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Maynard Switzer
Maynard Switzer
Maynard Switzer

Maynard Switzer

Country: Canada

Maynard Switzer was born in Los Angeles and is a professional freelance travel and documentary photographer. He is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and a former assistant to legendary photographer Richard Avedon. He has taught at the International Center of Photography in New York City and has written many magazine articles about travel photography. His love of foreign cultures and their fascinating customs has been the main catalyst for Maynard’s photography around the globe. Maynard has had his photography published in National Geographic Traveler Magazine, Geo Magazine, Afar Magazine and the prestigious Fine Art Spanish Magazine Art Fotografico.



Statement
There are approximately 195 independent countries in the world and an estimated 6,800 different languages spoken, and often times there is a breakdown in communication. Some caused by language barriers, other times lost or inadequate translation and sometimes a woeful attempt at hand signals. However, images are universally understood. The cliché "a picture is worth a thousand words" certainly rings true. Pictures speak a thousand words to a thousand different people in a thousand different ways. This global understanding has been the main reason that I have been documenting various cultures around the world. Over the past 20+ years I have concentrated on photographing people and their various ways of life that seem to have been left behind by the world's rush to modernize. Certain aspects of these various cultures seem to be in a time warp, many within their own country. The photographs presented here are part of a long-term project photographing some of these people that live and work in challenging environments that time seems to have forgotten and whose way of life may never be seen again.

Websites

www.maynardswitzer.com

www.instagram.com/maynardswitzer

 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Henk Kosche
Henk Kosche
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1966
Since my studies at the art school, photography has been an essential tool for me to investigate something more closely or to create something that does not yet exist. In a particularly well-done picture, these two functions merge, showing a piece of newly acquired knowledge in an aesthetic format. The beauty of an image composition is always involved in the lasting effect of the story told on us via the image. Today I ask myself; how image perception can be "slowed down" again, how the habit of seeing can be adapted to the speed of man again. Without a proper amount of time for a closer look and the necessary attention, a photo loses its real strength; the durability over time. Article: Exclusive Interview
Laura Stevens
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Laura Stevens (born in England) is a photographic artist living in Paris. She received her BA from Leeds Metropolitan University, before furthering her studies at the University of Brighton in 2007. Stevens has participated in group exhibitions at institutions including The National Portrait Gallery, The Centre for Fine Art Photography, Encontros da Imagem festival, the Singapore International Photography Festival with a solo show at The Latvian Museum of Photography. Her work is also represented in private collections. Laura received a special distinction in the LensCulture Emerging Talents 2014, nominated as a finalist in the PHPA (Photo d’Hotel Photo d’Auteur) 2014 and in The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize 2013/2014.Stevens’ series of narrative portraits often represent and fictionalise personal situations with the domestic landscape serving as a backdrop, using cinematic drama and painterly aesthetics along themes of intimacy, relationships and loss.Alongside her dedication to long-term personal projects, she is a regular contributor for the press, for publications such as The Times Magazine, Le Monde, Forbes and The Washington Post.
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Lisa Tichané is a commercial photographer specialized in kids & babies. She has a true passion for children and loves documenting the energy and playfulness of childhood. Based in France but travelling internationally for commissioned work, she is well known for her unique ability to connect with her tiny models and get irresistible images even from the most unpredictable, unwilling subjects. She thrives to capture real life, true joy and wild carefree moments. She is a published author and her work has been featured in many international books and magazines. Her images can be found in advertising campaigns for international brands such as Colgate, MAM Baby, Procter & Gamble, Enfamil, Danone Cow & Gate or Stanhome. In addition to shooting international advertisements for major brands, she has been hired by the world's leading publishers to write books on children photography, as well as teach her tricks and tools of the trade to hundreds of other photographers.
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Toby Binder
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Toby was born Esslingen/Germany in 1977 and studied at the Stuttgart Academy of Art and Design. Soon his photography focused on social, environmental and political topics. Based in Argentina and Germany he works both on assignments and personal long-term projects. He is mostly interested in post-war and crisis situations as well as in the daily life of people. Toby's work has been awarded internationally, e.g. with the Philip-Jones-Griffiths-Award in 2018, the Sony-World-Photo-Awards in 2019 and 2017 and Nannen-Preis in 2017. The same year he received an Honorable Mention by UNICEF Photo of the Year. His work is published in Stern, Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, die Zeit, Greenpeace Magazin, Amnesty Journal, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and others. In March 2019 his first book "Wee Muckers–Youth of Belfast" was published by Kehrer Toby is represented by Fotogloria and member of Anzenberger Agency. Toby Binder is a winner of Gomma Grant 2019 All About Photo Competitions Winner AAP Magazine #36 Street Awarded Photographer of the Week 44
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Nick Brandt is an English photographer whose themes always relate to the disappearing natural world, before much of it is destroyed by mankind. From 2001 to 2018, he has photographed in Africa. In his trilogy, On This Earth, A Shadow Falls Across The Ravaged Land (2001-2012), he established a style of portrait photography of animals in the wild similar to that of the photography of humans in studio setting, shot on medium format film, attempting to portray animals as sentient creatures not so different from us. In Inherit the Dust (2016), in a series of panoramas, Brandt recorded the impact of man in places where animals used to roam, but no longer do. In each location, Brandt erected a life-size panel of one of his unreleased animal portrait photographs, placing the displaced animals on sites of explosive urban development, new factories, wastelands and quarries. 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He is co-founder of Big Life Foundation, fighting to protect the animals and ecosystem of a large area of Kenya and Tanzania. On this Earth: The first book in the trilogy, On This Earth (Chronicle Books, 2005) constitutes 66 photos taken 2000-2004, with introductions by the conservationist and primatologist Jane Goodall and the author Alice Sebold. The photographs in this book are a unadulterated vision of an African paradise, deliberately contrasting with what is to follow in the subsequent books. Elephant with Exploding Dust, Amboseli 2004, the photo on the book's cover, has since become one of Brandt's best-known images. Critical response to the book, heralded Brandt's photographic achievement. Black and White magazine called his photos "heartbreakingly beautiful". A Shadow Falls: The second book in the trilogy, A Shadow Falls, (Abrams, 2009) features 58 photographs taken 2005-2008. It is generally regarded to be superior to "On This Earth". In additional introductions, philosopher Peter Singer, author of the groundbreaking Animal Liberation, explains why Brandt's photographs speak to an increasing human moral conscience about our treatment of animals. The photography critic Vicki Goldberg places Brandt's work in the history of the medium. As the title of the book implies, this book, although replete with images of ethereal beauty and poetry, is a more melancholic interpretation of the world he photographs. Indeed, critic Vicki Goldberg writes: " A Shadow Falls, taken in its entirely, is a love story without a happily ever after." The photos in the book are deliberately sequenced: the opening images are of an unspoiled lush green world, filled with animals and water ("Wildebeest Arc, Masai Mara 2006" ). 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The trilogy marks the last decade of a stunning world of the beauty of East Africa’s Serengeti, Marsai Mara, Amboseli, and ends with a dark and well-known unhappy ending. “Across The Ravaged Land” introduces humans in his photography for the first time exhibiting the cost of poachers, killing for profit. One such example is Ranger with Tusks of Killed Elephant, Amboseli 2011. This photograph features one of the rangers employed by Big Life Foundation, the Foundation that Nick Brandt started in 2010. The ranger holds the tusks of an elephant killed by poachers in the years prior to the Foundation's inception. Brandt captures the trophies in these epic landscapes and the images of perfectly preserved creatures calcified by the salts of the Rift Valley soda lake. In both instances, the creatures appear in an ethereal animated state seemingly posing for their portraits. Big Life Foundation: In September 2010, in urgent response to the escalation of poaching in Africa due to increased demand from the Far East, Nick Brandt founded the non-profit organization called Big Life Foundation, dedicated to the conservation of Africa's wildlife and ecosystems. With one of the most spectacular elephant populations in Africa being rapidly diminished by poachers, the Amboseli ecosystem, which straddles both Kenya and Tanzania, became the Foundation's large-scale pilot project. Headed up in Kenya by renowned conservationist Richard Bonham, multiple fully equipped teams of anti-poaching rangers have been placed in newly built outposts in the critical areas throughout the 2-million-acre (8,100 km2) + area, resulting in a dramatically reduced incidence of killing and poaching of wildlife in the ecosystem. Source: Wikipedia Must Read Articles Exclusive Interview with Nick Brandt Big Life Foundation This Empty World, Inherit The Dust
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Georgina Goodwin
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Georgina Goodwin is a documentary photographer and Canon Ambassador born and based in Kenya with a focus on women, refugees, social issues and environment. Known for her award-winning work on Kenya’s post-election violence, cancer in Kenya and Westgate terror attack, and most recently refugee children in Tanzania, Georgina is a contributor to Getty Images and Everyday Climate Change and a member of Women Photograph and African Photojournalism Database, a collaboration of World Press Photo and Everyday Africa. Her work has been published by NY Times, Elle, Vogue, AFP and many others, and has been exhibited in Times Square NYC, Tokyo Japan and The Louvre Paris amongst others. Georgina was a speaker at TEDxKakumaCamp, the first TED talks to be held at a refugee camp, and one of 19 finalist speakers at TEDx Nairobi in 2017. Georgina Goodwin and Climate Change Awareness
Jacob Aue Sobol
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Jacob Aue Sobol (born 1976) is a Danish photographer. He has worked in East Greenland, Guatemala, Tokyo, Bangkok, Copenhagen, America and Russia. In 2007 Sobol became a nominee at Magnum Photos and a full member in 2012. Four monographs and many catalogues of his work have been published and widely exhibited including at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York and at the Diemar/Noble Photography Gallery in London. Born in Copenhagen, Sobol lived in Canada from 1994 to 1995. Back in Europe he first studied at the European Film College and from 1998 at Fatamorgana, the Danish School of Art Photography. In the autumn of 1999, he went to the remote East Greenland village of Tiniteqilaaq to photograph. The visit was only supposed to last a few weeks but after meeting a local girl, Sabine, he returned the following year and stayed there for the next two years, living the life of a fisherman and hunter. In 2004 Sobol published Sabine, which in photographs and narrative portrays Sabine and describes his encounter with Greenlandic culture. The pictures in the book express the photographic idiom he developed at Fatamorgana. In the summer of 2005, Sobol went with a film crew to Guatemala to make a documentary about a young Mayan girl's first trip to the ocean. The following year he returned to the mountains of Guatemala, this time by himself, to stay with an indigenous family for a month to document their everyday life. In 2006 he moved to Tokyo to spend 18 months photographing the city for his book I, Tokyo. Commenting on the book, Miranda Gavin appreciates how "the sensitivity of his approach shines through the work and sets him apart as one of a new generation of photographers with the ability to allow eroticism and danger to seep through his images without becoming sordid or clichéd." Sobol became a nominee of Magnum Photos in 2007 and a full member in 2012. In 2008, Sobol worked in Bangkok where he photographed children fighting for survival in the Sukhumvit slums, despite the country's growing economic prosperity. In 2009, he moved back to Copenhagen. Since then he has worked on projects at home as well as in America and Russia.Source: Wikipedia Following his time in Tokyo, Jacob worked extensively in Bangkok, resulting in the 2016 book By the River of Kings. In 2012 he began photographing along the Trans-Siberian Railroad and spent the next five winters photographing in the remote Russian province of Yakutia for his project Road of Bones. He has ongoing projects in Denmark (Home) and the United States (America).Source: www.jacobauesobol.com
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Latest Interviews

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Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
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Read the full interview
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Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
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Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
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