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Barbara Cole
Courtesy Chris Wahl
Barbara Cole
Barbara Cole

Barbara Cole

Country: Canada
Birth: 1953

For the last forty-five years, artist Barbara Cole has been recapturing the otherworldly mysteries of early photography in a body of work that flows in and out of time.

Born in 1953 in Toronto, Canada, Cole, eager to shape a place for herself at an early age, quickly turned to art. Immediately out of high school, she began modeling for a newspaper and soon became fashion editor for the following ten years. Her early start in fashion and self-taught practice have informed her intuitive photography that undulates between tradition and invention. Her inventor's spirit is evident in her preference for raw, hands-on photographic methods. From turn-of-the-century cameras, shadow boxes, darkrooms, and tintypes-she engages directly in shaping her images in order to impart deeply personal truths.

The underwater photography for which Cole is most known started in the late 1990s. Once, submerged in her pool, she opened her eyes and what she saw reminded her of the Polaroid film she was so fond of until it eventually went out of production. She has been searching for timelessness ever since. The wavy, enigmatic waters are often juxtaposed against weightless figures, forming her signature, velvety dreamscapes. In these figures we see human beings who are just-just-on the verge of forming complete selves, suggesting we are always in the process of recreating ourselves, always striving to reach new heights.

As an innovator in her field, Cole ventures into territories full of light and shadow, memory and dreams, with imagery that is nothing short of exaltation. Whether reincorporating twenty-year-old images in current underwater photography, or reimagining a modern format for the turn-of-the-century tintype, Cole's work shortens the distance between past and present. For Cole history is written in water.

Cole has held numerous exhibitions across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Her work has also been extensively commissioned internationally for corporate collections. She has exhibited in the Canadian Embassy in both Tokyo and Washington D.C. The acclaimed documentary series, Snapshot: The Art of Photography II, features an episode devoted exclusively to Cole's photographic practice.

Cole currently lives and works in Toronto.

Articles

Exclusive Interview with Barbara Cole
Barbara Cole and Wet Collodion Photographs

Galleries

Bau-Xi Gallery
Galerie de Bellefeuille
Art Angels
Holden Luntz Gallery
NOX Contemporary Art Space

Websites

www.barbaracole.com

@barbaracoleart

 

Inspiring Portfolios

Marijn Fidder
© Marijn Fidder
Julien Chatelin
© Julien Chatelin
Marcus Yam
© Marcus Yam
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More Great Photographers To Discover

Cyrus Cornut
Cyrus Cornut
France
1977
Trained as an architect, the photographer's work primarily revolves around the city—its form, transformations, imprints, empty spaces, and the human behaviors it elicits. In 2006, his inaugural exploration of Chinese cities debuted at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles under the artistic direction of Raymond Depardon. He became a member of the Picturetank cooperative agency in 2007, remaining with them until its closure in 2017. In 2010, as part of the France 14 group, he presented "Travelling to the Outskirts," a project delving into the landscapes of mass housing in Île-de-France. Since 2011, his research has extended to the role of plants not only in the urban setting but also in rural landscapes. Presently, he is immersed in the creation of a 4x5 medium format collection, affording him a deliberate examination of urban transformations in both Asia and France. Additionally, he is engaged in a more artistic body of work, blending drawing, engraving, and photography. AWARDS and RESIDENCIES Winner Prix HSBC 2021 Shortlisted for the Camera Clara award, 2020 Mutation Residency. Transit/ Montpellier city 2019 ND Award 2018 1rst price. Shortlisted for the Camera Clara award, 2018 1rst price Singularlens 2018 Laureate of the « Albums du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle » grant, 2014 Laureate visa de l’ANI 2012, Promenades Photographiques de Vendôme Shorlisted at the HSBC photography award, 2011 Laureate of the Visas de l’ANI, 2006 Villa Tamaris residency, Seyne sur Mer, 2006 CHONGQING, on the four shores of passing times Chongqing municipality, People’s Republic of China, population of 34 million. One of the world’s highest demographic and economic growth rates. The central urban area of 15 million souls is infused by almost 300 000 newcomers every year. Chongqing, the ''Mountain City,'' at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialang Rivers, struggles to break through the fog that covers it all year long. Heir to the displaced from the Three Gorges dam and daughter to the Beijing authorities – who upgraded her to a municipality, raising her up to the same heights as her big sisters on the East coast – Chongqing has developed at a dizzying speed. Urban forms and infrastructure have sprung up, gravity-defying, embracing the shorelines of its four banks, each of them steeply carved out by the current of the water. The speed of urbanization has outperformed overtaken the slow rhythm of the fishermen, the erosion of the rivers, the powerful hatching of the mountains. The uninterrupted dance of the cranes and the excavators stack people ever higher in an unsettling quickness. No obstacle remains to stop the skyscrapers from surging up. They reproduce themselves almost identically, like metastases. The transport networks cross the water, pierce through the rock, and climb the hills, defiant of the power of the elements. The river has become the artery that the makes beat an economic heart that is resolutely turned towards the economic conquest of the West by way of the new silk road. Only the banks, almost wild, resist, remaining allied with the river and its caprices. People sitting on its embankments watch it meander, watch their sightlines get blocked out and its banks grow thicker. Here and there they still cultivate a few food-producing gardens while they wait fatalistically for the last bits of bare land to disappear.
LaToya Ruby Frazier
LaToya Ruby Frazier
United States
1982
LaToya Ruby Frazier is an American artist and professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. From Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier began photographing her family and hometown at the age of 16, revising the social documentary traditional of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to imagine documentation from within and by the community, and collaboration between the photographer and her subjects. Inspired by Gordon Parks, who promoted the camera as a weapon for social justice, Frazier uses her tight focus to make apparent the impact of systemic problems, from racism to deindustrialization to environmental degradation, on individual bodies, relationships and spaces. In her work, she is concerned with bringing to light these problems, which she describes as global issues. Speaking to The New York Times about her position, Frazier said: "We need longer sustained stories that reflect and tell us where the prejudices and blind spots are and continue to be in this culture and society... This is a race and class issue that is affecting everyone. It is not a black problem, it is an American problem, it is a global problem. Braddock is everywhere." Frazier has been extensively educated in photography through education at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (BFA), Syracuse University (MFA), the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, and she was the Guna S. Mundheim Fellow for Visual Arts at the American Academy in Berlin. The photographic work of LaToya Ruby Frazier includes both images of personal spaces, intensely private moments and the story of racial and economic injustice in America. Her work includes raw portraits of friends and family members in intimate moments and examples of social injustice. As Frazier explains, "the collaboration between my family and myself blurs the line between self-portraiture and social documentary". Often her work focuses on the plight of her home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania which became financially depressed after the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970–80s. With black and white photographs, Frazier highlights the beauty of Braddock and how this town has impacted her family's life along with other residents. Her still photographs have a raw sense of strength and vulnerability juxtaposed in an honest and personal way. Besides working on her most famous work Notion of Family, Frazier has worked with other contemporary issues such as the Flint water crisis. This particular project depicts and focuses on a young woman and her family living their everyday lives amongst the crucial water conditions within their lower-class Flint community. She recently contributed photographs to a New York Times project, Why America's Black Mothers and Babies are in a Life-or-Death Crisis. Informed by documentary practices from the turn of the last century, Frazier explores identities of place, race, and family in work that is a hybrid of self-portraiture and social narrative. Her primary subjects of these portraits are Frazier's Grandma Ruby (1925-2009), her mother (b. 1959), and the artist herself. The crumbling landscape of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a once-thriving steel town, forms the backdrop of her images, which make manifest both the environmental and infrastructural decay caused by postindustrial decline and the lives of those who continue—largely by necessity—to live among it. As Frazier says, "I see myself as an artist and a citizen that's documenting and telling the story and building the archive of working-class families facing all this change that's happening, because it has to be documented." Through her own family she has been able to recount the history of Braddock by way of the generations who experienced it. Her work begins dialogues about class structure, history, and social responsibility. A 2018 special issue of Atlantic Magazine featured aerial photography and an essay by Frazier documenting the impact of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. on the landscapes of Memphis, Chicago and Baltimore. Frazier's work was featured in the 2019 New York Times Magazine Money Issue for her photo essay on the people of Lordstown, Ohio after the General Motors plant shut down.Source: Wikipedia Frazier’s radical empathy has brought her to places whose occupants have every reason to distrust outsiders. She photographs communities gutted by unemployment, poverty, racism and environmental degradation, seeking out subjects dehumanized or ignored by the mainstream media. At 39, she sees her life’s work as an archive of humanity, one that particularly documents the courage and diversity of blue-collar workers and the consequences of the policies that condemn them to struggle. For her, this is what it means to be a patriot. “I am showing these dark things about America because I love my country and countrymen,” she said. “When you love somebody, you tell them the truth. Even if it hurts.” Socially conscious artistic practices may be in vogue these days, but Frazier goes beyond hollow claims of “raising awareness” with an essay in a magazine or a show at an art museum. She is the rare photographer who approaches relationships with her subjects as lifelong commitments, and who tries to make substantial, material differences in their lives. Frazier’s conviction in art that involves — and transforms — entire communities aligns her with Rick Lowe, an artist who, with his collaborators, famously converted an underserved swath of Houston into a nexus for housing, art programming and neighborhood development activities. She also carries on the legacy of the German artist Joseph Beuys, who believed that participatory art could heal society. Frazier, though, pursues these conceptual ideals while still producing formally elegant images using traditional techniques. Working mainly with a medium-format camera and black-and-white film, her intimate domestic portraits and expressive landscapes are classically beautiful, even when they depict harrowing realities. Making photographs as poetic as they are political is, for Frazier, a way of honoring her subjects. “She doesn’t pop in and pop out,” said the artist Carrie Mae Weems, Frazier’s friend and early mentor. “These are long-term projects that deeply matter, not only to her but to the community and, ultimately, I think, to the nation.”Source: The New York Times
Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Luxembourg/United States
1879 | † 1973
Edward Steichen (1879 - 1973) was born in Luxembourg, but immigrated to the United States, to Milwaukee, in 1880. In 1894, Steichen began a four-year lithography apprenticeship with the American Fine Art Company of Milwaukee. After hours, he would sketch and draw, and began to teach himself to paint. Having come across a camera shop near to his work, he bought his first camera, a secondhand Kodak box "detective" camera, in 1895. In 1900, as Steichen headed to Paris to study painting, he stopped in New York. By that time he was an aspiring painter and an accomplished photographer in the soft-focus, Pictorial style and he made a pilgrimage to the Camera Club of New York to show his work to Alfred Stieglitz, the leading tastemaker in American photography. Stieglitz, vice-president of the Camera Club and editor of its journal Camera Notes, was impressed by the young artist from Milwaukee and bought three of his photographs-a self-portrait and two moody, atmospheric woodland scenes printed in platinum-for the impressive sum of five dollars each. Elated, Steichen then boarded the ship for Europe. Once in France, Steichen quickly abandoned his painting studies and began to focus his energies on photography. He learned the technical intricacies of the gum bichromate process, popular among the members of the Photo-Club de Paris, and developed a reputation as a portraitist of noted artists, writers, and members of society. Arriving back in New York in 1902, Steichen rented a studio on the top floor of a brownstone at 291 Fifth Avenue and hung out his shingle; his work as a professional portrait photographer flourished. That same year, Stieglitz announced the formation of the Photo-Secession-the name he gave to the loose-knit group of photographers he exhibited, published, and promoted during the next decade and a half-and the publication of a new, still more lavish journal, Camera Work. Over the fifteen-year, fifty-issue run of Camera Work, no other artist would be featured as prominently as Steichen, who had sixty-five photographs and three paintings reproduced in fifteen issues, including a "Special Steichen Supplement" in April 1906 and an all-Steichen double issue in 1913. In 1906, Steichen determined "to get away from the lucrative but stultifying professional portrait business" and return to France with his family in hopes of resuscitating his idled painting career. It was a move with numerous consequences. For one, it positioned him to embrace the Autochrome, the process for making glass-plate color transparencies introduced by the Lumière brothers in 1907. Steichen-who had experimented with various methods such as gum bichromate to introduce color into his photographs-was enthralled by the technique. Steichen also made what he called his "first attempt at serious documentary reportage" in the summer of 1907, using a borrowed hand camera. Steichen returned to the U.S. in 1914. Serving in the US Army in World War I (and the US Navy in the Second World War), Steichen commanded significant units contributing to military photography. After World War I, during which he commanded the photographic division of the American Expeditionary Forces, he reverted to straight photography, gradually moving into editorial and fashion photography. His portraits of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson, and other celebrities appeared in Vogue and Vanity Fair in the 1920s and 1930s. From 1947-1962, Steichen served as the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.. Among other accomplishments, Steichen is appreciated for creating the 1955 exhibition, The Family of Man, at the Museum of Modern Art consisting of over 500 photographs. Steichen purchased a farm that he called Umpawaug in 1928, just outside West Redding, Connecticut, and lived there until his death. Source: Howard Greenberg Gallery
Jagjit Singh
Jagjit Singh
India
1974
I am a freelance travel photographer based at Chandigarh - the foothills of the Shivalik range of the Himalayas in northwest India. In this continuous endeavour of self-learning, tried to portray the moments that my eyes appreciated. Always strive to capture the beauty of the nature which can be a feast for the eyes. India is a land of many cultures and religions. It has always been a integral part of the Indian traditions. They portray the rich cultural heritage of this country. I love to click the spectrum of Indian festivals/fairs with their significance.
Paolo Roversi
Paolo Roversi
Italy
1947
Paolo Roversi is an Italian-born fashion photographer based in Paris. His work is distinguished by soft, monochromatic images of women, with bodies veiled in shadow and captured with careful care to emphasize stunning facial features. Photography goes beyond the limits of reality and illusion. It brushes up against another life, another dimension, revealing not only what is there but what is not there. -- Paolo Roversi Paolo Roversi, who was born in Ravenna in 1947, became interested in photography as a teenager during a family vacation in Spain in 1964. Back at home, he established a darkroom in a convenient cellar with another keen amateur, local postman Battista Minguzzi, and began developing and printing his own black-and-white work. The meeting with a local professional photographer, Nevio Natali, was crucial: in Nevio's studio, Roversi spent many hours completing an important apprenticeship as well as a close and lasting friendship. In 1970, he began working with the Associated Press, and his first assignment was to cover Ezra Pound's burial in Venice. During the same year, Paolo Roversi founded his first portrait studio in Ravenna, capturing local celebrities and their families. In 1971, he met Peter Knapp, the legendary Art Director of Elle magazine, by chance in Ravenna. Paolo visited Paris in November 1973 at Knapp's invitation and has never returned. Paolo began working as a reporter for the Huppert Agency in Paris, but through his friends, he gradually began to explore fashion photography. But the photographers who piqued his interest at the time were reporters. Paolo Roversi knew nothing about fashion or fashion photography at the moment. Later, he discovered the work of Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and many others. In 1974, the British photographer Lawrence Sackmann hired Paolo as an assistant. Paolo endured Sackmann for nine months: "Sackmann was very difficult. Most assistants only lasted a week before running away. But he taught me everything I needed to know in order to become a professional photographer. Sackmann taught me creativity. He was always trying new things even if he did always use the same camera and flash set-up. He was almost military-like in his approach to preparation for a shoot. But he always used to say ‘your tripod and your camera must be well-fixed but your eyes and mind should be free’." Then he went freelance, doing small jobs for magazines like Elle and Depeche Mode until Marie Claire published his first major fashion story. When I take a picture using window light, I always think about what a long trip the light is making to reach my subject. -- Paolo Roversi Roversi's portfolio now includes celebrity and fashion photography. He has been a consistent contributor to American Vogue, and Vogue Italia, W, Vanity Fair, Interview and i-D. He has also photographed advertising campaigns for Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Dior, Cerruti, GIADA, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino and Alberta Ferreti. Continuing to be a major force in contemporary fashion, Paolo Roversi is notable for his use of 8x10 Polaroid film, which is no longer produced. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions worldwide, including at Pace MacGill Gallery in New York, James Gallery in Moscow, and Comme des Garçons in Tokyo, Rencontres d'Arles festival, France (2008), among others.
Sasha Maslov
Sasha Maslov
Ukraine
1984
Sasha Maslov was born in Ukraine in 1984. Inspired and taught by his father, photographer Guennadi Maslov, and later his teacher and mentor, Oleg Shishkov, he developed into an aspiring young photographer. Later Sasha became known for his social documentary projects around Eastern Europe, especially in his native country. He started pursuing career as a portrait photographer in New York city, where he moved at the age of 24 in 2008. Since then he has been working for leading publications around the Globe and pursuing work on his personal projects. Statement "I believe in the efficacy of photography as a visual art medium. We are living in age where visual stimuli in a variety of mediums populate the waking moments of our lives. Our memories are inhabited by fragments of life – experiences from around the globe, products, familiar faces – all intricately tied together in a complex web of associations. This visual overload has polluted our minds, made our tastes less discerning, and ultimately devalued the standards that qualify impactful and meaningful photography. Instead of reveling in a complex photo that enjoys intense visual engagement and reflection, viewers now expect to devour and digest imagery in one gulp. While I do believe that evolving for adaptation is vital, however, it is also important to me that every image I take embodies a sense of purpose and meaning, provokes thought and sparks dialogue."
Laura Aguilar
Laura Aguilar
Mexico/United States
1959 | † 2018
Laura Aguilar, a pioneering photographer, used her lens as a powerful tool for social empowerment and representation. Born with a keen eye and a deep sense of empathy, Aguilar sought to challenge the traditional narratives of art history by capturing the beauty and dignity of marginalized communities often overlooked by mainstream society. Aguilar's work defied convention, focusing on subjects that had long been excluded from the artistic canon. From lesbians and Latinas to individuals with disabilities and those whose bodies did not conform to societal norms, Aguilar fearlessly confronted stereotypes and celebrated the diversity of human experience. Her photographs were a testament to the strength, resilience, and inherent worth of each individual, regardless of their background or identity. I wouldn't know what to do with the perfect body. Can we get comfortable with the imperfections? – Laura Aguilar What set Aguilar apart as an artist was not only her choice of subjects but also her meticulous attention to the formal aspects of photography. Drawing inspiration from both modernist and Social Documentary traditions, Aguilar infused her work with a unique perspective informed by her own lived experience as a lesbian Latina. Through her lens, she sought to capture the essence of her subjects in a way that transcended superficial appearances, inviting viewers to connect with the humanity and complexity of each individual. Above all, Aguilar viewed art as a means of giving voice to those who had been silenced or marginalized. Her photographs served as a powerful form of advocacy, challenging viewers to confront their own biases and preconceptions while fostering empathy and understanding. Through her art, Aguilar sought to create a more inclusive and compassionate society, one where all individuals were valued and respected for who they are. I know some people see me as very childlike, naïve. Maybe so. I am. But I will be damned if I let this part of me die! – Laura Aguilar Despite facing obstacles and adversity throughout her life, Aguilar remained steadfast in her commitment to social justice and equality. Her work continues to inspire and provoke, reminding us of the importance of representation and the transformative power of art. Laura Aguilar's legacy lives on through her photographs, which serve as a testament to the enduring strength of the human spirit and the possibility of positive change.
Mark Seliger
Mark Seliger
Unites States
1959
Mark Alan Seliger (born May 23, 1959) is an American photographer noted for his portraiture. Seliger was born in Amarillo, Texas, the son of Maurice and Carol Lee. The family moved to Houston in 1964. He attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, and East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University Commerce). He moved to New York City in 1984. Seliger began working for Rolling Stone in 1987, and served as its chief photographer from 1992 to 2002, and shot more than 100 covers for the magazine. As of 2010, Seliger lives in New York City and works for Conde Nast Publications. He has shot a number of covers for GQ and Vanity Fair. Seliger has also published several books; created a number of CD covers for Burning Spear, Diana Krall, and other bands; and directed short films. The celebrities whose portraits Seliger has made include Susan Sarandon, David Byrne, Matthew Barney, Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Kurt Cobain, Lenny Kravitz, Rob Thomas, Brand Nubian, and Tony Bennett.Source: Wikipedia Seliger now shoots frequently for Vanity Fair, Italian Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and many other magazines. In addition, he shoots advertising work for Adidas, Anheuser-Busch, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Netflix, Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, and many more. Seliger is the recipient of such esteemed awards as the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award, Lucie Award, Clio Grand Prix, Cannes Lions Grand Prix, The One Show, ASME, SPG, and the Texas Medal of Arts Award. Seliger’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. His photographs are part of the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the National Portrait Gallery in London.Source: www.markseliger.com
Jock Sturges
Jock Sturges
United States
1947
Jock Sturges, born in New York City in 1947, is an American photographer whose work has stirred both acclaim and controversy. After serving in the United States Navy as a Russian linguist from 1966 to 1970, Sturges pursued his passion for photography, earning a BFA in Perceptual Psychology and Photography from Marlboro College. He further honed his craft by obtaining an MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. Sturges is renowned for his captivating images of nude adolescents and their families, often captured at communes in Northern California and the naturist resort CHM Montalivet in Vendays-Montalivet. His photographs, characterized by their intimate portrayal of human vulnerability, frequently feature Misty Dawn, a California resident whom he photographed from childhood into her twenties. Working primarily with a large 8x10-inch-format view camera, Sturges has also experimented with digital photography but maintains a preference for traditional prints. My work is, in fact, neutral. In fact, its very neutrality is one of the things that worries me about it sometimes. There’s sometimes not a lot of emotive passion in the work. Because I shoot long shutter speeds, people are necessarily very still, and the work is very, very plain and... neutral. That neutrality isn’t sexual by nature. My subjects are just there. So if you read sexuality into my pictures, beyond what’s inherent to a human being, then the work is acting as a Rorschach, and you’re evincing sexual immaturity or sexual malaise in your own life. I have to tell you, I am sometimes deeply suspicious of the sexual mental health of some of the people who point their wavering fingers at the morality, the art, of others. – Jock Sturges Despite the acclaim garnered by his work, Sturges has faced controversy throughout his career. In 1990, his San Francisco studio was raided by FBI officers, and his equipment was seized. However, a subsequent grand jury declined to bring charges against him. In 1998, his books "The Last Day of Summer" and "Radiant Identities" were targeted as potential child pornography in Arkansas and Louisiana, sparking legal battles and protests. Despite these challenges, Sturges has continued to create thought-provoking imagery that challenges societal norms and perceptions. Sturges's photographs have also found their way into various forms of media and art. They have graced the covers of novels by authors such as Jennifer McMahon and Karl Ove Knausgård, adding depth and intrigue to literary works. Additionally, his images have been featured in music releases by the band Ride, further highlighting their versatility and impact across different artistic mediums. Throughout his career, Sturges has remained committed to his artistic vision, using his lens to explore themes of innocence, identity, and the passage of time. Despite the controversies surrounding his work, he continues to push the boundaries of conventional photography, challenging viewers to confront their preconceptions and delve deeper into the complexities of the human experience. Jock Sturges's legacy as a photographer is a testament to the power of art to provoke thought, spark dialogue, and inspire change.
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