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Amir Appel
Amir Appel
Amir Appel

Amir Appel

Country: Israel
Birth: 1965

My name is Amir Appel, living in Israel and doing street photography as a hobby for the last 10 years. An electronic engineer as a profession. Running in the streets, I try to find the contrasts that exists in Israel between the different communities, and if I get a smile out of it, it’s even better.

Always have to have at least one person captured (a single person is boring…) and I am trying to capture it in some action. Mostly shooting with flash to add more details to the image.
 

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Hyun De Grande
South Korea/Belgium
1987
My name is Hyun De Grande. I was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1987 and I was adopted to Belgium when I was around 4 months old. I grew up in a small town called Oostkamp together with my parents and my brother, who is also adopted. At the age of 15, I started studying film and photography at the Art Academy in Bruges, which was my introduction to both artforms. After two more years of studying film at the School of Arts in Ghent, I moved to Brussels in 2008 to specialize in cinematography at the RITCS. I'm still residing in Brussels, and I currently work as a cinematographer in the narrative and commercial fields. Street photography is a passion to which I love devoting my energy to in between jobs. It's obvious that my cinematography background has heavily influenced my photography style, yet I try to approach things in a different way when I'm taking pictures compared to shooting a movie. It's mainly much more personal because I don't share the creative process with other people, which allows me to explore themes that are closer to myself as a person. Statement As a photographer I'm very fascinated by the feelings of loneliness, isolation and/or alienation because they strongly resonate with me personally. Perhaps it can be back-tracked to my adoption, which has created a sense of never really feeling at home anywhere I go, and therefore these emotions have always been a big part of my life. Esthetically, I'm mainly looking for clear shapes and lines as an arena for my subjects, both coming from light and/or architecture. I feel that the solidity of these shapes enhances the fragility of the people portrayed within these lines. Trapped or lost in a cold and unforgiving environment. I also love working in a wider frame as it allows me to use that extra horizontal space to evoke emptiness. I find it interesting to utilize the surroundings of my characters to create emotional context, even when these surroundings are blank or abstract. I use a 2:1 ratio on all of my photographs, which stems from my cinematography background.
Giandomenico Veneziani
My name is Giandomenico Veneziani. I am an Italian photographer. I approached photography from a young age. I have learned over time the techniques and the infinite possibilities of artistic creation. Photographic experimentation finds ample expression during my travels. I was inspired by people, their stories, faces, emotions. Photography for me is an important means of sharing feelings and stories of the people I photograph. I take inspiration mainly from painting, books and films. I also studied the most important photographers who made the history of photography. I really like portraits and fashion photography. I try to make unique and unconventional shots giving my portraits a cinematic vision. Bringing my point of view to the public eye is my main goal. Getting someone into my inner world is something extraordinary just as photography is extraordinary. In every shot there is my person, my fragility, my emotions. I love photographing people and interacting with them drawing their essence through the photographic medium. My greatest gratification is being told "I feel beautiful because I am just like that". These shots represent me and also the photographed subject. Portrait photography is the testimony of an encounter, in fact the photographer's task is to guide the person so that she is able to bring out herself. Establishing a relationship of trust between the artist and the photographed subject leads to the creation of a connection that enriches both, since in the realization of a photographic project the fundamental element is to create a path whose journey is carried out side by side between photographer and model. I really like using artificial lights to create the right atmosphere. I take great pleasure in presenting my projects that deviate from a usual reality, which everyone sees. Sometimes it is very distorted, I represent parallel and imaginary visions and worlds belonging to a dystopian future. I like it for this because it is different and the different is beautiful because it is unique.
Navid Memar
Iran
1996
Navid Memar is a Tehran-based artist who has had experience as an director and designer. He is working on post-dramatic and space-making in art. His main interest in art is on illustrating base. Navid Memar is working in different tendencies such as architecture, visual arts like collage, sculpture, short film, video art, and theatre. He has had many influences from Romeo Castellucci, and he produces his own plays about the theatre ideology of Romeo Castellocci. Of course, in combination with Iranian elements and his personal ideology from "amata studio". He spent his childhood and youth in Kashan and has a special interest in Iran's history and native culture and Iranian writers. He is studying directing in Tehran University Fine arts. In 2015 he established a studio named Amata. Since then he starts his professional work. Statement " 'افلا تتفکرون' means 'Do you not think?' It is a part of a Quranic verse. This name invites the audience to think independently in each frame, regardless of the overall issue of the collection. And each audience can build their mental world according to the signs they see in the photo. 'افلا تتفکرون' collection is the narrative of creation through paintings related to each event in a historic men's public bath that has been turned into a museum. Baths are in direct contact with the body. My approach to the narrative of creation has been a combination of the views of Islam and Christianity in this regard. In this collection, a look is taken at the issue of women's absence in the first Qajar family photos, as an example of which I have addressed the issue of women's absence in public baths. The alternative was a baby girl instead of a wife / Eve. In most frames, the presence of paintings helps to narrate and emphasize the signs. And give us this It informs that the problem of creation has been repeated again and again and this process will continue." -- Navid Memar
Sam Heydt
United States
1986
Sam Heydt (born April 20, 1986) is an American social practice and recycled media artist born/raised in New York City. She has lived/worked in Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Athens, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Reykjavík, Udaipur and Vienna [current]. As a published author, producer and lifelong social activist and environmentalist, Heydt has undertaken a range of altruistic, non­-profit work and anchors her practice in advocacy. Through her unique manner of expression, she illustrates a world exploited beyond use and increasingly reduced to a bottom line. Esteemed as one of the pioneers of the recycled media movement, she works across different media- film, video, installation, photography, sculpture, sound and text and employs a range of materials, often reinventing and trespassing their associative use. Marrying images of destruction with portrayals of the American Dream, her work confronts the disillusionment of our time with the ecological and existential nightmare it is responsible for. Heydt's work has been shown in galleries, museums, art fairs and film festivals worldwide. Statement The edge is closer than we think, but illusion won't free us from reality, even as the sustained narrative of tabloids becomes history and the myth of progress continues to perpetuate inequality. As the natural world is liquidated and substituted with an artificial one, public discourse is being defined by even narrower bandwidths Our time is marked by mass extinction, product fetishism, diminishing resources, and patented seeds. The skeletons of old factories serve as caveats for a world exploited beyond use, a world increasingly reduced to a bottom line. Dissidence is drowned out by the white noise of the media, which holds the social psyche captive in with the empty promises it proposes for the future it truncates. Working across different media- film, video, installation, photography, sculpture, sound and text, Heydt presents an abstract proposition for a world on the periphery of history, one that not only appears haunted by the ghosts of the past, but built on it. Conflating time and place, her layered imagery collides, merges and disrupts logical relationships between occurrences. Through adding and subtracting meaning by combining images of destruction with portrayals of the virtues born from the American Dream, Heydt confronts the disillusionment of our time with the ecological and existential nightmare it is responsible for.
Mischa Lluch
Spain
1974
I was born in Madrid and grew up surrounded by film and television, gaining early access to sets that fueled my passion for visual storytelling. My professional journey began by assisting photographers, which laid the foundation for my career behind the camera. Over the years, I honed my skills in various roles within the camera department for film and advertising, eventually establishing myself as a director of photography. As a cinematographer, I have had the privilege of shooting several feature films and hundreds of commercials, traveling to over forty countries. My work has been recognized at prestigious events such as the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and the Goya Awards, Spain’s highest honor in cinema. Photography remains my passion and a medium for profound creative exploration, enabling me to use my voice in the art of the still image. Fading will be the first project to come to life from a series I began in 2008, inspired by the theme of broken dreams. It suggests a world crumbling under the relentless pressure to keep up, capturing the melancholic beauty of impermanence and the delicate fragility of persistence. STATEMENT: Fading is a subjective view of the American suburb, challenging the perceived ideal of life. The project delves into the emotional landscape of faded worlds, inviting viewers on an introspective journey. I use cinematic visual language to shape the narrative of this project, which aims to open the door to fiction within reality. It is an external gaze that seeks to reveal the invisible. I capture the San Francisco South Bay Area until I lose myself, driven by the obsession to find an image that captures the moment things fade, becoming a broken dream. The concept of absence, almost dystopian, serves as a mirror, inviting viewers to explore the hidden layers of suburban life.
Samantha VanDeman
United States
1982
Samantha was born in Chicago, IL. She received a BFA in Fine Art from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA in Visual Arts from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. During the summer of 2003, Samantha studied drawing at Santa Repararta International School of Art in Florence, Italy. Her work has been published and exhibited in the United States and abroad. Samantha lives and works in Chicago, IL. Born in 1982, Samantha VanDeman grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. She studied fine arts at Columbia College Chicago, receiving a BFA in 2005. During her last year in college, she took a B+W photography class and found her passion. From that point on, she started to actively documenting everything around her. In 2007, she returned to college, this time to earn a MFA in photography from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University in 2009. It was during her time at the low residency program at AIB, that she was able to have independent studies with artists such as Anne Wilson, Mayumi Lake, Jeanne Dunning, and Laura Letinsky. Samantha has exhibited her work nationally. Her work has been exhibited at Emory Visual Arts Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Finch and Ada, NY; New Orleans Photo Alliance Gallery, New Orleans, LA; Las Manos Gallery, Chicago, IL; Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA; Midwest center for Photography, Wichita, KS; Gallery 808, Boston, MA; Change Artist Space, San Francisco, CA; Perspective Gallery, Evanston, IL; Barrett Art Center Galleries, Poughkeepsie, NY; Fourth Wall Projects in Boston, MA; The Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO; Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, OR; Black Box Gallery, Portland, OR; Texas Photographic Society, San Antonio, TX ; Wright Museum of Art in Beloit, WI and Review Santa Fe 100. Samantha VanDeman is adjunct faculty at The Art Institute of Illinois in Tinley Park, IL. All about Samantha VanDeman:AAP: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?My last year as an undergraduate at Columbia College Chicago, I took a Black and white photography class. It was then I knew I wanted to be a photographer. Up until that point, I wanted to be a painter. AAP: Where did you study photography? I studied photography at The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. During my time at The Art Institute of Boston, I had independent studies with Laura Letinsky, Jeanne Dunning, Anne Wilson and Mayumi Lake.AAP:Do you have a mentor?Laura Letinksy has been a friend/mentor since 2008 AAP: How long have you been a photographer?10 yearsAAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?My first shot was of rotten fruit.AAP: What or who inspires you?I’m inspired by silence, decay, kindness and long road trips. Artists who inspire me are Jenny Saville, Edward Hopper, Sally Mann and Fiona Apple.AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film?Canon 5DAAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images?I do minimal editing.AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?Sally Mann, Angela Strassheim, Nan Goldin and Corrine DayAAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?Find your own voice and follow your gut. Your best work will come from the projects you are most passionate about.AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid?Trying too hard to be different or copying another photographer’s styleAAP: An idea, a sentence, a project you would like to share?I’m currently working on a project called “Died Alone”. This project explores abandoned living spaces of people that died alone in their home.AAP: Your best memory has a photographer?My fondest memory: The first time I explored the abandoned – now demolished Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago. I had never explored an abandoned place before Michael Reese Hospital, so it opened up a whole new world for me.AAP: If you could have taken the photographs of someone else who would it be?Weegee or Walker Evans
Angela Fisher
United States
Thirty years of work on the African continent have carried Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher across 270,000 miles and through remote corners of 40 countries in exploration of more than 150 African cultures. In the process, this team of world-renowned photographers has produced fourteen widely acclaimed books and made four films about traditional Africa. They have been granted unprecedented access to African tribal rites and rituals and continue to be honored worldwide for their powerful photographs documenting the traditional ceremonies of cultures thousands of years old. As an intrepid team of explorers, they are committed to preserving sacred tribal ceremonies and African cultural traditions all too vulnerable to the trends of modernity. The Beckwith-Fisher images are the result of a long, enduring and deeply respectful relationship with African tribal peoples. This, combined with their photographic skills, creates an intimate portrayal of ceremonies long held secret that might have never been recorded. Their work preserves and presents the power, complexity and celebration found within the rituals of African tribal life. Their extraordinary photographs are recorded in fourteen best-selling books and in their films. Their new book “Painted Bodies” (2012) follows “Maasai” (1980), “Nomads of Niger” (1983), “Africa Adorned” (1984), “African Ark” (1990), “African Ceremonies” (1999), “Passages” (2000), “Faces of Africa” (2004), “Lamu: Kenya’s Enchanted Island” (2009), and “Dinka” (2010). The special limited-edition books, hand printed in Santiago, Chile, are titled “Surma,” “Karo,” “Maasai,” and “Dinka.” “African Ceremonies,” their defining body of work, is a double volume, pan-African study of rituals and rites of passage from birth to death, covering 93 ceremonies from 26 countries. This book won the United Nations Award for Excellence for “vision and understanding of the role of cultural traditions in the pursuit of world peace.” Honored twice with the Annisfield-Wolf Book Award in race relations for “outstanding contributions to the understanding of cultural diversity and prejudice,” Angela and Carol are also winners of the Royal Geographical Society of London’s Cherry Kearton Medal for their contribution to the photographic recording of African ethnography and ritual. The photographers have made four films about traditional Africa, including Way of the Wodaabe (1986), The Painter and the Fighter, and two programs for the Millennium Series Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World. Numerous exhibitions of their photography and films have been shown in museums and galleries around the world. In 2000 their Passages exhibition opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art featuring 97 mural photographs, six video films and a selection of African masks, sculpture and jewelry. This exhibition has traveled to seven museums on three continents. Aware that traditional cultures in Africa are fast disappearing, Carol and Angela are working with an urgency to complete the third volume of their ongoing study of African Ceremonies with the goal of covering the remaining traditional ceremonies in the 13 African cultures in which they have not yet worked. Source: carolbeckwith-angelafisher.com
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