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Last Call to Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
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Veronique De Viguerie
Veronique De Viguerie
Veronique De Viguerie

Veronique De Viguerie

Country: France
Birth: 1978

Veronique de Viguerie photojournalist, mother-of-two based in Paris. After a Master of Law, fascinated by what was happening in Afghanistan, she disobeyed her parents, borrowed some money and bought a one-way ticket to Kabul. Two years after, in 2005, she was in a cybercafé, trying to file some pictures. A kamikaze entered and exploded himself. She was one of the rare survivor. She became obsessed with the idea of meeting the Taliban to understand how some men were ready to die and kill for an ideology. From that day, her pictures intend to give a face to the ones we don’t want to see, the “bad guys”, the ones on the other side: The Taliban, the pirates in Somalia, the sicarias (women killers) in Mexico, the oil pirates in the Niger Delta, the Houthis in Yemen, the MNLA in Mali, the gangs in Brazil etc… She refuses the common binary, black and white vision of the world preferring to show the grey shades in between, a world complex but always in colors.

Her work is regularly published by Paris-Match, Time, Géo, Figaro, the Guardian, Marie-Claire etc. She exhibited “Afghanistan, Insh’Allah” in Perpignan, Paris and Anger, “Yemen, the hidden war” was exhibited in Bayeux, Paris and Brussels. She published some books “Afghanistan, Regards Croisés”, “Profession: Reporter”, “Carnets de Reportages du XXIe siècle”, “Yemen, la guerre qu’on nous cache », « Iraq Insh’Allah ». In 2011, she was starring an episode of « Witness » an HBO program, following the arrow boys in Sudan in their hunt for Joseph Kony. Among her awards she received a WPP, 2 Visas d’Or, 2 prizes at Bayeux Festival for Best War Reportage, was finalist for the Anja courage award etc.
Selected Books on Available on Amazon
Yémen: La Guerre qu’on nous cache
Yémen: La Guerre qu'on nous cache
Veronique De Viguerie
Profession reporters. Deux baroudeuses en terrain
Profession reporters. Deux baroudeuses en terrain
Véronique de Viguerie
Carnets de reportages du XXIème siècle
Carnets de reportages du XXIème siècle
Véronique de Viguerie
Afghanistan: Regards croisés
Afghanistan: Regards croisés
Véronique de Viguerie

Agencies

Reportage by Getty Images

Verbatim Photo Agency

Websites

veroniquedeviguerie.com

@veroniquedeviguerie

 

Veronique De Viguerie's Video

Selected Books

Yémen: La Guerre qu’on nous cache
Yémen: La Guerre qu'on nous cache
Veronique De Viguerie
Profession reporters. Deux baroudeuses en terrain
Profession reporters. Deux baroudeuses en terrain
Véronique de Viguerie
Carnets de reportages du XXIème siècle
Carnets de reportages du XXIème siècle
Véronique de Viguerie
Afghanistan: Regards croisés
Afghanistan: Regards croisés
Véronique de Viguerie

Inspiring Portfolios

Marijn Fidder
© Marijn Fidder
Julien Chatelin
© Julien Chatelin
Marcus Yam
© Marcus Yam
Call for Entries
All About Photo Awards 2026
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More Great Photographers To Discover

Richard Nickel
Richard Nickel
Poland/United States
1928 | † 1972
Richard Nickel was an American architectural photographer and preservationist best known for documenting and preserving historic architecture, particularly the works of renowned architect Louis Sullivan. Nickel, who was born on May 31, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois, developed an early interest in photography and architecture. Nickel began documenting Chicago's architectural legacy in the 1950s and 1960s, focusing on buildings designed by Louis Sullivan, one of the forefathers of modern American architecture. His photographs captured Sullivan's buildings' intricate details, ornamental features, and craftsmanship, highlighting their beauty and significance. During the mid-twentieth century, Nickel became increasingly concerned about the destruction and neglect of historic buildings in Chicago. He understood the significance of architectural preservation and saw photography as a means of raising awareness about the need to protect these structures. Nickel actively advocated for the preservation of historic buildings in addition to his photography. He campaigned against the demolition of Sullivan's iconic Chicago Stock Exchange Building, which, despite his efforts, was demolished in 1972. Nickel's photographs of the building, as well as his writings on the subject, raised public awareness of the loss and inspired the Chicago preservation movement. On April 13, 1972, Richard Nickel was killed while photographing the ruins of the Chicago Stock Exchange Building, which was being demolished. Despite his untimely death, his legacy was preserved and exhibited posthumously through his photographs. Nickel's work had a significant impact on architectural preservation and historic building appreciation. His photographs captured not only the physical structures of the buildings, but also their spirit and essence, revealing their historical and cultural significance. His dedication to architectural preservation continues to inspire individuals and organizations working to protect our architectural heritage. Richard Nickel's contributions as a photographer and preservationist serve as a reminder of how important it is to document and cherish our architectural treasures so that future generations can appreciate and learn from them.
Oliviero Toscani
Oliviero Toscani
Italy
1942 | † 2025
Oliviero Toscani was an Italian photographer whose groundbreaking and often controversial advertising campaigns revolutionized the intersection of art, commerce, and social commentary. Best known for his work with Italian fashion brand Benetton from 1982 to 2000, Toscani transformed advertising into a platform for provocative and thought-provoking messages on issues such as AIDS, racism, religion, and capital punishment. Born in Milan, Toscani inherited a passion for photography from his father, Fedele Toscani, a renowned photojournalist and co-founder of the Publifoto agency. After earning his diploma at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich, Toscani began his career collaborating with leading magazines such as Elle, Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar. His early work set the stage for a career that would challenge conventions and ignite conversations worldwide. In 1982, Toscani became Art Director for the Benetton Group, where he created some of the most iconic and controversial advertising campaigns in history. Among these was the unforgettable image of David Kirby, a man dying of AIDS, which echoed the composition of religious pietà paintings. While some criticized the ad for exploiting tragedy to sell clothing, the Kirby family praised it for raising global awareness about AIDS. Other campaigns addressed themes of racial equality, war, and even the death penalty, pushing boundaries and reshaping public perceptions of advertising's role in society. In the early 1990s, Toscani co-founded Colors, a magazine created with American graphic designer Tibor Kalman. With the tagline “a magazine about the rest of the world,” Colors reflected the multicultural ethos of Benetton's campaigns while maintaining editorial independence. Toscani’s tenure at Benetton ended in 2000, but his impact on the brand—and the advertising world—remains indelible. A resident of Tuscany, Toscani continued to innovate beyond the fashion industry. In 2003, he founded La Sterpaia, a research facility dedicated to modern communication, in collaboration with the Regione Toscana. His later projects, including campaigns addressing anorexia and LGBTQ+ rights, further demonstrated his commitment to using photography as a medium for social change. Toscani’s career was not without controversy. His 2005 campaign for the clothing brand Ra-Re, featuring images of men engaging in intimate behavior, sparked outrage among conservative groups. In 2007, his stark portrayal of anorexia through the haunting image of Isabelle Caro drew both acclaim and criticism for its raw honesty. Despite these controversies, Toscani remained a cultural force. When Luciano Benetton returned to the helm of the Benetton Group in 2018, Toscani rejoined him, marking a new chapter in their creative partnership. That same year, he became a member of Italy's Democratic Party, further highlighting his engagement with societal issues. Toscani faced health challenges in his later years, battling amyloidosis. He was hospitalized on January 10, 2025, and passed away three days later at the age of 82. Oliviero Toscani's legacy endures as a testament to the power of photography to challenge norms, inspire dialogue, and provoke change. His work reminds us that art can be more than an aesthetic endeavor—it can be a catalyst for understanding and transformation in the world.
Elias Achy
Elias Achy
Lebanon
1999
Born and based in Lebanon, Elias Achy is an architect and self-taught photographer whose work reflects a blend for both passions. Through his artistic approach, he emphasizes the search for simplicity within the surrounding chaos, focusing on clean lines, geometry, abstraction, and minimalism. His photography captures the intricate relationships between space, structure and emotion, showcasing the beauty found in simplicity. Focusing on the architectural elements that often go unnoticed he invites the viewers to explore a fresh perspective on the world around them.
Shin Noguchi
Shin Noguchi
Japan
1976
Shin Noguchi, born 1976 in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, is an award winning street photographer based in Kamakura and Tokyo, Japan. He describes his street photography as an attempt to capture extraordinary moments of excitement, humanism and beauty among the flow of everyday life. With his discreet, poetic and enigmatic approach to his art, Shin is able to capture the subtleties and complexities of Japanese culture without relying on staged, no-finder or hip shot photography. He has been invited to hold solo exhibitions in Russia, France, China (organized by Leica Camera) and other countries, and also He has been featured on The Leica Camera Blog many times, in Courrier Inte'l, Internazionale, Libération, The Guardian, The Independent, etc, and some assignment work has been also published in Die Zeit, Libération, etc. His new book "In Color In Japan" was published in Italy, and one of his works was used as key visual for FIFDH 2022: The International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights. Currently, he has been selected for Leica Camera's new global campaign “M is M.” "The subjects tell me the meaning and value of life. To take a picture is to affirm the existence of peopleーthe human nature and karmaーand it's also an opportunity to affirm my own existence and accept it as it is." In Color in Japan From the introduction of the book: Like all good photographers, Shin Noguchi treats the camera as another appendage - a special sensory organ merging hand and eye that allows him to show us what he sees, and more subtly, how he sees. And his camera is always working. Noguchi is internationally respected as a "street photographer," but while he has won numerous prizes for his work in that genre, the appellation does not do justice to his omnivorous eye. His is just as likely to record tender moments with his family or newsworthy events like the typhoon as his encounters on the streets of Tokyo where he works, or Kamakura, where he lives. The connecting vein that runs throughout his work is a belief in the appearance of objectivity, a belief that first began to manifest when he discovered the work of the Magnum photo cooperative when he was still in his teens. It was, as he has said, the first time he realized that art and documentation could be merged. Noguchi knows perfectly well that what he shows us reflects his own sensibility and intellect but prefers to dial back the expressionistic impulse. It is an old trick in photography: make the viewer believe that had she been standing next to him she would have seen precisely what he saw. It’s also a difficult trick to pull off, particularly when the everyday world seems to be so full of surprises. In Noguchi-world, Giraffes wander about temples with Buddhist monks; workers dive into random circular openings in giant bushes, or burst from openings in blank walls as if transporting to or returning from another dimension; golf carts cluster like insects on neon-green lawns; objects possessed of more animate power than the people carrying them seem to propel their human cargo down the sidewalk instead of the opposite. In many images, goofy absurdity suddenly explodes from a sober social milieu in a way that seems to Western eyes particularly Japanese. Sentiment and affection are common themes, but the work is never sentimental. His new book, "Shin Noguchi, in Color in Japan," skates across the peaks of many of Noguchi’s favorite preoccupations (I personally have developed a fondness for his utterly adorable daughters) and one can only hope that we will get to explore his work more deeply in the future. - Chuck Patch museum curator, photographer and writer
Julia Fullerton-Batten
Julia Fullerton-Batten
Germany
1970
Julia is a world-wide acclaimed and exhibited fine-art photographer. She has had portraits commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, that are held in permanent collection. She is a winner of the HSBC Fondation pour la Photographie award and a Hasselblad Master. Her images are on the front covers of 'A Guide to Collecting Contemporary Photography' (Thames and Hudson, 2012) and Eyemazing Magazine. She is widely sought after as a judge for adjudicating at prestigious international photographic competitions and as a speaker at international events. The foundation of her success as a fine-art photographer was 'Teenage Stories' (2005), an evocative narrative of the transition of a teenage girl to womanhood. It portrays the different stages and life situations experienced by an adolescent girl as she grapples with the vulnerability of her teenage predicament – adjustments to a new body, her emotional development and changes in her social standing. Her book ‘Teenage Stories’ was published in 2007. This success was followed by other projects illuminating further stages a teenager experiences to becoming a woman - In Between (2009) and Awkward (2011). Julia freely admits to many of her scenes being autobiographical. This was even more so the case with her next project, Mothers and Daughters (2012). Here she based the project on her own experiences in her relationship with her mother, and the effects of her parents’ divorce. Unrequited love – A Testament to Love (2013) – completes Julia’s involvement with the female psyche, illustrating poignantly the struggles experienced by a woman when love goes wrong. Again there is no happy end, the woman is left with the despair of loneliness, loss and resignation. More recently, Julia has shot a series of projects where she has engaged with social issues. Unadorned (2012) takes on the issue of the modern Western society’s over-emphasis on the perfect figure, both female and male. For this project she sourced overweight models and asked them to pose in the nude in front of her camera against a backdrop similar to that of an Old Master’s painting, when voluptuousness was more accepted than it is now. ‘Blind (2013)’ confronts the viewer with a series of sympathetic images and interviews with blind people, some blind from birth, others following illness or an accident. Sight being one of mankind’s essential senses and her career being absolutely dependent on it, Julia hoped to find answers to her own personal situation if she were ever to become blind. Her most recent project, In Service (2014), exposes some of the goings-on behind the walls of the homes of the wealthy during the Edwardian era in the UK (1901 – 1911). Millions of poorer members of society escaped poverty by becoming servants in these homes, where it was not only hard work, but they were often subjected to exploitation and abuse. Julia’s very distinctive style of fine-art photography is epitomized by her use of unusual locations, highly creative settings, street-cast models, and accented with cinematic lighting. She insinuates visual tensions into her images, and imbues them with a hint of mystery, that combine to tease the viewer to re-examine the picture continuously, each time seeing more content and finding a deeper meaning with every viewing. Major events in which she has recently participated include Fotografiska, Stockholm; Noorderlicht, International Festival of Photography, Kristiansund, Norway; Dong Gang Photo festival, Korea; Daegu Photo Biennale, Korea; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and Fundacion Caja, Madrid; Pompidou Center, Paris; Shanghai International Photographic Art Exhibition; Hereford Photo Festival; The Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai (MOCA Shanghai). Guest Speaker - National Geographic Seminar in Washington DC; Fotografiska, Stockholm, and Noorderlicht, Norway.
Mitch Epstein
Mitch Epstein
United States
1952
Mitchell Epstein (born 1952) is an American fine-art photographer, among the first to make significant use of color. Epstein's books include Sunshine Hotel (2019), Rocks and Clouds (2018), New York Arbor, (2013) Berlin (2011); American Power (2009); Mitch Epstein: Work ( 2006); Recreation: American Photographs 1973-1988 (2005); and Family Business (2003), which won the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. Epstein's work has been exhibited and published extensively in the United States and Europe, and collected by numerous major museums, including New York's Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Modern in London. He has also worked as a director, cinematographer, and production designer on several films, including Dad, Salaam Bombay!, and Mississippi Masala. Epstein was born and raised in a Jewish family in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He graduated from Williston Academy, where he studied with artist and bookmaker Barry Moser. In the early 1970s he studied at Union College, New York; Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island, and the Cooper Union, New York, where he was a student of photographer Garry Winogrand. By the mid-1970s, Epstein had abandoned his academic studies and begun to travel, embarking on a photographic exploration of the United States. Ten of the photographs he made during this period were in a 1977 group exhibition at Light Gallery in New York. In 1978, he journeyed to India with his future wife, director Mira Nair, where he was a producer, set designer, and cinematographer on several films, including Salaam Bombay! and India Cabaret. His book In Pursuit of India is a compilation of his Indian photographs from this period. From 1992 to 1995, Epstein photographed in Vietnam, which resulted in an exhibition of this work at Wooster Gardens in New York, along with a book titled Vietnam: A Book of Changes. “I don’t know that Mitch Epstein’s glorious photographs record all of what is salient in end-of-the-twentieth century Vietnam,” wrote Susan Sontag for his book jacket, “for it’s been more than two decades since my two stays there. I can testify that his images confirm what moved and troubled me then… and offer shrewd and poignant glimpses into the costs of imposing a certain modernity. This is beautiful, authoritative work by an extremely intelligent and gifted photographer.” Reviewing an exhibition of the Vietnam pictures for Art in America, Peter Von Ziegesar writes, “In a show full of small pleasures, little prepares one for the stunning epiphany contained in Perfume Pagoda… Few photographers have managed to make an image so loaded and so beautiful at once.” Having lived and traveled beyond the United States for over a decade, Epstein began to spend more time in his adopted home of New York City. His 1999 series The City investigated the relationship between public and private life in New York. Reviewing The City exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins in New York, Vince Aletti wrote that the pictures “[are] as assured as they are ambitious.” In 1999, Epstein returned to his hometown of Holyoke, Massachusetts, to record the demise of his father's two businesses—a retail furniture store and a low-rent real estate empire. The resulting project assembled large-format photographs, video, archival materials, interviews and writing by the artist. The book Family Business, which combined all of these elements, won the 2004 Krazna-Kraus Best Photography Book of the Year award. In 2004, his work was exhibited during evening screenings at Rencontres d'Arles festival, France. From 2004 to 2009, Epstein investigated energy production and consumption in the United States, photographing in and around various energy production sites. This series, titled American Power, questions the meaning and make-up of power—electrical and political. Epstein made a monograph of the American Power pictures (2009), in which he wrote that he was often stopped by corporate security guards and once interrogated by the FBI for standing on public streets and pointing his camera at energy infrastructure. The large-scale prints from this series have been exhibited worldwide. In his Art in America review, Dave Coggins wrote that Epstein “grounds his images… in the human condition, combining empathy with sharp social observation, politics with sheer beauty.” In the New York Times, Martha Schwendener wrote: “What is interesting, beyond the haunting, complicated beauty and precision of these images, is Mr. Epstein's ability to merge what have long been considered opposing terms: photo-conceptualism and so-called documentary photography. He utilizes the supersize scale and saturated color of conceptualism, and his odd, implied narratives strongly recall the work of artists like Jeff Wall.” In 2008, Epstein won the Berlin Prize in Arts and Letters from the American Academy in Berlin. Awarded a 6-month residency, he moved to Berlin with his wife and daughter from January to June 2008. The photographs he made of significant historical sites were published in the monograph Berlin (Steidl and The American Academy in Berlin, 2011).Source: Wikipedia In 2013, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis commissioned and premiered a theatrical rendition of Epstein’s American Power photographic series. A collaboration between Epstein and cellist Eric Friedlander, the performance combined original live music, storytelling, video, and projected photographs and archival material. Epstein and Friedlander also performed at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio (2014), and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2015). His new series, Property Rights, was exhibited at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York and Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne in the fall of 2019 and at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas in 2020-2021. Recent solo exhibitions include: Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (2020), Museum Helmond, Netherlands (2019), Andreas Murkudis, Berlin; Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York; Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris (2016-17); as well as Fondation A Stichting in Brussels (2013); Sikkema Jenkins & Co., NY (2012); Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne (2012); Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris (2011); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2011); and Musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne (2011). In 2020, Mitch Epstein was inducted as an Academician to the National Academy of Design. In 2011, Epstein won the Prix Pictet for American Power. Among his other awards are the Berlin Prize in Arts and Letters from the American Academy in Berlin (2008), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003).Source: mitchepstein.net At Cooper Union, Epstein was a student of photographer Garry Winogrand and was influenced both by Winogrand and William Eggleston's use of color. Epstein helped pioneer the redefinition of color photography as art form, as he was one of the earlier practitioners of fine-art color photography. He is well known for documenting his projects as books, which he feels allows him to form a narrative structure for his photographs. Epstein shoots film, as he believes he would not get the tonal rendering and detail for his large prints if he were to use digital.Source: International Center of Photography
Joan Haseltine
Joan Haseltine
United States
Joan Haseltine is a lens-based artist residing in Big Timber, MT and Los Angeles. Born in Chicago, IL, her work explores alienation and loneliness through a feminine gaze, using a cinematic approach. She received a BS in Accounting from Florida State University. She comes to photography after motherhood and a career on Wall Street. Her first camera was purchased in 2015. She has studied at the Los Angeles Center of Photography and The International Center of Photography. The Girl Who Escaped and Other Stories The Girl Who Escaped and Other Stories is a staged narrative of alienated women whose outwardly immaculate appearance disguise their vulnerability, insecurity and possible treachery. As women, we confine ourselves and limit our mobility in our attempt to be attractive. We become prey. I seek to make the viewer a complicit voyeur to these lonely women.
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
United States
1844 | † 1916
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some 40 years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of Philadelphia. He painted several hundred portraits, usually of friends, family members, or prominent people in the arts, sciences, medicine, and clergy. Taken en masse, the portraits offer an overview of the intellectual life of contemporary Philadelphia; individually, they are incisive depictions of thinking persons. In addition, Eakins produced a number of large paintings that brought the portrait out of the drawing-room and into the offices, streets, parks, rivers, arenas, and surgical amphitheaters of his city. These active outdoor venues allowed him to paint the subject that most inspired him: the nude or lightly clad figure in motion. In the process, he could model the forms of the body in full sunlight, and create images of deep space utilizing his studies in perspective. Thomas Eakins also took a keen interest in the new technologies of motion photography, a field in which he is now seen as an innovator. No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a teacher. As an instructor, he was a highly influential presence in American art. The difficulties which beset him as an artist seeking to paint the portrait and figure realistically were paralleled and even amplified in his career as an educator, where behavioral and sexual scandals truncated his success and damaged his reputation. Eakins was a controversial figure whose work received little by way of official recognition during his lifetime. Since his death, he has been celebrated by American art historians as "the strongest, most profound realist in the nineteenth and early-twentieth-century American art". Eakins has been credited with having "introduced the camera to the American art studio". During his study abroad, he was exposed to the use of photography by the French realists, though the use of photography was still frowned upon as a shortcut by traditionalists. In the late 1870s, Thomas Eakins was introduced to the photographic motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge, particularly the equine studies, and became interested in using the camera to study sequential movement. In the mid-1880s, Eakins worked briefly alongside Muybridge in the latter's photographic studio at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Eakins soon performed his own independent motion studies, also usually involving the nude figure, and even developed his own technique for capturing movement on film. Whereas Muybridge's system relied on a series of cameras triggered to produce a sequence of individual photographs, Eakins preferred to use a single camera to produce a series of exposures superimposed on one negative. Thomas Eakins was more interested in precision measurements on a single image to aid in translating a motion into a painting, while Muybridge preferred separate images that could also be displayed by his primitive movie projector. After Eakins obtained a camera in 1880, several paintings, such as Mending the Net (1881) and Arcadia (1883), are known to have been derived at least in part from his photographs. Some figures appear to be detailed transcriptions and tracings from the photographs by some device like a magic lantern, which Eakins then took pains to cover up with oil paint. Thomas Eakins' methods appear to be meticulously applied, and rather than shortcuts, were likely used in a quest for accuracy and realism. An excellent example of Thomas Eakins' use of this new technology is his painting A May Morning in the Park, which relied heavily on photographic motion studies to depict the true gait of the four horses pulling the coach of patron Fairman Rogers. But in typical fashion, Eakins also employed wax figures and oil sketches to get the final effect he desired. The so-called Naked Series, which began in 1883, were nude photos of students and professional models which were taken to show real human anatomy from several specific angles, and were often hung and displayed for study at the school. Later, less regimented poses were taken indoors and out, of men, women, and children, including his wife. The most provocative, and the only ones combining males and females, were nude photos of Eakins and a female model. Although witnesses and chaperones were usually on site, and the poses were mostly traditional in nature, the sheer quantity of the photos and Eakins' overt display of them may have undermined his standing at the Academy. In all, about eight hundred photographs are now attributed to Eakins and his circle, most of which are figure studies, both clothed and nude, and portraits. No other American artist of his time matched Eakins' interest in photography, nor produced a comparable body of photographic works. Thomas Eakins used photography for his own private ends as well. Aside from nude men, and women, he also photographed nude children. While the photographs of the nude adults are more artistically composed, the younger children and infants are posed less formally. These photographs, that are “charged with sexual overtones,” as Susan Danly and Cheryl Leibold write, are of unidentified children. In the catalog of Eakins' collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, photograph number 308 is of an African American child reclining on a couch and posed as Venus. Both Saidiya Hartman and Fred Moten write, respectively, about the photograph, and the child that it arrests. Late in life Eakins did experience some recognition. In 1902 he was made a National Academician. In 1914 the sale of a portrait study of D. Hayes Agnew for The Agnew Clinic to Dr. Albert C. Barnes precipitated much publicity when rumors circulated that the selling price was fifty thousand dollars. In fact, Barnes bought the painting for four thousand dollars. Eakins died on June 25, 1916, at the age of 71 and is buried at The Woodlands, which is located near the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia. In the year after his death, Eakins was honored with a memorial retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in 1917–18 the Pennsylvania Academy followed suit. Susan Macdowell Eakins did much to preserve his reputation, including gifting the Philadelphia Museum of Art with more than fifty of her husband's oil paintings. After her death in 1938, other works were sold off, and eventually another large collection of art and personal material was purchased by Joseph Hirshhorn, and now is part of the Hirshhorn Museum's collection. Since then, Eakins' home in North Philadelphia was put on the National Register of Historic Places list in 1966, and Eakins Oval, across from the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, was named for the artist. In 1967 The Biglin Brothers Racing (1872) was reproduced on a United States postage stamp. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Since the 1990s, Eakins has emerged as a major figure in sexuality studies in art history, for both the homoeroticism of his male nudes and for the complexity of his attitudes toward women. Controversy shaped much of his career as a teacher and as an artist. He insisted on teaching men and women "the same", used nude male models in female classes and vice versa, and was accused of abusing female students. Recent scholarship suggests that these scandals were grounded in more than the "puritanical prudery" of his contemporaries—as had once been assumed—and that Eakins' progressive academic principles may have protected unconscious and dubious agendas. These controversies may have been caused by a combination of factors such as the bohemianism of Eakins and his circle (in which students, for example, sometimes modeled in the nude for each other), the intensity and authority of his teaching style, and Eakins' inclination toward unorthodox or provocative behavior. Eakins was unable to sell many of his works during his lifetime, so when he died in 1916, a large body of artwork passed to his widow, Susan Macdowell Eakins. She carefully preserved it, donating some of the strongest pieces to various museums. When she in turn died in 1938, much of the remaining artistic estate was destroyed or damaged by executors, and the remainders were belatedly salvaged by a former Eakins student.Source: Wikipedia
Keiichi Tahara
Keiichi Tahara
Japan
1951 | † 2017
Tahara was born in Kyoto. He learned photographic techniques at an early age from his grandfather, a professional photographer. In 1972, he travelled Europe with Red Buddha Theatre as a lighting and visual technician. While in France, he encountered a sharp, harsh and piercing light that he had never experienced in Japan. Since then, he remained in Paris for next 30 years and started his career as a photographer. His first series of work "Ville (City)" (1973-1976) captured the unique light in Paris in black-and-white photography. His next series of work "Fenêtre (Windows)" (1973-1980) awarded the best new photographer by Arles International Photography Festival in 1977 and he moved into the limelight.The following year, he started the new series "Portrait" (1978), then "Eclat" (1979-1983) and "Polaroid" (1984) and received number of awards such as Ihei Kimura award (1985). His morphological approach to light has extended to sculpture, installations, and other various method crossing over the genre of photography. In 1993, in moat of the Castle of Angers (1993), the first light sculpture in France, "Fighting the Dragon" (1993) was installed. "Garden of Light" (Eniwa, Hokkaido, 1989) is a representative piece in which light sculptures are installed in a public space covered in snow for six months of the year. The light changes in response to music and presents a space of poetic dimensions. Based on the same concept, "Échos du Lumières" (2000) was installed in the Canal Saint-Martin, commissioned as a public space project by the City of Paris. The spectacle colors from the prisms illuminate the stone wall synchronizing with the sounds. The rest of his work include a permanent outdoor installation "Niwa (Garden)" (2001) at the Photography Museum in Paris (Maison Européenne de la Photographie), "Portail de Lumière", an installation created as a part of the cultural project Lille 2004, and " Light Sculpture" exhibition at Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum in 2004. In 2008, Tahara lead the project of building Ginza 888, with the artistic direction of the Museum of Islamic Art. A photography book was published. He continued to produce a number of light installation projects in urban spaces. He died on 6 June 2017. Source: Wikipedia When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? It was 1972 when I am 21 years old Where did you study photography? With whom? From my grand father Do you have a mentor or role model? Trace of light. Moholy-Nagy / Man-Ray How long have you been a photographer? 40 years Do you remember your first shot? What was it? Yes, when I was 6 years old took the picture of garden of our family house What or who inspires you? So many artists which I met in my life How could you describe your style? Trace of light. Do you have a favorite photograph or series? Serie de Eclat 1979-1983 Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose? Light/Observation/Notation what mistake should a young photographer avoid? Do not afraid mistake, mistake make a art An idea, a sentence, a project you would like to share? 1970 What are your projects? 1970
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