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Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
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Anka Zhuravleva
Anka Zhuravleva
Anka Zhuravleva

Anka Zhuravleva

Country: Russia
Birth: 1980

Anka (born Anna Belova) was born on December 4, 1980. She spent her childhood with books on art and her mothers’ drawing tools, covering acres of paper with her drawings. In 1997 she entered the Moscow Architectural Institute deciding to follow in her mothers’ footsteps. But at the end of 1997 her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died in less that a year. Then her father died in 1999. After that Anka’s life changed dramatically. In attempt to keep sane, she plunged into an alternative lifestyle – working as a tattoo artist, singing in a rock-band, sometimes looking for escape in alcohol. In order to make a living while studying, Anka worked at several modeling agencies.

Thanks to the drawing lessons she wasn’t afraid to pose nude, and her photos appeared in the Playboy and XXL magazines and at the Playboy 1999 photo exhibition. But she was not looking for a modeling career – it was just a way to make some money. In 2001 Anka was working in the post-production department at the Mosfilm StudiosThat same winter one of her colleagues invited her to spend a weekend in Saint-Petersburg with his friend, composer and musician Alexander Zhuravlev. In less than a month Anka said farewell to Moscow, her friends, her Mosfilm career and moved in with Alexander in Saint-Petersburg. Living with her loved one healed her soul, and she regained the urge for painting. She made several graphic works and ventured into other areas of visual arts.

In 2002 Gavriil Lubnin, the famous painter and her husband’s friend, showed her the oil painting technique, which she experimented with for the following several years. During that period she made just a few works because each one required unleashing of a serious emotional charge. All those paintings are different as if created by different people. Anka’s first exhibition took place on a local TV channel live on the air - the studio was decorated with her works. Several exhibitions followed. Private collections in Russia and abroad feature her paintings and sketches.

In 2006 Anka noticed that her inspiration often came from photos and decided to take up photography.

Since that time Anka took part in numerous projects - magazine publications and covers, book and CD covers, exhibitions. She is engage in digital photo art and analog film photography as well.

In 2013 Anka with her husband moves to live in Porto, Portugal.

Source: anka-zhuravleva.com



Interview With Anka Zhuravleva
All About Photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?
Anka Zhuravleva: "I always was about visual arts so I can't name exact date or year.. But I turned to photography completely in 2010."

AAP: Where did you study photography?
AZ: "I am self-educated. I took some individual workshops dedicated to analog processes but it was technical things."

AAP:Do you have a mentor?
AZ: "No."

AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?
AZ: "I was 6 years.. I shot horses with small film lomo-camera."

AAP: What or who inspires you?
AZ: "Life, everything I got around me, my dreams, interesting people, my husband's music."

AAP: How could you describe your style?
AZ: "I have no special style. Different series in different styles."

AAP:Do you have a favorite photograph or series?
AZ: "No, I love them all!"

AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film?
AZ: "A lot... And they are changing all the time. Digital 35mm, film medium format, vintage cameras and cameras made by my husband. About 20 different lens, modern ones and vintage brass ones as well."

AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose?
AZ: "It depends. I always edit digital a lot to reach exactly that tone and mood wich I need. And I also do analog process in darkroom without any computer at all."

AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?
AZ: "This is a difficult question..."

AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?
AZ: "To keep eyes wide open."

AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid?
AZ: "I don't know... Everybody make mistakes. I suppose it's important not "not making" mistakes, but learn after doing mistakes."

AAP: The compliment that touched you most?
AZ: "When people telling me that my pictures bring their mind, fantasy and soul to childhood or let them think about miracles.. Or making a good mood..."

AAP: If you were someone else who would it be?
AZ: "Hum... Maybe a baker? Just joking, I don't know..."

 

Anka Zhuravleva's Video

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More Great Photographers To Discover

 JR
France
1983
JR has the largest art gallery in the world. Thanks to his photographic collage technique, he exhibits his work free of charge on the walls of the whole world - attracting the attention of those who do not usually go to museums. Originator of the 28 Millimeters Project which he started in and around Clichy-Montfermeil in 2004, continued in the Middle East with Face 2 Face (2007), in Brazil and Kenya for Women Are Heroes (2008-2011), the documentary for which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010 (Critics' Week). JR has created "Infiltrating art". During his collage activities, the local communities take part in the act of artistic creation, with no stage separating actors from spectators. The anonymity of JR and the absence of any explanation accompanying his huge portraits leave him with a free space in which issues and actors, performers and passers-by meet, forming the essence of his work. In 2011 he received the Ted Prize, giving him the opportunity to make a vow to change the world. He created Inside Out, an international participatory art project that allows people from around the world to receive a print of their portrait and then billboard it as support for an idea, a project, an action and share that experience. In 2014, working with the New York City Ballet, he used the language of dance to tell his version of the riots in the Clichy-Montfermeil district. He created The Groves, a ballet and short film, the music for which was composed by Woodkid, Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams, and which was presented at the Tribeca Film Festival. At the same time, JR worked in the abandoned hospital of Ellis Island, an important place in the history of immigration - and made the short film ELLIS, with Robert De Niro. In 2016, JR was invited by the Louvre, whose pyramid he made disappear the with the help of an astonishing anamorphosis. The same year, during the Olympic Games in Rio, he created gigantic new sculptural installations throughout the city, to underline the beauty of the sporting gesture. JR & Agnès Varda - Faces, Places. In 2017, he co-directed with Agnès Varda "Faces, Place"s, screened the same year in the official selection out of competition for the Cannes Film Festival. The film won the Golden Eye (for best documentary) and was nominated for a Caesar and an Oscar in the same category in 2018. He has received other awards around the world. In 2013, the first retrospectives of JR's work took place in Tokyo (at the Watari-Um Museum) and the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, followed by exhibitions at the Frieder Burda Museum in Baden Baden in 2014, and at the HOCA Foundation in Hong Kong in 2015. He exhibited in 2018 at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and in 2019 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Brooklyn Museum. Source: jr-art.net
Berenice Abbott
United States
1898 | † 1991
Berenice Abbott was an American photographer best known for her portraits of between-the-wars 20th-century cultural figures, New York City photographs of architecture and urban design of the 1930s, and science interpretation in the 1940s to 1960s. Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio, and brought up in Ohio by her divorced mother, née Lillian Alice Bunn (m. Charles E. Abbott in Chillicothe OH, 1886). She attended Ohio State University for two semesters but left in early 1918 when her professor was dismissed because he was a German teaching an English class. She moved to New York City, where she studied sculpture and painting. In 1921 she traveled to Paris and studied sculpture with Emile Bourdelle. While in Paris, she became an assistant to Man Ray, who wanted someone with no previous knowledge of photography. Abbott took revealing portraits of Ray's fellow artists. 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The film Berenice Abbott: A View of the 20th Century, which showed 200 of her black and white photographs, suggests that she was a "proud proto-feminist"; someone who was ahead of her time in feminist theory. Before the film was completed she questioned, "The world doesn't like independent women, why, I don't know, but I don't care." She identified publicly as a lesbian and lived with her partner, art critic Elizabeth McCausland, for 30 years. Berenice Abbott's life and work are the subject of the 2017 novel The Realist: A Novel of Berenice Abbott, by Sarah Coleman.Source: Wikipedia Let us first say what photography is not. A photograph is not a painting, a poem, a symphony, a dance. It is not just a pretty picture, not an exercise in contortionist techniques and sheer print quality. It is or should be a significant document, a penetrating statement, which can be described in a very simple term—selectivity. -- Berenice Abbott Berenice Abbott was born and raised in Ohio where she endured an erratic family life. In 1918, after two semesters at Ohio State University, she left to join friends associated with the Provincetown Players, in Greenwich Village. There she met Djuna Barnes, Kenneth Burke, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Little Review editors Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, and other influential modernists. From 1919-1921, while studying sculpture, Abbott supported herself as an artist's model, posing for photographers Nikolas Muray and Man Ray. She also met Marcel Duchamp, and participated in Dadaist publications. Abbott moved to Paris in 1921, where she continued to study sculpture (and in Berlin), and to support herself by modeling. 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Although not as well known as her New York work, these pictures are exquisite examples of her acumen for technical experimentation and her natural instinct for combining factual photographic detail with stunning artistic accomplishment. With their clear visual demonstration of abstract scientific principles, the photographs were chosen to illustrate physics textbooks of the 1950s and 1960s.Source: International Center of Photography
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United States
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Daido Moriyama
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Tebani Slade
Australia
1966
Tebani Slade is a fine art, street and documentary photographer based between Australia and Barcelona. Her approach to photography involves storytelling and seeking the truth in her observations. She prefers to venture to unfamiliar destinations with an open mind, devoid of preconceived notions or generic perspectives. Armed only with her camera, Tebani allows events to unfold naturally, following the path that each location leads her on. A former graduate of the Queensland College of Art, Australia she also holds a Master of Distinction with the NZIPP (New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography). She has received recognition and awards for her photography, which has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her work has been showcased in group exhibitions such as Women Street Photographers in Kuala Lumpur and the Indian Photo Festival, as well as the Women Street Photographers annual exhibition in New York and the MIA Photo Fair in Milan. She was a finalist in the Australian Head On Photo Awards 2021 and 2022 and took first place in the 2022 Australian Mono Awards. In 2023 she was a finalist in the Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize and was awarded Australian Documentary Photography of the Year with the NZIPP. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Australian Photography Magazine, Aust Capture Magazine, Aust Commercial Photography, Black & White Photography (UK edition), B&W (US edition), Nikon UK, The Guardian Australia, Loud & Luminous Book 2020 (a Celebration of Australian Women Photographers).
Davide Bertuccio
Davide was born in Messina in 1991. He is a photojournalist based in Milan. He graduated with honors in 2016 at IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) at the school of visual arts in photography. Since the end of 2016, he focused on the theme of globalization, looking for stories that would give voice to the small realities crushed by that indefatigable desire for equality. In 2019 He decided to follow his passion for science and environmental problems with the realization of a work about the problem of plastic pollution in the Mediterranean Sea. Davide, inserted in 2014 among the 10 best under 25 Italian talents and nominated in 2019 by 6X6 World Press Photo Global Talent Program, has been published by National Geographic USA, National Geographic Italia, Il Reportage and his works received national and international awards. Accross the River's Flow Saxons are a community with German roots. Since XI century, together with Hungarians and Romanians, they’ve been living in the green heart of Romania. From this very land, a major migration is now taking place which marks the decline of centuries of history. Saxons are disappearing and their culture, their tongue and traditions along with them. “Across the river’s flow” aims to be a work about the disappearing of ethnic minorities, overwhelmed by the pace of modern life and by an ever-growing globalization. Saxons are an example of how authenticity is wiped out to make room for a fictitious daily routine and how entire ethnic groups and populations must surrender to outside forces such as racism.
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Call for Entries
All About Photo Awards 2026
$5,000 Cash Prizes! Juror: Steve McCurry