Youngsters meet up on the village outskirts, racing their tractorcars, burning tyremarks into the warm summer asphalt. The smell of rubber, oil and souped-up engines fills the air when the engines speed. The cars form into a circle as the boys take turns in the middle. It is a game – showing their skills – showing off to the girls. Strength is measured and proved – as if in a strange ritual mating dance.
The car of choice is known as an EPA tractor, a Swedish term for an older car converted for use as an agricultural machine. These became common in the 1930s and were previously called ‘car-tractors’. During the 1950s EPAs had almost died out as new tractors had come down in price and become more available. The EPAs were almost forgotten until youths discovered that the EPA law offered them a way to drive, even as 15 year-olds – and so during the 1960s and 1970s they became increasingly popular in rural areas. Tough rules are in force to restrict the gearing on the cars and their speed is supposed to be limited to 30 km per hour. There is also no suspension on the rear wheels, making them extremely uncomfortable to drive at high speed. However, the boys are skilled with cars and very creative when it comes to finding ways to bypass these legal and physical restrictions that limit the power and speed of the engines. The solutions they come up are numerous and are closely guarded secrets.
Anastasia Samoylova: Atlantic Coast opens a vast, quietly unsettling portrait of the American East Coast — one in which nostalgia, dislocation and transformation are sewn into the landscape itself. In this new monograph, Samoylova retraces the route pioneered by Berenice Abbott in 1954, journeying from Florida to Maine to revisit the places Abbott once documented, and to observe what has become of them decades later. Her images — in vivid color and stark black and white — reveal the tension between myth and reality, between promises of progress and the traces of decay or displacement.
Where once small towns and coastal communities had a certain stillness, Samoylova finds change carved into facades and roadside signs, into suburban sprawl and shuttered shopfronts. She frames these scenes with a photographer’s patience and a poet’s sensitivity — capturing abandoned diners, empty motels, decaying houses, ghostly intersections. At the same time, there is stubborn life: occasional portraits of people, wildlife, reminders that behind every sign of decline, someone, something endures.
Her book does not simply document physical places. It traces the shifting contours of identity, belonging and memory in a nation where the open road has long symbolized freedom — and where that ideal has become tangled with consumerism, environmental degradation, and socio-economic upheaval. Through Atlantic Coast, Samoylova asks whether the “American Dream” remains intact, or if it has fractured along with the towns her car passes through.
Reading this volume is to experience a slow, attentive journey — as a witness, as a traveller, as someone invited to reconsider what America has become. Her photographs linger, subtly unsettling the viewer’s assumptions about beauty, progress and decline. In its silence and restraint, the book whispers that memory, identity and place are fragile — and that every road carries stories worth listening to.
Lisette Model presents a definitive exploration of one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century, whose bold vision reshaped the way urban life and society were captured on film. This stunning hardcover features over 200 reproductions, ranging from her early Parisian portraits to the striking images of New York streets that defined her career.
Model’s photographic journey began in Vienna and matured in France, where her keen eye for social observation developed. Early works, including portraits of idle elites in Nice, reveal her sharp sense of critique tempered by empathy. These images, at once confrontational and intimate, established her as a formidable observer of human behavior. After emigrating to the United States, Model brought this incisive approach to New York, producing iconic images such as the Coney Island Bather and the Cafe Metropole series, which juxtapose vitality, vulnerability, and the stark contrasts of city life.
Her lens captured both the glamour and grit of her surroundings: the bustling streets of the Lower East Side, the grandeur of high-society gatherings, and the nuanced everyday gestures that reveal the inner lives of her subjects. Model’s distinctive framing, bold compositions, and unflinching attention to human detail created a visual language that remains influential to this day.
This collection also includes lesser-known works from her travels along the U.S. West Coast and Venezuela, highlighting her continued exploration of character, form, and place. Insights from scholar Walter Moser contextualize her work within the broader trajectory of twentieth-century photography, illuminating her enduring impact as both an artist and a teacher.
Lisette Model is more than a retrospective; it is an immersive journey into a world seen through a lens of unvarnished reality and poetic observation. It celebrates a photographer whose fearless engagement with her subjects, combined with her artistic rigor, forged a path for generations of street and documentary photographers, offering an essential resource for enthusiasts and scholars alike.
Fred Herzog: A Color Legacy opens a fresh chapter on the streets of Vancouver and beyond, offering the public previously unseen images from the archives of a man whose eye for color and life defied the conventions of his time. Herzog’s work in the 1950s and 60s stands out because he chose Kodachrome — a decision nearly heretical when art photography still equated seriousness with black and white. What emerges through his Leica’s lens is a world awash in warm reds, neon signs, and the soft glow of streetlights — a world that feels alive, tactile, and tender.
After emigrating from Germany to Vancouver in 1953 and working by day as a medical photographer, Herzog spent his evenings and weekends roaming the city streets. He captured storefronts, everyday people going about their lives, second-hand shops, Chinatown alleys, decaying cars, neon reflections — details often overlooked, but rich with character. He treated photography not as artifice but as observation, documenting modern urban life with precision and empathy. His photographs turned ordinary city scenes into a tribute to human presence and urban texture.
The volume collects these rediscovered gems alongside his best-known photos, offering a more complete portrait of a photographer who stubbornly trusted color when many of his peers turned away. The images span Vancouver and also trace Herzog’s travels to the U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, showing a restless spirit and a worldwide curiosity. Each frame is infused with intimacy, subtle humor, and a respect for the quotidian — light on one face, a reflection in a shop window, the curve of a car hood shimmering in rain.
Fred Herzog: A Color Legacy is not just a homage to a photographer but a statement about memory, time, and beauty in the urban fabric. It reminds us how much of a city’s soul lives in small moments — a street sign, a storefront, a quiet onlooker — and how color, long seen as frivolous in serious photography, can reveal more truth than monochrome ever could.
An essential introduction to the complexities of visual representation, this book offers a critical new framework for understanding and practicing photojournalism in a global digital context.
Critical Photojournalism guides readers through a variety of ethical, technical and business skills, plus the mental health, self-care and safety considerations necessary to thrive in the field. Drawing on their extensive industry and teaching experience, the authors provide real-world advice on how to navigate the demands of the profession while addressing the impact that photojournalism has on society and ways that photojournalists can mitigate harm. Consideration is given to understanding and disrupting implicit bias and power structures in newsrooms, as well as issues around access, working in breaking news environments and balancing informed consent with varying media laws around the world. In accessible language, this book highlights the importance of collaboration and community engagement in contemporary photojournalism and encourages students to adopt a decolonial approach to their work. Readers will learn to balance the needs for accuracy and thoughtfulness with the priorities of a global, social-media-engaged audience.
This is a key textbook for those seeking a nuanced introduction to visual journalism and/or a fresh approach to their craft. This book is supported by a website which can be accessed at www.criticalphotojournalism.com. The website includes a full-length bonus chapter on video and photojournalism, interviews with professional visual journalists, further tips and tools, and a glossary of key terms.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Winner of AAP Magazine #45 Travels, his series reflects this unique vision—capturing the spirit of place through subtle layers of light, color, and emotion. Whether traveling abroad or observing the rhythms of his own surroundings, Ydeen creates images that feel both grounded and enchanted, inviting viewers into a world where reality and reverie meet.
Chinese-born photographer Julie Wang brings a poetic, contemplative sensitivity to her visual exploration of the world. Having lived for nearly equal parts of her life in China, Europe, and the United States, she approaches her subjects with the nuanced perspective of someone shaped by many cultures. This blend of distance, curiosity, and emotional resonance infuses her work with a quiet depth, allowing her to reveal the fragile beauty and subtle tensions that often pass unnoticed.
American photographer Ghawam Kouchaki brings a sharply observant and introspective gaze to the streets of Japan’s capital. Based in Los Angeles, he approaches Tokyo with the distance — and curiosity — of an outsider, allowing him to uncover the city’s subtle contradictions, quiet tensions, and fleeting gestures that often go unnoticed.
His series Tokyo no no, selected as the Solo Exhibition for December 2024, explores the hidden undercurrents of urban life: the unspoken rules, the small ruptures in routine, the poetic strangeness found in everyday moments. Through muted tones, instinctive timing, and meticulous framing, Kouchaki reveals a Tokyo that exists somewhere between reality and imagination — both intimate and enigmatic.
We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Tommi Viitala, winner of AAP Magazine #44: Street, is a Finnish photographer celebrated for his striking and cinematic street photography. With a keen eye for atmosphere and composition, he captures fleeting urban moments that reveal the poetry of everyday life. His work often explores the tension between solitude and connection within contemporary cityscapes, blending documentary realism with artistic sensibility. Viitala’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized for their strong visual storytelling and emotional depth.
We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Robert Mack is a California-based visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker. His fine art photography and films have been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, with major shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany. Both institutions hold his work in their permanent collections. Working across different media, Mack has built a career exploring the complexities of human presence and representation. In 1981, while living in Baltimore, he produced The Perkins Project: Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, a rare photographic and film study inside Maryland’s hospital for the criminally insane. These stark yet compassionate black-and-white portraits remain one of his most powerful and controversial bodies of work.
