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Tom Atwood
Tom Atwood

Tom Atwood

Country: United States
Birth: 1971

Tom Atwood is an American fine art, portrait, and celebrity photographer, best known for his books Kings in Their Castles (2005) and Kings & Queens in Their Castles (2017). The New Yorker has praised the "refreshing clarity and modesty" of his work. Born and raised in Vermont, Atwood is a graduate of Harvard University, where he studied economics. He later earned an MPhil from Cambridge University. Atwood has lived in Paris, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and currently resides in New York City.

Atwood worked several years as an advertising executive before turning full-time to commercial and fine art photography. As a photographer, Tom Atwood is largely self-taught, developing many of his techniques through trial and error. According to him, various cultural influences—including theater, painting, architecture, and psychology—have informed his photographic style.

Tom Atwood is particularly known for combining and balancing the genres of portraiture and architectural photography, so that neither the subject nor his or her surroundings predominate in the final image. His recent work has focused on portraits of people at home. He has shot over 100 luminaries including Hilary Swank, Julie Newmar, Buzz Aldrin, Mark Wahlberg (Marky Mark), John Waters, Don Lemon, Tommy Tune, Meredith Baxter, Greg Louganis, Barney Frank, George Takei, Todd Oldham, Edward Albee, Ross Bleckner, Michael Cunningham, Alison Bechdel, Ari Shapiro, Don Bachardy, Charles Busch, Alan Cumming and Leslie Jordan.

His second book, Kings & Queens in Their Castles, was recently published by Damiani. The book won multiple awards including First Place in the International Photography Awards (book category) as well as a Lucie Award (book-other category).

Atwood was included in the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Triennial (Smithsonian Museum). He won first place in Portraiture in the Prix de la Photographie Paris. Atwood also won Photographer of the Year from London's Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, as well as first place in Portraiture.

He has won over 40 additional awards including from the Griffin Museum of Photography, Center for Fine Art Photography, International Photography Awards, Santa Fe Center for Photography, Vienna International Photo Award (Gold Medal), CameraArts, Photo Life, PDN, The Photo Review, Communication Arts, Fence at Photoville, Graphis, Camera Club of NY, Jacob Riis Award, American Photography Annual, One Life International, American Art Awards, Photography Masters Cup, Manhattan Arts International, Hellerau Photography Award, World in Focus, Artrom Gallery Guild, PhotoServe, Reclaim Photo Award, Passepartout Prize, One Eyeland, International Photographer of the Year, International Color Awards, Moscow International Foto Awards, Kodak and American Photographic Artists (sponsored by the Getty Museum and Hammer Museum). He has also been recognized on Photo Life Magazine's list of 50 Emerging Photographers.

Atwood's work has exhibited over 60 times in over 15 countries, including at the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Museum), Griffin Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, National Museum of Finland (Finland), D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Kemper Art Museum, Center for Fine Art Photography, Museum of Photographic Arts, House of Lucie, Annenberg Space for Photography, Museum of Modern Art, University of the Arts, Frank Museum, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Benaki Museum (Greece), Museum of Science and Technology (Germany), Shibuya Cultural Center (Japan), Círculo de Bellas Artes Museum (Spain), LA Center for Digital Art, Pacific Design Center, Manhattan Arts International and other institutions.

 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Jaromír Funke
Czech Republic
1896 | † 1945
Jaromír Funke (1896–1945) was a Modernist photographer and a leading figure in Czech photography during the 1920s and 30s. He was born in Skute? to a wealthy family. He studied medicine, law, and philosophy at the Charles University in Prague and the University of Bratislava but did not graduate and instead turned to photography. Funke was recognized for his play of “photographic games” with mirrors, lights, and insignificant objects, such as plates, bottles, or glasses, to create unique works. His still life’s created abstract forms and played with shadows looking similar to photograms. His work was thought to be logical, original and expressive in nature. A typical feature of Funke’s work would be the "dynamic diagonal." By the 1920s, Funke had become an amateur photographer and began to experiment with constructivism, surrealism, poeticism, and expressionism. He created unconventional works as a form of “pure” photography instead of the traditional reminiscing of other mediums such as painting or sculpture. During his photography profession, Funke published editorials and critiques about photography. By 1922, Funke had become a skilled freelance photographer and two years later he, Josef Sudek and Adolf Schneeberger created the Czech Photographic Society. From 1931-1935, Funke headed the photography department at the School of Arts and Crafts in Bratislava. Soon after, Funke taught at the School of Graphic Art in Prague until 1944. Alongside Ladislav Sutha, the director of the previous school, Funke published Fotografie vidí povrch in 1935. While travelling, Funke became interested in politically engaged photography. Bad living was created during the time period of 1930-1931 and was a photographic series that dealt with the issues of poverty. Funke later became an editor of the journal Fotografický obzor (Photographic Horizons) for several years. He published a number of works including Od fotogrameuk emoci which is understood to be his manifesto. As travelling was limited during World War 2 in 1939, Funke photographed close to home in Louny, Prague and sometimes Kolin. On March 22, 1945 in Kolin, Funke required an immediate operation for intestine damage but the procedure could not be executed as it was during an air raid alarm and he died.Source: Wikipedia Jaromír Funke (1896–1945) studied medicine, law and philosophy at Charles University in Prague but did not graduate. Instead he concentrated on becoming a professional freelance photographer. By 1922 he was a leader of the young opposition movement in photography and a founder of the Czech Society of Photography (1924) whose mission was to create photography that would fulfil new social functions. In his work Funke managed to combine some of the leading trends in modernist European photography, uniting constructivism and functionalism with surrealism and social commentary, with traditional Czech aesthetics. His interest in modernist ideas led him to make clearly focused studies of simple objects. As the decade progressed, he turned to the production of carefully arranged still lifes emphasizing abstract form and the play of light and shadow. During this time he also produced several important series of photographs, including two inspired by the images of Eugène Atget: Reflexy (Reflections, 1929) and as trvá (Time Persists, 1930-34). Funke was also influential as a teacher, first at the School of Arts and Crafts, Bratislava (1931-34/35), which followed a Bauhaus-inspired curriculum, and then at the State School of Graphic Arts, Prague (1935-44). While in Bratislava, he became interested in social documentary photography and joined the leftist group Sociofoto, which was concerned with recording the living conditions of the poor. Throughout his career Funke published articles and critical reviews dealing with photography. From 1939-41 he worked with Josef Ehm to edit the magazine Fotografik obzor (Photographic Horizon).Source: Howard Greenberg Gallery
Alberto  del Hoyo Mora
Alberto del Hoyo is a Spanish photographer living in Tenerife. He holds an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa Business School and is a graduate in Business Administration and Photography. His own curiosity about the different forms of life has taken him to remote tribal territories in Asia, South America and Africa in search of the distinctive beauty and variety of his people. In 2016, after 2 years of incursions into the Omo Valley of Ethiopia, he founded Pics 4 Pills. Modest fundraising initiative for the people of the Omo Valley Three years later, at the end of 2018 he published the book Mystic Valley. Photographic travel notebook fruit of 4 years of photographic incursions in the Omo Valley. 100% of the revenues from sales are destined to solidarity projects in the different photographed tribal areas. Also in 2018, Alberto presented the Fine Art portrait exhibition with the same name "Mystic Valley", as a complement of the book. The objective is responsible photographic dissemination. Show the beauty of heterogeneity and cultural identity. About Mystic Valley Nadoria is a 13 years old girl of the Suri tribe in Ethiopia, lives in a small mountain village near the border with Sudan. She is the daughter of one of the elders of the tribe. The size of her ear plate indicates the extent of her dowry. "The bigger my ear plate, the higher number of cows my family will get from my marriage". Barduri, is a young man of 17 years of the same Suri tribe in Ethiopia. He has lost vision in his right eye as a result of a wound during the celebration of the "stick fight", ancestral ceremony consisting of an unprotected one-on-one stick fight battle against young members of the neighboring tribes. The fights can be furious and can result in death. A ritual for the transition of young stars to men. Far from feeling sorry Barduri feels pride, he has shown his family that he is a brave man, he has become a man, a warrior of honor. He has won his right in the tribe to be able to choose his wife and that she respect him. From the beginning of history the human race is composed of a large number of cultures, people and tribes. Each one has its own way of life, values and social rituals. The portraits of these people invite our conscience to remember the importance of understanding cultural identities in all their variety. Portraits of the fragility of a female childhood subrogated to warriors of honor. Portraits of his reality. It is vast, silent. Magical. Omo Valley
Mohammad Sorkhabi
Mohammad Sorkhabi was born in Mashhad-Iran in 1985. He has been engaged in portrait photography since 2013. Most of his artworks are inspired by Renascence and Baroque portrait paintings so he mostly uses the classical lighting techniques and pictorial editing of the works with a subtle expression-filled by emotions and poetic feelings that indicate social issues. Mood Photography is the style of Mohammad which makes the audience communicate with the poetic feeling of his art better. His portraits emphasizing on social issues through deep abstract feelings and delicate expressions in the eyes of his models. Awards: Fine Art's first reward in Canada Tirgan Festival-2015. Two artworks of him have been chosen for the final section and have been displayed in Malaysia-Kuala Lumpur portrait contest-2015. Also second and third place in beauty and portrait category and four honorable mention in Moscow photo awards(MIFA)-2015. Winning medal in Asahi Shimbun photo contest, Japan 2017 Mourning for the father War is defined as a long-term structured conflict involving the use of arms and weapons between nations, governments and different groups, which is associated with severe hostility, social disruption, and excessive financial loss and casualties. Today, we constantly witness such conflicts across the world, with the media spotlighting the loss of thousands of soldiers and death of civilians during wars. However, we are rarely informed on the survivors of wars and their destiny. What becomes of them? How does war influence the lives of those who have lost their loved ones? How do women mourn the deaths of their husbands, fathers, and brothers and cope with such grave tragedies? These contemplations have urged me to start a project in order to shed light on these events and reflect the grand suffering of war survivors only partly. My photographs have been inspired by the works of Renaissance painters, and this can be seen in the classical lighting techniques and pictorial editing of the works. In addition, the black veils on the models signify the spiritual aspect of the photographs, symbolizing the catharsis born out of a plethora of grief and agony.
Lenka Klicperová
Czech Republic
1976
Journalist and photographer. She obtained a master's degree at the University of Hradec Králové and immediately after that started working as a journalist. From 2004 to 2018 she was the editor-in-chief of the leading Czech travel magazine Lidé a Země. Since 2018 she has been working as a freelance reporter and photographer focused on war zones. She has worked in a number of African countries, including conflict zones of Democratic Republic of Congo. She visited Afghanistan several times, as well as Somalia, plagued by several decades of war. Since 2014, she has focused on the issue of the war with the ISIS in Iraq and Syria. She is the co-author of several documentaries (Tears of the Congo, Latim – the Circumcised, Iraqui Women, Women in the Land of Taliban, Unbroken) and a number of television reports. She has won a number of prizes and nominations in the Czech Press Photo competition - both for photography and video. In 2020 she was included in the prestigious Women Photograph database, she was shortlisted for the International Women In Photo Association Award. She is the co-author of nine books about Africa and about the wars in the Middle East and Nagorno Karabakh. Her work from Syria resulted in two books entitled In Sight of the Islamic State I and In Sight of the Islamic State II, which were co-authored by Markéta Kutilová. Together with Kutilová she also wrote other books on the wars in Syria and Iraq: In the War (2018) and War is My Fate (2020). In 2019, a book called AK47 was published, which depicts the dramatic life of the world-famous Czech war photographer Antonín Kratochvíl. Klicperová wrote the text of the book based on Kratochvíl's narration. In September 2020, war broke out in Nagorno Karabakh. Lenka Klicperová and Markéta Kutilová quickly moved to the center of events. The war in the Caucasus was captured by both reporters in many reports, but also in a book The Last One Sets the Village on Fire (2021). Klicperová cooperates with a number of Czech media. She also lectures at the University of Hradec Králové. Statement Twelve years ago I first came to a war zone, to the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. My goal was to document the drastic effects of the protracted war on women. The local militias are committing mass rape of women and children; rape is a weapon of war. It was my first encounter with war. I understood that I wanted to bear witness to the injustices of this world, the way they fall on innocent victims who have nothing to do with them. I returned to the Congo several times and started working in Afghanistan. Then the war in Syria and Iraq started. I spent six years traveling to these areas watching and documenting how the Islamic State terrifies the world. And how it is gradually being defeated with the generous contribution of the Syrian Kurds. The city of Kobani, the center of the Kurds, has been indelibly engraved in my heart, defending itself against the enormous superiority of the Islamists. At the cost of high casualties. I have been on the front lines, in refugee camps, documenting the lives of the wives of ISIS fighters and their children. I managed to get in the prison where ISIS fighters who survived the fighting are being held. When the war broke out in Nagorno Karabakh, I knew I had to go there immediately. I followed the war to the end and documented the lives of civilians sentenced to live suddenly in a war zone. I saw their exodus. War zones have thus become a part of my life... Lost War
Amadeusz Swierk
Poland
1995
Amadeusz Świerk (born in 1995) is a documentary photographer based in Wrocław, Poland. Amadeusz strives to be an honest witness of the world. His work is often oriented on minorities – social, ethnic, religious and based on genuine experience of other human and his culture. Interested in ethnicity and natural way of living, he has done projects about Iranian nomads and informal subculture of people escaping society grown around wooden hut located in Polish mountains. Currently he is working on projects about a (in)famous district in the small town of Legnica, opioid addicts and personal, about his family. The Miracle District The story starts in a middle-sized town of Legnica, located in the southwest of Poland. It should have been unremarkable, but after World War II it had the dubious pleasure of stationing some 60,000 Soviet soldiers, who more or less dictated the town's life. During these difficult times, which ended very late in 1993, a small district called Zakaczawie (named from the local river) incidentally became a refuge for Poles' native life. Among the families of Polish railwaymen and strong Romani community relocated into the district by Communists, small businesses, cafes, pubs and cultural venues thrived, despite the dark shadow of the Soviet garrison. When the Curtain fell and the Soviets finally went away, the town of Legnica finally breathed a sigh of relief. Zakaczawie district wasn't especially lucky though. It's being left out by dynamics of Polish capitalism, omitted by investments and falling into disrepair. The ''Miracle District'' nickname of Zakaczawie gained a bitter and ironic edge, but generations of its citizens still retain a strong sense of community. There's crime, poverty and turbulent biographies being written by commercial exclusion, but many people actively decide to stay there despite the challenges. Contemporary Zakaczawie is a living witness of the winds of change, the whims of history putting the social microcosm of its citizens to new tests. It's not easy for them, but they have to live with it, and they do, mostly by simply staying together. This project aims to show that among the very visual poverty and dilapidation of the Miracle District, there are humans - families, friends, neighbors - trying to live their best. The author spent two years between them to go deep beyond the grim appearances, to understand these people as fully as possible, to become a witness - and to show to the world - their everyday, colorful lives, giving them an outward voice. The Miracle District The Shack Hidden among the scenic Karkonosze mountains in southwestern Poland, deep in the woods and well away from the popular tourist trails, The Shack – as its dwellers tend to call it – is a secret meeting place for a special bunch of people. Despite the lack of electricity and internet, every weekend, regardless of the season, The Shack is brimming with trekkers from various walks of life, who typically don’t have the opportunity to meet or interact. They seek shelter from social conventions and develop their own, unique and intimate, small-scale society and culture. The Shack is a place with rich traditions. Located off the beaten Karkonosze tourist trails, since the 1970s it has been popular with various groups of non-conformists. Hippies flocked there to escape the oppression of the Communist authorities. During the political transformations of the 80s, some of them joined Fighting Solidarity (Polish anti-Soviet and anti-communist underground organization), and The Shack became a print-and-distribution center of subversive leaflets. Throughout the years, both political and non-political visitors created a rich set of rules, The Shack’s unwritten code that acts as a tool for introducing newcomers and keeping a low profile. Breaking the code is punished by a system of humorous tasks. Over time, regulars started families and made professional careers, but they handed over The Shack’s traditions to the younger generation of visitors. There is a position of Shack Keeper, who stays there permanently. He lives alone in the wild, taking care of the building and getting along with its guests. He’s the unofficial leader within The Shack. The Keeper usually changes every few years. The Shack somewhat changes too, as Keeper’s personality influences the atmosphere.Today most Shack visitors come on weekends to escape civilization and relax for a bit. The flock of guests increased significantly during the pandemic; people tried to compensate for the scarcity of face-to-face contacts. The sense of belonging is built by working and eating together, among strangers. Guests forage wood from the forest and chop it, prepare meals on the wood-fired stove, share them with others by candlelight, play guitar, sing and dance – all without modern disturbances of internet and smartphones. The Shack dwellers want to experience the traditional way of life and stay among nature. Most appear occasionally, but there are always some who visit it regularly and enjoy it together.
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