the necessary calm and relaxation to engage with the image and let the feelings and moods come to us. I therefore try not to include any of these distracting elements in my pictures. I achieve this in my minimalist black and white pictures, for example, through the choice of image detail. Other disruptive elements that create unrest and therefore attract attention can be the sky or uneven water surfaces. For water surfaces, I usually use long exposures of up to two minutes in my pictures. This makes the surface soft and smooth and suddenly even conveys additional calm. With a turbulent sky, on the other hand, the only thing that usually helps is to wait for better conditions. My favourite subjects are mainly landscapes and architecture. However, for me, the two tend to merge seamlessly. I prefer open landscapes that allow you to look into the distance. From my point of view, this helps me to detach my thoughts from the realities of everyday life. In densely built-up areas or mountainous landscapes, however, a clear view is often only possible in the direction of the sky. For this reason, the sky is becoming increasingly important in my pictures. And it also depends on the structure of the sky. A uniformly blue or grey sky is often somewhat boring, at least in a photo. On the other hand, restless clouds with strong contrasts can attract more attention than they deserve. It's simply important to wait for the sky to be as suitable as possible. In some cases, however, my pictures manage without looking into the distance. Then geometric shapes and structures take over the task of detaching thoughts from everyday life. The order of the geometric shapes and the regularity of the structures have a calming effect on the viewer and in this way help them to get into the mood of the picture.
Albert Watson
Scotland
1942
Albert Watson (born 1942) is a Scottish photographer well known for his fashion, celebrity and art photography, and whose work is featured in galleries and museums worldwide. He has shot over 200 covers of Vogue around the world and 40 covers of Rolling Stone magazine since the mid-1970s. Photo District News named Watson one of the 20 most influential photographers of all time, along with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, among others. Watson has won numerous honors, including a Lucie Award, a Grammy Award, the Hasselblad Masters Award and three ANDY Awards,. He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2010. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a physical education teacher and a boxer. He grew up in Penicuik, Midlothian, and attended the Rudolf Steiner School in Edinburgh and Lasswade High School, followed study at the Duncan of Jordonstone College of Art in Dundee and the Royal College of Art in London. Watson studied graphic design at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and film and television at the Royal College of Art. Though blind in one eye since birth, Watson also studied photography as part of his curriculum. In 1970, he moved to the United States with his wife, Elizabeth, who got a job as an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles, where Watson began shooting photos, mostly as a hobby. Later that year, Watson was introduced to an art director at Max Factor, who offered him his first test session, from which the company purchased two images. Watson’s distinctive style garnered the attention of American and European fashion magazines such as Mademoiselle, GQ and Harper’s Bazaar, and he began commuting between Los Angeles and New York. Albert photographed his first celebrity in 1973, a portrait of Alfred Hitchcock holding a dead goose with a ribbon around its neck, for that year's Harper's Bazaar's Christmas issue. The image has become one of Watson's most famous portraits on a list that now includes hundreds of well-known iconic photographs of movie stars, rock stars, rappers, supermodels, even President Clinton and Queen Elizabeth II. In 1975, Watson won a Grammy Award for the photography on the cover of the Mason Proffit album “Come and Gone,” and in 1976, he landed his first job for Vogue. With his move to New York that same year, his career took off. In addition to photography for the world's top magazines, Watson has created the images for hundreds of successful advertising campaigns for major corporations, such as the Gap, Levi’s, Revlon and Chanel, and he has directed more than 500 TV commercials and photographed dozens of posters for major Hollywood movies, such as "Kill Bill," "Memoirs of a Geisha," and "The Da Vinci Code.". All the while, Watson has spent much of his time working on personal projects, taking photographs from his travels and interests, from Marrakech to Las Vegas to the Orkney Islands. Much of this work, along with his well-known portraits and fashion photographs, has been featured in museum and gallery shows around the world, and Watson's limited-edition prints have become highly sought after by collectors. In 2007, a large-format Watson print of a Kate Moss photograph taken in 1993 sold at Christie's in London for $108,000, five times the low pre-sale estimate. Since 2004, Watson has had solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art in Milan, Italy; the KunstHausWien in Vienna, Austria; the City Art Centre in Edinburgh; the FotoMuseum in Antwerp, Belgium; and the NRW Forum in Düsseldorf, Germany. Watson’s photographs have also been featured in many group shows at museums, including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, the International Center of Photography in New York, and the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany. His photographs are included in the permanent collections at the National Portrait Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Watson has published several books, including Cyclops (1994), Maroc (1998)., and "Albert Watson" (2007). Two books were released in the fall of 2010: "UFO: Unified Fashion Objectives," a look at 40 years of selected Watson fashion photographs, and "Strip Search," a two-volume set of hundreds of photographs Watson took in Las Vegas. In addition, many catalogs of Watson’s photographs have been published in conjunction with shows, including "The Vienna Album" (2005). Watson received a Ph.D from the University of Dundee in 1995 and was inducted into the Scottish Fashion Awards Hall of Fame in 2006. His first exhibition in his homeland, Frozen, was held at the City Art Centre of Edinburgh in 2006.Source: Wikipedia
Lala Deen Dayal
India
1844 | † 1905
Lala Deen Dayal, (famously known as Raja Deen Dayal) born in 1844 in Sardhana, Uttar Pradesh, is revered as one of India's most influential photographers. His journey into photography began after he completed his education in engineering at Thomason College of Civil Engineering (now IIT Roorkee). Initially working as a draftsman for the Public Works Department, Deen Dayal's interest in photography soon turned into a passionate pursuit, transforming him into a pioneer of the craft in India. In the late 19th century, when photography was still a nascent field, Deen Dayal's talent quickly garnered attention. He established his first studio in Indore, gaining the patronage of Maharaja Tukoji Rao II. His reputation for capturing intricate details and the essence of Indian life, architecture, and landscapes soon spread, leading to numerous commissions from Indian royalty and British officials. This period marked the beginning of his illustrious career, during which he documented India's rich cultural heritage with a distinctive artistic vision. Deen Dayal's photographic expertise reached new heights when he was appointed the court photographer for the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Mahbub Ali Pasha, in 1885. This prestigious position allowed him unparalleled access to the royal family and their opulent lifestyle. His photographs from this era are renowned for their exquisite composition and detail, providing a rare glimpse into the grandeur of princely India. Deen Dayal's work from this period includes portraits, architectural studies, and documentation of royal ceremonies, all characterized by their meticulous attention to detail. Throughout his career, Deen Dayal's contributions to photography extended beyond his royal commissions. He established studios in Mumbai, Indore, and Hyderabad, training a generation of Indian photographers and expanding the reach of professional photography in the country. His innovative techniques and commitment to quality earned him international recognition. In 1897, he was awarded the Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria, a testament to his exceptional skill and the impact of his work on a global scale. Lala Deen Dayal passed away in 1905, but his legacy endures through his extensive body of work that continues to be celebrated for its historical and artistic significance. His photographs are invaluable records of India's architectural and cultural history, capturing the essence of a bygone era with clarity and depth. Deen Dayal's pioneering spirit and dedication to his craft have left an indelible mark on the history of photography, establishing him as a true trailblazer in the field. His work remains a source of inspiration for photographers and historians alike, preserving the rich tapestry of 19th-century India for future generations.
Michael Wolf
Germany/United States
1954 | † 2019
The focus of the German photographer Michael Wolf’s work is life in megacities. many of his projects document the architecture and the vernacular culture of metropolises. Wolf grew up in Canada, Europe, and the United States, studying at UC Berkeley and at the Folkwang School with Otto Steinert in Essen, Germany. He moved to Hong Kong in 1994 where he worked for 8 years as a contract photographer for Stern Magazine. Since 2001, Wolf has been focusing on his own projects, many of which have been published as books. Wolf’s work has been exhibited in numerous locations, including the Venice Bienniale for Architecture, Aperture Gallery, New York; Museum Centre Vapriikki, Tempere, Finland, the Museum for Work in Hamburg, Germany, Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennial, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. His work is held in many permanent collections, including the metropolitan museum of art in New York the Brooklyn Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, California; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany and the German Museum for Architecture, Frankfurt, Germany. He has won first prize in the World Press Photo Award competition on two occasions (2005 & 2010) and an honorable mention (2011) In 2010, Wolf was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet photography prize. He has published more than 13 photo books including Bottrop Ebel 1976 (Peperoni Press, 2012), Tokyo Compression Three (Peperoni Press / Asia One, 2012), Architecture of Density (Peperoni Press / Asia One, 2012), Hong Kong Corner Houses (Hong Kong University Press, 2011), Portraits (Superlabo, Japan, 2011), Tokyo Compression Revisited (Peperoni Press / Asia One, 2011), Real Fake Art (Peperoni Press / Asia One, 2011), FY (Peperoni Press, 2010), A Series of Unfortunate Events (Peperoni Press, 2010), Tokyo Compression (Peperoni Press / Asia One, 2010), Hong Kong Inside-Outside (Peperoni Press / Asia One, 2009), The Transparent City (Aperture, 2008) and Sitting in China (Steidl, 2002). Source: photomichaelwolf.com Michael Wolf’s work examines life in the layered urban landscape, addressing juxtapositions of public and private space, anonymity and individuality, history, and modern development. In a diverse array of photographic projects, from street views appropriated from Google Earth, to portraits capturing the crush of the Tokyo Subway, and dizzying architectural landscapes, Wolf explores the density of city life. Wolf currently lives and works in Hong Kong and Paris. His photographs are in the permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany; The Brooklyn Museum; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, Kansas City; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago among others, and have been exhibited at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego (2011), Goethe Institute in Hong Kong (2010), Fotographie Museum, Amsterdam (2010), Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2008), Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2008), and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (2008), among others. Wolf was awarded First Place in the 2010 World Press Photo Award contest in the Daily Life category, and was shortlisted for the 2010 Prix Pictet. Wolf's numerous monographs include Tokyo Compression Revisited (Peperoni Books, 2011), Real Fake Art (Peperoni Books, 2011), Tokyo Compression (Peperoni Books, 2010), Hong Kong: Inside/Outside (Peperoni Books, 2009), The Transparent City (Aperture and MoCP, 2008), Hong Kong: Front Door/Back Door, (Thames & Hudson, 2005), and Sitting in China (Steidl, 2002). Source: Robert Koch Gallery Michael Wolf was born in 1954 in Munich, Germany. He grew up in the United States, Europe, and Canada, and studied at UC Berkeley and at the Folkwang School in Essen, Germany. In 1994, Wolf moved to Hong Kong and worked for eight years as a contract photographer for Stern magazine, until he left to pursue his own projects. Wolf's photographic work in Asia focuses on the city and its architectural structures and follows on from his interest in people and human interaction. He has published seven photobooks to date. Wolf's work has been exhibited extensively in galleries and art fairs throughout the world since 2005 and is held in permanent collections across the US and Germany. Wolf has won previously won a World Press Photo award, the first prize in Contemporary Issues stories in 2005. Source: World Press Photo
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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.
Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Josh S. Rose is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, film, and writing. His practice bridges visual and performing arts, with a strong focus on movement, emotion, and the expressive potential of the image. Known for his long-standing collaborations with leading dance companies and performers, Rose brings together authenticity and precise composition—a balance he describes as “technical romanticism.” His work has been commissioned and exhibited internationally, appearing in outlets such as Vogue, at the Super Bowl, in film festivals, and most recently as a large-scale installation for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. A sought-after collaborator, he has worked with major artists, cultural institutions, and brands, following a previous career as Chief Creative Officer at Interpublic Group and the founder of Humans Are Social. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
Photographer Maureen Ruddy Burkhart brings a quietly attentive and deeply human sensibility to her exploration of the world through images. Shaped by a life immersed in photography, film, and visual storytelling, her work is guided by intuition, observation, and an enduring interest in the emotional undercurrents of everyday life. With a practice rooted in both fine art traditions and documentary awareness, she approaches her subjects with sensitivity, allowing subtle moments to emerge naturally rather than be imposed. Her series Til Death, selected as the Solo Exhibition for February 2025, reflects this long-standing commitment to photography as a space for reflection rather than spectacle. Drawn to moments that exist just outside the expected frame, Burkhart’s images suggest narratives without resolving them, leaving room for ambiguity, humor, and quiet connection. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
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