All about photo.com: photo contests, photography exhibitions, galleries, photographers, books, schools and venues.
Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Win a Solo Exhibition in July 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Clayton Anderson
Clayton Anderson

Clayton Anderson

Country: United States
Birth: 1963

Clayton Anderson is a photographer who lives and works in New York City. In October 2020, Daylight Books released Kicking Sawdust, his book of circus and carnival photographs. Some of his circus work has been shown at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts (FMoPA) in Tampa, FL. and the SE Center for Photography in Greenville, SC.

Some of his newer work from his Anthropomorphia series was recently shown at Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis, MN. In 2019, the photography department curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and the Princeton University Art Museum placed Clayton’s self-published photobook, Before the Fade, into their research and public art libraries.

Clayton has been featured in Art Daily, All About Photo, Musee Magazine, F-Stop Magazine and Shots Magazine.

Source: www.claytonanderson.art


 

Selected Book

Inspiring Portfolios

Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #59 Shapes
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

Thomas Barbèy
Switzerland
Thomas Barbey grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, across the street from the “Caran D'ache” factory, the largest manufacturer of art supplies. He started drawing seriously at the age of 13, using black “encre de Chine” and gouaches for color. His influences were Philippe Druillet, Roger Dean and H.R. Giger. After living in Geneva for 17 years and designing posters for musical bands, he decided to move to Italy, where he lived in Milan for 15 years making a living as a successful recording artist, lyricist and fashion photographer. Today, he resides in Las Vegas and travels the world, taking his camera wherever he goes. Thomas has been a photographer for over twenty years now and prefers to use his old Canon AE1s when he shoots in 35mm or his RB67 when he shoots in medium format. More recently, he has been doing Black and White Photomontages for the sole purpose of doing Fine Art, without working for a specific client. He has combined several images taken over a period of twenty years to create surreal situations with the help of the enlarger in a dark room. His work has a specific style and is very characteristic. He only works with Black and White, including Sepia toning at times. Every single one of his images has to pass what he likes to call the “So what?” test. If a combination of two or more negatives put together doesn't touch him or have any particular meaning, he starts over. At times, he tries to combine images and sometimes the results can be disappointing. A giant clock in the middle of the ocean can be an unusual image, but if he looks at it and says to himself, “So what?”, this means it isn't good enough.” If, instead, an ocean liner is going down a “funnel-type” hole and he titles it “Shortcut to China”, it takes on a whole new meaning. The picture takes you into an imaginary world where you can see the captain telling the passengers to fasten their safety belts and get prepared for the descent, and so on. At times Thomas comes up with ideas beforehand, try to materialize them and it works. At other times, it comes as an accident, where the ideas come afterwards, when the image is already finished and the concept has yet to be understood. Thomas claims he is learning constantly through the process of creation. Thomas travels 2-3 times a year to take photographs of different things and places. Sometimes he uses an image several years later, but only when it fits, like the perfect piece in a puzzle, and completes his latest project. Some images are composed of negatives that are separated by a decade in the actual time that he has taken them and only come to life when they found their perfect match. It's the combination of two or more negatives that give birth to a completely unusual vision, but most of all, the title he gives the final image is the glue and the substance of the piece. Source: thomasbarbey.com
Joel-Peter Witkin
United States
1939
Joel-Peter Witkin (born September 13, 1939, in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with such themes as death, corpses (and sometimes dismembered portions thereof), and various outsiders such as dwarves, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, and physically deformed people. Witkin's complex tableaux often recall religious episodes or classical paintings. Witkin was born to a Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother. His twin brother, Jerome Witkin, and son Kersen Witkin, are also painters. Witkin's parents divorced when he was young because they were unable to overcome their religious differences. He attended grammar school at Saint Cecelia's in Brooklyn and went on to Grover Cleveland High School. Between 1961 and 1964 he was a war photographer documenting the Vietnam war. Going freelance in 1967, he became the official photographer for City Walls Inc. He attended Cooper Union in New York where he studied sculpture, attaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1974. After Columbia University granted him a scholarship, he ended his studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where he became Master of Fine Arts.Source: Wikipedia Finding beauty within the grotesque, Witkin’s work extends beyond post-mortem photography with his staged set-ups of corpses and dismembered parts. Witkin’s fascination with death was triggered by a life-altering episode at a very early age; he witnessed an automobile accident in front of his house in which a young girl was decapitated. Witkin has also pursued his interest in the human condition, drawing attention to “the other,” photographing marginalized groups of people. Those often cast aside by society—hermaphrodites, dwarfs, amputees, androgynes— inspire his work as he confronts the viewers’ sense of normalcy. His interest in spirituality, in particular the teachings of Christianity, has played into his work, as do frequent references to classical paintings. Works by Picasso, Balthus, Goya, Velásquez, and Miro reappear in his dramatic, staged scenes, as well as the work of E.J. Bellocq, who photographed a series on prostitutes of the red light district in New Orleans in the early twentieth century. Witkin’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, Galerie Baudoin Lebon in Paris, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, among many others. Witkin is represented by Catherine Edelman Gallery and currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.Source: International Center of Photography
Amy Anderson
United States
1977
Amy Anderson is an award-winning portrait photographer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work has been exhibited internationally and hangs in local and national galleries, museums and private collections. She has had works acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Florida Photographic Museum. She has received the prestigious Minnesota State Arts Board grant in 2012 and again in 2018 resulting in several solo shows. Funded again in 2021 by the state of Minnesota, she is currently working on a new body of portraits exploring ways to encourage reconnection in her own community after a time of isolation and unrest. Statement I strive to impact my community by creating authentic portraits that explore the universal themes that connect us as humans. My practice has been to live alongside a community and create connection with the people I photograph in hopes of presenting a meaningful image of a an individual to our larger collective community. I have completed several large, multi-year projects including At Risk, With Promise ; a series exploring the challenges and triumphs of at-risk youth in Minnesota. Over the course of this project I explored themes like marginalization and resilience, adolescence and personal growth, disconnection and intersecting identities. At Risk, With Promise culminated in a full and completed body of work that received recognition and was included in many local and national exhibitions. In 2018 with funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board, I began a new body of work exploring these and other themes in the context of several different communities, most significantly the elderly. Working closely with one woman, Rose Kaprelian, allowed me to dig deeper into the everyday realities of this nearly invisible marginalized group. As a nonagenarian in a culture increasingly connected by technologies that are foreign and largely inaccessible, women like Rose face isolation and stagnation as they age. This work is developing to encompass many universal themes from a unique perspective as well as preserving voices that are fading from our collective conversations. During the isolation and uprising in my city in 2020 I continued to make portraits as a way to document and explore the events that changed our world. From window portraits of those who were isolated to protest photos of those who marched, each image was an attempt to connect with my community and explore the changing landscape in which we found ourselves. I continue this exploration daily.
Anna Laza
Romania
"I started to be in photography about 15 years ago. At that time I used to model and participate in shootings. But quite quickly I got bored with posing and was becoming more curious to stand on the other side of the camera. So slowly, but certainly I started my own way in the big universe of photography. I have principles in my shootings and always keep in focus my own style. It’s very important for an artist to both keep his/her unique style and progress in it at the same time. When I shoot women I avoid sexualizing them and even photographing naked bodies there’ll be no sexual vision in the image, but sensual and sophisticated." Anna Laza is an influential visual artist working in Art and Fashion photography. Her projects are focused on finding new innovative styles both shooting and post-processing. Her work has been rewarded and been exhibited internationally, she has won in a number of famous photo contests, including LensCulture, MonoVisions and Minimalist Awards. She is often published in photography magazines and regularly appears on prestigious jury lists for photographic events. Besides her own photography, she is also a creator of the magazine FotoSlovo, which highlights every year new emerging talents in photography from Russia & CIS counties. Metaphysical Body Landscapes "My childhood I've spent at my grandmother's house in Romania, near the Carpathian Mountains. Seeing human's strong bond with the earth, observing nature, landscapes around influenced my understanding of earth beauty and men's connexion with it. All being is something whole, indivisible. Earth, sky, plants, fruits, mountains, rivers, men, women, day, night- all merged together and flow into each other. This process is infinite and harmonious. Men came from the earth, lives on earth and will return to earth. And landscapes of the earth are seen in body curves. Growing up I moved to live in big cities, my grandmother passed away and I felt the loss of spiritual connexion with nature. To reconnect, I start to search the Landscapes in body in my photography."
F. Bessma Rhea
United States
2002
F. Bessma Rhea is her father’s second-born daughter (first-born son), her mother’s last line of defense at the dinner table, and her sister’s favorite fun house mirror. She is the first person to speak in a crowded elevator and the last person to get a word in edgewise. Bessma has always been a big talker, but her preferred method of communication is using the visual language of photography. F. Bessma Rhea graduated from Montana State University in 2025, achieving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Integrated Lens Based Media from the School of Film and Photography. Although Bessma spent the last four and a half years in Bozeman, Montana, Bessma was born, raised, and is now currently residing in San Diego, California. Her photographic journey has encompassed an exploration of various mediums, ranging from silver gelatin prints and digital flash photography, to alternative process and chromogenic printing in the color darkroom. From this exploration she learned to cultivate her aesthetic, her relationship to photography, and to refine and utilize her voice. In her own reflection, she sees herself as a detective and a scientist, but to the outside world, she is an artist and a photographer. With her camera she will continue to investigate and theorize about the world she’s a part of, and where she fits in. But in the moments she’s not photographing, she enjoys filthy explicit music – and classic literature. Gutter Dutchess: I organize my environment in the frame and listen to when the world tells me I am a woman. I consider questions like, “How do I photograph a homewrecker?” and “What is inherently aggressive about a haircut?”. I desperately follow curiosity like the north star. GUTTER DUCHESS is a punk portrait series represented by twenty color film images of friends, best friends, my sister, my mother, myself, and moments in between. From doctor’s appointments to dumpster diving, I comprehend a women’s world through a lens that is candid, impulsive, crude, jovial, contrite, and desperate to reject assimilation to any one characteristic. As I photograph, I find myself constantly fighting with my images because I am a pessimistic, hotheaded, angry little person. However, in these photographs, I am continuously confronted with an abundance of love from the women in my life, who are proof of the untamable female spirit. This work is messy, unglamorous, and a raw exploration of womanhood. Favoring emotional truth over aesthetic polish, my series sprinkles clues of the fallacy of attempting feminine definition. Artist Philosophy Photography is a method of comprehension, I want to understand what is here. I have always been intrigued by the surreal but perhaps that comes from a bigger desire to turn the psyche outward, to make the invisible visible. I am driven by the ability to push the boundaries of sensation through the uncanny, visceral, and provocative. Visual arts is my language to answer life’s biggest questions. Every series is a conversation and if photography is to speak then a camera is the tongue. I have completely fallen in love with the medium, and without the tongue there is no voice.
Advertisement
AAP Magazine #59 Shapes
Win a Solo Exhibition in July
AAP Magazine #59 Shapes

Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Trevor Cole: Pastoral Peoples and Practices
For this interview, we wanted to focus specifically on The Face of the Mundari and the wider Pastoral Peoples and Practices series. We spoke with Trevor about his long-term work among the Mundari, what continues to draw him back to their cattle camps, and the experience of documenting a culture whose identity remains deeply connected to livestock, tradition, and the natural environment.
Exclusive Interview with Frank Meo
In our latest exclusive feature for All About Photo, I speak with veteran photography representative Frank Meo about what it truly takes to build a sustainable creative career today. Frank brings decades of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, major agencies, and documentary photographers to the table. We dive into the critical business skills often left out of art school curriculums, the power of mentorship, and the inspiring evolution of PROJECTIONS—his international salon platform for visual storytellers. It’s an essential read for anyone navigating the commercial or editorial photography landscape today.
Exclusive Interview with Carolyn Moore
American photographer Carolyn Moore explores the inner landscape of emotion, memory, and personal transformation through a deeply intuitive photographic practice. Her work unfolds as a quiet dialogue between artist and viewer, where images become a space for reflection, vulnerability, and connection.
Exclusive Interview with Luca Desienna and Laura Estelle Barmwoldt
For over seven years, Of Lilies and Remains has explored the depths of the goth and darkwave underground, unfolding in Leipzig—a city long associated with a vibrant and enduring subcultural scene. Moving between iconic gatherings such as Wave-Gotik-Treffen and more intimate moments on the fringes, the project offers a rare and immersive glimpse into a world often misunderstood, yet rich in expression and community. Created by Luca in collaboration with Laura Estelle Barmwoldt, the work embraces a cinematic and deeply personal approach. Rather than documenting from a distance, it moves within the scene itself, capturing its atmosphere, its codes, and its quiet contradictions. The title Of Lilies and Remains hints at this duality—where beauty and darkness, fragility and strength coexist. As the book prepares for its release, we spoke with both artists about the origins of the project, their process, and what it means to document a subculture that continues to evolve while remaining true to its spirit.
Exclusive Interview with Matthew Finley
American photographer Matthew Finley turns inward, using photography as a way to explore identity, memory, and emotional truth. Based in Los Angeles, his practice moves between performance, gesture, and found imagery, creating a visual language that is both intimate and deeply personal
Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Dutch photographer Jan Janssen explores universal human experiences through his long-term project It Matters, winner of the May 2025 Solo Exhibition. Begun in 2016, the series captures intimate moments of everyday life—love, loss, connection, and belonging—across Central and Eastern Europe. Working in countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, Janssen spends extended time within communities, building relationships based on trust and respect. His approach allows him to move beyond observation, revealing deeply human and authentic moments. Rooted in travel and personal discovery, It Matters reflects Janssen’s search for what connects us all in an increasingly divided world. The project is ongoing and will culminate in a photobook scheduled for publication in 2026.
Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
German photographer Henk Kosche turns his lens toward the streets of Halle an der Saale, capturing everyday life in the late years of the former German Democratic Republic. At the time, Kosche was studying design and exploring the city with his camera, drawn to the atmosphere of its industrial landscape and the quiet rhythms of daily life. His series Street Photography at the End of the 80s, selected as the Solo Exhibition for July 2025, revisits a body of work created just before a period of profound change. Rediscovered decades later in a small box of 35mm negatives, these photographs offer glimpses of a city and its people at a moment suspended between the familiar and the unknown.
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.
Call for Entries
Win A Solo Exhibition in July
Get International Exposure and Connect with Industry Insiders