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Chiara Zonca
Chiara Zonca
Chiara Zonca

Chiara Zonca

Country: Italy
Birth: 1982

Chiara Zonca is a fine art photographer based in Western Canada. She is interested in portraying a connection between her feelings and the surroundings. By seeking isolated spaces as a form of exploration of self, she documents specific moments in time when solitude and open spaces alter her landscape perception.

This shift enables her to see past the present and investigate the earth as a timeless, wide open space where she can then project her narratives.

Her work has been exhibited in Sydney, New York, Los Angeles and London and printed on a variety of publications including Harper's Bazaar, The Earth Issue, Satori Mag, Jungle Magazine, NOICE and many more.

In 2019 she released her first monograph, Desert Portraits, by Scandinavian Publisher The New Heroes & Pioneers, based on her series Moon Kingdom.
 

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Chris Steele-Perkins
United Kingdom
1947
At the age of two, Chris Steele-Perkins moved to England from Burma with his father. He went to school at Christ's Hospital. At the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he studied psychology and worked for the student newspaper; he graduated with honors in 1970 and started to work as a freelance photographer, moving to London in 1971. Apart from a trip to Bangladesh in 1973, he worked mainly in Britain in areas concerned with urban poverty and subcultures. In 1975 he worked with EXIT, a collective dealing with social problems in British cities. This involvement culminated in the book Survival Programmes in 1982. He joined the Paris-based Viva agency in 1976. In 1979 he published his first solo book, The Teds; he also edited the Arts Council of Great Britain's book, About 70 Photographs. Steele-Perkins joined Magnum Photos in 1979 and soon began working extensively in the developing world, in particular in Africa, Central America and Lebanon, as well as continuing to take photographs in Britain: The Pleasure Principle explores Britain in the 1980s. In 1992 he published Afghanistan, the result of four trips over four years. After marrying his second wife, Miyako Yamada, he embarked on a long-term photographic exploration of Japan, publishing Fuji in 2000. A highly personal diary of 2001, Echoes, was published in 2003, and the second of his Japanese books, Tokyo Love Hello, in March 2007. He continues to work in Britain, documenting rural life in County Durham, which was published as Northern Exposures in 2007. In 2009 he published a collection of work from 40 years of photographing England - England, My England. A new book, on British centenarians, Fading Light will be published at the end of July. Steele-Perkins has two sons, Cedric, born 16th November 1990, and Cameron, born 18th June 1992. With his marriage to Miyako Yamada he has a stepson, Daisuke and a grand-daughter, Momoe. Source Magnum Photos
Larry Towell
Canada
1953
Larry Towell (born 1953) is a Canadian photographer, poet, and oral historian. Towell is known for his photographs of sites of political conflict in the Ukraine, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Standing Rock and Afghanistan, among others. In 1988, Towell became the first Canadian member of Magnum Photos. Towell was born in Chatham-Kent, Ontario and grew up in a large family in rural Ontario, attending local schools. At college, he studied visual arts at York University in Toronto, where his interest in photography first began. In 1976 Towell volunteered to work in Calcutta, India, where he became interested in questions about the distribution of wealth and issues of land and landlessness. Returning to Canada, Towell taught folk music and wrote poetry during the 1980s. He became a freelance photographer in 1984. His early work included projects on the Contra war in Nicaragua, the civil war in El Salvador, relatives of the disappeared in Guatemala, and American Vietnam War veterans who worked to rebuild Vietnam. His first magazine essay looked at the ecological damages from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In 1988, Towell joined the Magnum Photos agency, becoming the first Canadian associated with the group. He has had picture essays published in The New York Times, Life, Rolling Stone, and other magazines. His work has included documentation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Mennonite migrant workers in Mexico, and a personal project on his family's farm in southern Ontario. He works in both film and digital photography formats. He has said "Black and white is still the poetic form of photography. Digital is for the moment; black and white is an investment of time and love." He has also worked with panoramic cameras to documents the impact of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. From 2008 to 2011, Towell traveled five times to Afghanistan to photograph the social effects of the Afghan civil war. Between 2013 and 2015, Towell photographed the above and underground construction work in Toronto's Union Station. In 2015 his photo Isaac's first swim was published by Canada Post as a stamp. In 2016 Towell photographed the Standing Rock protest in Standing Rock, North Dakota. Towell has published books of photographs, poetry, and oral history. He has also recorded several audio CDs of original poetry and songs. Towell lives in rural Lambton County Ontario and sharecrops a 75-acre farm with his wife Ann and their four children.Source: Wikipedia Larry Towell is Canada's most decorated photojournalist and is the country's first photographer to be made a member of Magnum, the world's most prestigious photo agency that was founded by Henry Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa in 1947. Larry served as Vice-President of Magnum's New York office for several years between 2007 and 2016. After completing a Visual Arts degree at York University, Toronto, he began photographing and writing in Calcutta. He then went on to complete book projects in Central America on the Nicaraguan Contra War and on the relatives of the disappeared in Guatemala. In 1996, Towell completed a monograph based on ten years of reportage in the brutal civil war in El Salvador, followed by a major book on the Palestinians. His fascination with landlessness also led him to the Mennonite migrant workers of Mexico, an eleven-year work he completed in 2000. After receiving the inaugural Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, Larry finished a second critically acclaimed book on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (No Man's Land, 2005), followed by The World From My Front Porch (2008) and most recently, Afghanistan (2014). Towell's photo stories have been published in many international magazines including; LIFE, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Elle, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Geo, and Stern. His international photo awards include: The Henri Cartier-Bresson Award (first recipient); several first place World Press awards including the 1994 Photo of the Year; a Hasselblad Award; The Alfred Eisenstadt Award; The Oskar Barnack Award; the first Roloff Beny Book prize, a Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award, the Prix Nadar of France, and a British Design and Art Direction (D&AD) Award. Larry is also a gifted writer and musician and is known for his innovative live performances incorporating original music, video, poetry, and stills. He is the author of four music albums, fourteen books, as well as Indecisive Moments (2008), an award-winning short film. Towell has had numerous one person and group exhibitions around the globe and is represented in many international public and private collections. His current projects include the war in Ukraine and Central American migrants crossing Mexico. Larry lives in rural Ontario where he sharecrops a 75-acre farm.Source: www.bulgergallery.com
Alamsyah Rauf
Indonesia
1982
Alamsyah Rauf was born in a small district in south sulawesi precisely in Kab.Sinjai, maybe that's why this photographer is less known among photographers in Indonesia but his work has won dozens of world-class photo contest. After graduating high school, this man married in 2001 on the will of his parents, this makes him unable to continue college. After married Alamsyah worked in his parents' photo studio. Alamsyah Learning DSLR cameras just look at the camera manual and learn self-taught to techniques of composition, tone, and lighting via internet. In 2004 Alamsyah Rauf set up his own Photo Studio and hire 3 photographers. As a freelance photographer, Alamsyah takes part in various photography communities, photo exhibitions and participate in various national and international photo contest. Awards: 2nd Place (Best of Show) 2012 Photoshare Photo Contest (Baltimore USA) 2nd Price Sony WPO 2013 category National Award Best in Action at Australian Art Sales (Australia) FIAP GOLD MEDAL in Photo Salon Soul 2013 (Macedonia) FIAP Silver Medal 4th International Photo Exhibition Photo Focus 2013 (Russia) PAM Gold Medal at 2nd International exhibition of art photography SOUL 2014 (Macedonia) Second Winner General category HIPA 2014 Dubai 1st Place Portrait at 7th Annual Masters Cup 2014 (Beverly Hills USA) 1st Place (Portrait category) the 7th Annual International Color Awards 2014 FIAP Gold Medal at 38th EX HIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHY "CHILD 2014" Serbia SALON praise 38th EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHY "CHILD 2014" Serbia FIAP Gold medal, FIAP Silver medal, PSA Gold Medal, PSA Ribbon in 2nd Cairo Int. Photographic Art Exhibition - CIPAE 2014 Awards (Cairo, Egypt) Ozone zone Gold Medal (Happiness), FIAP Ribbon (monochrome) Ozone zone International Photo Contest 2014 (Canada) RPS Gold Medal, 2nd Photovivo Singapore International Photography Award (PIPA) 2014 FIAP Silver Medal (Open Color) 1St GIFSAD INTERNATIONAL PHOTO CONTEST 2014 (TURKEY) Champaign 1 colorful alfaink photo contest nusantara 2015. "Grand Prize" Winner at The Shutterview International Photography Competition 2015 (Australia ) 2nd Place (people category) Fine Art Photography Award 2015 Grand Winner Xposure International photo contest 2016 (Sharjah UAE) First Place Proify Annual International Photography Awards 2016 Merit Medal Recipient "THE CHALLENGE" HIPA 2017 UAE 5th Place All About Photo Awards 2018
Erik Johansson
Sweden
1985
Erik Johansson (born 1985) is a photographer and visual artist from Sweden based in Prague, Czech Republic. His work can be described as surreal world created by combining different photographs. Erik works on both personal and commissioned projects with clients all around the world. In contrast to traditional photography he doesn't capture moments, he captures ideas with the help of his camera and imagination. The goal is to make it look as realistic as possible even if the scene itself contains impossible elements. In the end it all comes down to problem solving, finding a way to capture the impossible. To Erik it's always important with a high level of realism in his work. He want's the viewer to feel like they are part of the scene. Although his work consists of a lot of work in post-production and combining photogaphs he always tries to capture as much as possible in camera. "No one can tell you that it doesn’t look realistic if you actually captured it for real." Light and perspective are crucial parts when combining images in a realistic way and if some parts are not possible to shoot on location, a similar scene has to be built up in a controlled environment. Having an understanding of both photography and post production is very important to make everything come together seamlessly. Every photograph and part has its purpose. Erik always do all the post production himself to be in complete control of the end result. The idea, photography and post production are all connected. The final image doesn’t become better than the photographs used to capture it. Just like the photographs don’t become stronger than the idea. There are no computer generated-, illustrated- or stock photos in Erik's personal work, just complex combinations of his own photographs. It's a long process and he only creates 6-8 new images a year (excluding commissioned work). Artist Statement "My name is Erik Johansson, I was born in 1985 outside a small town called Götene in the middle of Sweden. I grew up on a farm with my parents and two younger sisters. For as long as I can remember I have liked drawing. Probably because of my grandmother who was a painter. Early I also got interested in computers, escaping to other worlds in computer games. At the age of 15 I got my first digital camera which opened up a new world. Being used to drawing it felt quite strange to be done after capturing a photo, it wasn’t the process of creating something in the same way. Having an interest in computers made it a quite natural step to start playing around with the photos and creating something that you couldn’t capture with the camera. It was a great way of learning, learning by trying. But I didn’t considered it as a profession until years later. In 2005 I moved to Gothenburg to study Computer engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. During my time studying I took up my interest for retouch once again. I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to realize and I saw it as problem solving trying to make it as realistic as possible. After publishing some of my images online I started to get requests about commissioned work from some local advertisement agencies. I started out freelancing in parallel with my studies while still working on personal projects. I got more and more jobs and at the time I finished my studies with a master in Interaction Design I felt like I rather wanted to try out the photography path. I moved to Norrköping in the eastern part of Sweden to start working full time as a freelance. I made new friends and got to work on interesting projects, both local and abroad. In early 2012 it was time for something new as I moved to Berlin, Germany. A very artistic city with lots of inspiration. Today I work with both personal and commissioned projects and I also started doing photography street illusions."Source: www.erikjo.com/
Sam Haskins
United Kingdom
1926 | † 2009
Sam Haskins, was a British photographer, born and raised in South Africa. He started his career in Johannesburg and moved to London in 1968. Haskins is best known for his contribution to in-camera image montage, Haskins Posters (1973) and the 1960's figure photography trilogy Five Girls (1962), Cowboy Kate & Other Stories (1964) and November Girl (1967), plus an ode to sub-Saharan tribal Africa African Image (1967). Cowboy Kate & Other Stories was probably the first book to deliberately explore black-and-white photographic grain as a medium for expression and image design. It was highly influential at the time, sold roughly a million copies worldwide and won the Prix Nadar in France in 1964. It continues to influence contemporary photographers, filmmakers, fashion designers, and make-up artists. Cowboy Kate & Other Stories or 'Kate' as the book is often referred to, had its place in photographic history cemented in 2005 when the International Center of Photography in New York included the book in their exhibition The Open Book: A History of the Photographic Book from 1878 to the Present. November Girl contained key image collages which formed the basis of many graphic and surrealist experiments in the 1970s and 1980s. African Imagewas a visual homage to the indigenous people, culture, landscape and wildlife of sub-Saharan Africa. The images represent a lifelong interest in photographing graphically stimulating environments and formally document his passion for the indigenous craft. He broke bones on river rapids and wrote off two Volvo saloon cars on African dirt roads while shooting the book. Despite its international award, this meticulously constructed book, celebrating a love for sub-Saharan Africa, is probably the least known of his major creative projects, but it is coveted by serious collectors of African art and photography. In 1968, Haskins moved to London and ran a studio in Glebe Place just off the King's Road. He worked as an advertising photographer for international consumer brands Asahi Pentax, Bacardi, Cutty Sark whisky, Honda, BMW, Haig whisky, DeBeers, British Airways, Unilever and Zanders, and specialised in the art direction and shooting of calendars, especially for Asahi Pentax in Japan. Although he endorsed Hasselblad for a short period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his loyalty to the medium format 6x7 camera and lenses from Asahi resulted in a rare long-term association between a camera manufacturer and photographer. From 1970 to 2000, Asahi Optical (later Pentax) produced 30 calendars, of which Haskins shot and art-directed 15 editions including the millennium calendar. No other photographer was invited to contribute more than once. He is still involved with the Pentax Forum Gallery in Tokyo, which hosts his exhibitions. His first contact came in 1967, when Asahi Optical presented him with a 35 mm camera after hearing that he had shot African Image with various competitors' products. In 1972, he produced his first colour book, Haskins Posters. The large-format publication contained pages printed on one side using thick stiff paper and a soft glue perfect binding allowing the pages to be removed and used as posters. Haskins and Alida successfully published the book internationally through their own company, Haskins Press. The book won a gold award at the New York One Show. At the time the best-known image from Haskins Posters, a girl's face superimposed on an apple with a bee near the stem, appeared on the cover or in editorials of almost every major photographic magazine around the world. This image was part of a well-publicised visual and graphic experimentation with the apple theme in the 1970s that for a while resulted in photographic journalists nicknaming him 'Sam the Apple man'. He suffered a stroke on 19 September 2009 the opening day of his exhibition to launch Fashion Etcetera at Milk Gallery in New York, and died at home in Bowral, Australia, nine weeks later.Source: Wikipedia
Grace Weston
United States
Grace Weston creates narrative photography in her studio with miniature staged vignettes that address psychological themes. Among her many honors, most recently Weston made the Top 50 in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2023, and from that was awarded the additional prize of a solo show for 2025 at the Southeast Center for Photography. Weston was awarded both First Place Overall Portfolio category as well as Gold Winner in the Fine Art Portfolio category in the 2021 Tokyo International Foto Awards. She has earned fellowships from both the Oregon Arts Commission and Artist Trust (Washington State), nominations for Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards (Oregon), and numerous grants during her career spanning more than 25 years. In 2012, she had her first European solo exhibition at Paci Contemporary in Brescia, Italy. An extensive exhibition of her work was shown at the Center for Photography in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2021. She has exhibited widely in the US, as well as Europe, Scandinavia, Russia and Japan. In 2009, she was a finalist in PhotoEspana’s Descubrimientos exhibition in Madrid and named one of the “Nine to Watch” in the Whatcom Museum Photography Biennial (Washington) in 2008. Weston's work has been acquired by the Portland Art Museum (OR), the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth, TX), the University of the Arts (Philadelphia PA), Seattle Public Utilities Portable Artworks Collection (WA), King County Public Art Collection (WA), Photographic Center Northwest (WA), Portland Community College (OR), King County 4Culture (WA), the City of Seattle Portable Works (WA), as well as numerous private collections in the US, Europe and Japan. Weston’s signature photography has been commissioned for print magazines and book covers in the United States, Italy, Spain, China, and the Netherlands, including O, the Oprah Magazine, Discover magazine, and Geo Magazine (Italia). She is included in the book Microworlds (Laurence King Publishing, UK 2011). In 2020 Peanut Press published a monograph of her work entitled The Neighbors Will Talk, and self-published Character Studies in 2023. Statement I am an interdisciplinary artist working in the genre of staged photography, creating miniature narrative scenes with characters, props and sets that I source, alter, or fabricate from scratch, to then light and photograph. Although I never depict actual people in my photographs, the human psyche is undeniably at the center of my work. Power dynamics, gender roles, clandestineness, mythos, mystique, and feelings of isolation and alienation are explored in my work, all with a deceptively playful overlay. Reclaiming the Muse My staged miniature photography series, RECLAIMING THE MUSE, reframes historic artworks and stories in contemporary terms. In centering the women, historically cast as objects of beauty or scorn, I strive to revitalize the muse with agency, furthering the issues important to me as a contemporary female artist, flipping the patriarchal gaze on its head. The Long Night In these miniature narrative Noir scenes, lone characters appear in decidedly suburban environments: cul-de-sacs, dark and empty roads, the small-town bar, private basements and bedrooms, all offering an impression of seclusion, ripe for clandestine schemes. The scenarios take place at night, with minimal lighting, heavy with mystery and tension. We get to squirm with the sense of being voyeurs. These images are inspired not only from the television and film mysteries and spy stories of my childhood, but also from the sense of being a silent observer of the shadowy grown-up lives around me. My props and characters may come from a child’s world, but these are adult stories. Escaping Gravity: Breathing, Dying, Swimming, Flying I presented a multi-media installation at Nine Gallery in Portland, Oregon in 2018 about loss, its lifelong ripples, release, and liberation. There were two chambers in this installation, one being the Pond, the other, the Pool, symbolizing my older brother’s death by drowning when he was eight-years old, and my learning to swim very late in life.
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