All about photo.com: photo contests, photography exhibitions, galleries, photographers, books, schools and venues.
Submit your Best Project to Win a Solo Exhibition this March!
Submit your Best Project to Win a Solo Exhibition this March!
Morteza Nikoubazl
Morteza Nikoubazl
Morteza Nikoubazl

Morteza Nikoubazl

Country: Iran
Birth: 1974

I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1974 and studied art and photography there. I started work as a freelance photographer for Iranian daily and weekly newspapers. I began working with the Reuters team as Freelance photographer since 1999 till 2013. After Reuters I worked with the New York Times International magazine, Polaris Images, Zuma Press and SIPA PRESS photo agencies and now I am working with the NurPhoto press photo agency. I am also UNHCR trusted photographer in Iran.

Sense of death amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran
Today is about one year after Government announced officially the COVID-19 cases in Iran and death still is everywhere. I could see patients who were infected by the new coronavirus in COVID-19 wards of hospitals who were breathing and after two hours they were died. In fact, life seems gone, time were stoped and people were looking for an empty hospital bed for their relatives. Sense of death is covered the daily life of people who have to fight with a new invisible enemy, and it will be getting worse when a country is under International sanctions.

I was in the city of Bam for covering the earthquake in 2002-2003 and could see a U.S. Military cargo airplane landed after about 25 years since the Victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and I could see how the humanity could pass over the politic, but today I am witness how politic cover the humanity, sanctions still work and it pushed Iran to the end of the line of vaccine. People die left and right also medical personnel, But they hear about barriers to the import of the COVID-19 vaccines from western countries. When it comes to people's health, politics should be the last priority of countries, but it seems the politic is the first priority for the U.S., Iran and the European countries. On the other hand, Iranians cannot trust the China- Made, or Russian-Made vaccine and prefer the Iranian one, but they must wait until next year and try to be alive.
 

Inspiring Portfolios

Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #55 Women
Publish your work in our printed magazine and win $1,000 cash prizes
 
Stay up-to-date  with call for entries, deadlines and other news about exhibitions, galleries, publications, & special events.

More Great Photographers To Discover

Oleg Dou
Russia
1983
As his mother was a painter and his father was a dress designer, in his childhood Oleg Dou used to gather with the artists and to spend a lot of time reading is father’s fashion magazines. At the age of 13, his parents offered him his first computer set up with an old version of Photoshop with which he already began to transform his schoolfriends or teachers faces. After studying design, he worked as a web designer. In 2005, he buys his first professional camera. Discovered in 2006 by Liza Fetissova, Oleg Dou is represented today by galleries in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Russia and United States. His worked has been published in a lot of international reviews. He is one of the most promising artist of his generation. In 2011, the Artprice company, leader of the information on art value, has graded Oleg Dou in the top 3 of the under 30 years old photographers the best saled in public auctions. One of his images will make the cover of an extensive " Frozen Dream, contemporary art from Russia" book, from TransGlobe Publishing and Thames & Hudson. Oleg Dou lives and works in Moscow. From Art and Haze Oleg Dou grew up in an artistic environment, with a mother and a father as artists. With 13 years, the young man gets a computer with Photoshop. He then begins to transform photographs, especially the faces of his classmates and teachers. After studying design in 2005 he bought his first professional camera. In a very short time, the artist attracted professionals from the world of art and collectors with a specific and recognizable universe. It is also noticed in 2006 by Liza Festissova, gallery to the Russian Tea Room. Between 2007 and 2008, he won the 1st prize of the International Photography Awards with his Toy Story series, doing portraits of children with extreme whiteness and exposed during the FIAC in 2008. Represented by galleries around the world, Oleg Dou is surely one of the most promising young Russian artists . In 2011, the company information on the art market on Artprice ranks him as one of the top three photographers under 30. “A game,” said Oleg Dou, 28, while summarizing his new exhibition titled “Another Face”. Very comfortable, this Muscovite in silhouette – editing pictures with a software to sublimate his thoughts. And these faces cover a multitude of dressings graceful as a plastic surgeon on acid looking for indulgence. These digital collages, quite confusing when watched closely, causing some embarrassment.Source: RTR Gallery
Álvaro Vegazo
Álvaro Vegazo was born in the city of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, south of Andalucia, in 1977. He's Civil Engineer, but his authentic passion is photography. From his adolescence he was involocruded with it, but since 2015 he has been working seriously about street and documentary photography. The mostly Alvaro's work is about the life in the streets around his closest environment, mainly in "La Costa de la Luz" in Andalucía, although in last years he was in Portugal practicing too. Really he takes advantage any place he goes, beacuse he always carry on his camera. Although he does not rule out the use of black and white, his work focuses more on color. As can be seen in his photos, the colors fill a large part of the frame and he also intends to play with different layers. In relation with his projects, Álvaro has finished two of them: "Tránsitos de Luz" (2018) in book format, where he show his photos during more of three years in the street. And the second one, "Carmen de Bonanza" is a documentary project that for four years documents the religious event that takes place in that coastal neighborhood and it was exhibited in different locations in Spain. On the other hand, the “Underxpose”, publishing house, published my her 37th fanzine dedicated to my serie "That time we coincide". His photographs and articles were published in some relevant media such as Street Photography Magazine, Inspired Eye , Lensculture or “El País”. He also showed his photos in collective exhibitions nationally and internationally: Seville, Florence, Miami, Siena, New York, Warsaw and Vienna. And among the most important awards we can mention: finalist in The Miami Street Photography Festival (MSPF, Miami 2019), finalist in Street Photography International (SPI, London 2020), finalist in Urban Photo Awards Contest, with a serie (Triestre, 2021), honorable mentions in Siena International Photography Awards (SIPA, Siena 2019) and International Photography Awards (IPA, New York 2019), Juror’s Pick’ Lensculture 2023, finalist and gold medalist Paris International Photo Awards 2023, second place Italian Street Photo Festival 2024, and finalist in Leica Street Photo 2025.
Madison Casagranda
United States
Madison Casagranda is a recent graduate from Brigham Young University where she studied photography and art education. She works primarily with alternative photographic processes in the darkroom, and enjoys the hands-on nature of these processes. Her goal is to communicate culturally and historically significant concepts and connect us to the past in order to address challenges in the present day. Her photography most often centers around her personal and family history, United States history, anti racism, and amplifying voices from marginalized communities. She has had two solo exhibitions at BYU and her work has been included in many group exhibitions across the country, including at The Springville Museum of Art, The Southeast Center for Photography, and The Praxis Gallery. Her work has been published in Communication Arts and she is currently working on self publishing a book of her series, The Black Stories Project. The Black Stories Project The wet plate collodion tintype process was first invented in the 1850s and became a primary photographic practice in the 1860s and 1870s, documenting much of the Civil War. The tintypes of the Black Stories Project embody the history of photography and the history of racial inequity in the United States and more specifically in the state of Utah. They draw a connection between the history of racism and the dialogue about race today. In a state where the black population is less than two percent and a dominant religious culture presents a unique and complicated narrative of the past and present, we can only address the current issues of systemic inequality while acknowledging and grappling with the history behind them. This project is a study about how the weight of our state's history and the lens through which it is told, affects how black individuals experience life here today. The Black Stories Project is made up of the portraits and voices of members of the black community here in Utah, and stands as an effort towards opening the conversation, understanding the past and changing the future narrative of our history.
Argus Paul Estabrook
South Korea/United States
1977
I'm a biracial Korean-American photographer who works in both South Korea and the USA. Frequent travel between these two countries has provided me a unique perspective of Korean identity and its relationship to both global and regional communities. As an artist, I'm interested in creating work that gives voice to others and I often volunteer my efforts to marginalized communities. My work has been awarded by the Magnum Photography Awards, Sony World Photography Awards, LensCulture, IPA, MIFA, TIFA, as well as exhibited at the Aperture Summer Open: On Freedom. I've also been twice selected as a Critical Mass Top 50 artist by Photolucida and a three-time recipient of PDN's Annual Exposure Award. Additionally, I am an alumnus of the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop and was named the 2017 Dorothy Liskey Wampler Eminent Professor in the School of Art, Design and Art History at James Madison University. Losing Face "Losing Face," documents the energy and emotions surrounding the impeachment protests of South Korean President Park Geun-hye. In October 2016, her relationship with a shadowy advisor from a shaman-esque cult was revealed to extend to acts of extortion. Protests were then held every weekend until Park was formally removed from office in early March 2017. This is what it looks like when the South Korean President loses face. This Is Not an Exit "This Is Not an Exit," bears witness to my father's unexpected struggle with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer as well as documents my mother's grief after his passing. Tying my photography to my mother's narration of events, we weave an intimate family record- one of vision and voice. Bound together through a personal process of grief, I hope "This Is Not an Exit" creates an emotional map, one that reveals our connectedness to each other while also furthering an understanding for all those navigating the loss of a loved one. More about Losing Face
Debbie Fleming Caffery
United States
1948
Debbie Fleming Caffery grew up along the Bayou Teche in southwest Louisiana and still lives in the area. Early on in her career, she was inspired by the work of Dorothea Lange and many of the artists working within the FSA and Federal Arts Project of the WPA during the Depression. Like these forbears, she is interested in telling stories with her pictures, but unlike those earlier photographers, her work is as much artful as it is documentary. Her rich, and dramatic prints are the result of the deep relationships with the people and places she photographs, a visual corollary to the reverence she has for her subjects. Caffery has photographed the sugarcane industry and its community in Louisiana since the late 1970s. She has also photographed in rural villages in Mexico for many years, creating works that draw connections between those communities and the ones in Louisiana that were so familiar to her from her own upbringing. In 2005, Caffery was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for the work she made of women working in brothels in Mexico. In 2006, she received the Katrina Media Fellowship from the Open Society Foundations to continue to photograph the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Recently Caffery received a commission from the High Museum in Atlanta for their Picturing the South photography initiative. Her monographs include: Carry Me Home (Smithsonian, 1990), The Shadows (Twin Palms Press, 2002) and Polly (Twin Palms Press, 2004), The Spirit & The Flesh (Radius Books, 2009) and Alphabet (Fall Line Press, 2015). Source: Gitterman Gallery
Justyna Neryng
Poland
1981
Born in Poland in 1981, Justyna Neryng spent much of her childhood playing with her father’s cameras and dark room while roaming the forests of Chelmsko on the Czech boarder. As an adult, a mother and an immigrant to Britain, her photography has flourished into a substantial body of portraiture. Perhaps the most evocative of her works are her exquisitely emotive self-portraits that seem to carry the dark spirit of the forest from her childhood as well as potently baring the scares of modern womanhood. They show vulnerability and intimate eroticism as well as a deep sense of isolation and alienation. It is these portraits that have been most published and exhibited in both in her polish homeland and in the UK. More recently Justyna has begun to collaborate with her daughter Nell, on a project called Childhood Lost. Justyna currently produces her works in her adopted home town of Brighton and Hove, where she lives with her daughter. Artist Statement: Childhood Lost is an autobiographical ,self portrait in a different body, ongoing project exploring the nature of portraiture and memory. As a single mother I have found myself exploring notions and representations of childhood. I see my daughter’s experiences of growing up in urban England conflicting with my own experiences of growing up in rural Poland.I must confess that my own childhood is not a source of many happy memories, perhaps the most resonant of which are the times I escaped to a world of fantasy played out in the forests surrounding my home village of Chelmsko. Watching my daughter grow up has in a sense held a mirror to my own memories of the past while experiencing her childhood dreams enacted through play, and story telling. I find myself in a strange place where I can experience my own memories as well as see my daughter’s childhood through my adult eyes. It is these notions I am seeking to explore with the Childhood Lost project. Interweaving childhood nostalgia with the stories and myths of my Polish childhood and those that I share with my essentially British daughter. The project is using these ideas to produce a series of portraits that evoke characters that populate this world we know as childhood. A court of characters from myth and dreams. The images are aesthetically inspired by portraiture from the Golden Age of Dutch painting. By drawing on paintings as inspiration I am hoping to give a timeless feel to the final images. Also key to the project is also the painstaking styling and prop building, which I am using to evoke these different persona played out by my daughter. I want to develop the series in to a substantial set of portraits of my daughter playing the characters of childhood, as well as producing more elaborate set pieces embracing a theatricality that would take the project to the next level. Subject to funding it would also be a dream of mine to be able to revisit the forests of my own childhood and produce work there. Justyna Neryng is a multi-award winning self-taught photographer born in Poland and now living and working in the United Kingdom. She spent much of her childhood playing with her father’s cameras and dark room while roaming the forests of her hometown. She specialises in portraits and nudes, her photography has flourished into a substantial body of portraiture. She is mainly known for her enchanting theatrical portraits of her daughter, a gallery of triumphal characters, captured on a neutral and undefined background, with their fantastic ‘uniforms’ and imperious look . These images are aesthetically inspired by portraiture from the Golden Age of Dutch painting. And her exquisitely emotive self-portraits that seem to carry the dark spirit of the forest from her childhood as well as potently baring the scars of modern womanhood. They show vulnerability and intimate eroticism as well as deep sense of isolation and alienation.Source: justynaneryng.com
Advertisement
AAP Magazine #55 Wmen
Win a Solo Exhibition in March
AAP Magazine #55 Wmen

Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Anastasia Samoylova
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.
Exclusive Interview with Peter Ydeen
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.
Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
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.
Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
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.
Exclusive Interview with Tommi Viitala
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.
Exclusive Interview with Robert Mack
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.
Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #55 Women
Publish your work in our printed magazine and win $1,000 cash prizes