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Sarah Ketelaars
Sarah Ketelaars
Sarah Ketelaars

Sarah Ketelaars

Country: United Kingdom

Sarah Ketelaars is a British photographer from Brighton, UK. She has a BA and an MA degree in English Literature from Jesus College, Cambridge, an MSc in Social Science from the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and a Diploma in photography from City College, Brighton. She began her career as a journalist and her images have appeared on book, CD and magazine cover. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented by Trevillion Images & Getty, and by 35 North Gallery in Brighton. In 2021 she was selected as one of the Lensculture Critics’ Choice winners for her project ‘Windows’ shot during lockdown in Houston, Texas and in 2024 she was selected as a finalist for her project ‘The 544’ in the Lensculture Art Photography Awards.


The 544
This ongoing project is a memorial to 544 psychiatric patients murdered by the Nazis in 1941 in Latvia. The figurative images I’ve made are all cyanotypes. Eventually there will be one for each man, woman and child killed.

My grandmother was working at the hospital from where the patients were taken. I have visited the hospital and found that although the story is known no memorial exists. The only official record seems to be a short paragraph in the Nuremberg report. So far I have found no record of the names.

Using a historic photographic process feels fitting for a project examining a historical event. An ancient pagan Latvian folk symbol is drawn on by hand in gold ink to each piece.

It is impossible for me to look at these images without thinking about how the lives of these people ended. However, the project is primarily intended as a memorial. I wanted the images to hint at some more celebratory moments, to remember the lives lived before these people entered the hospital; before they died. Not knowing anything about the identities of the dead, I have tried to imagine each one as a unique, precious being, and give each back a little of the character stripped from them when they were murdered and reduced by history to a number on a list of nameless victims.

The project is the second in a trilogy looking at my family history, examining themes of cultural inheritance, identity and intergenerational trauma.

Agencies

Trevillion Images

Getty Images

Gallery

35 North Gallery

Exhibition

The 544

Websites

www.sarahketelaars.com

@sarahketelaars

 

Inspiring Portfolios

Marjolein Martinot
© Marjolein Martinot
Jackson Patterson
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Nanda Hagenaars
© Nanda Hagenaars
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Barbara De Vries
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The Dutch artist Barbara de Vries studied at the Rietveldacademie and the St. Joostacademie graphic art, industrial design and theater design. Although she worked with several famous theatres, Barbara finally got specialised in photography. The atmosphere in her work is a midway between fantasy and reality. Her images are mostly blurred, out of focus, with glimpses of reality. The Dutch curator Maarten Bertheux wrote as follow about her work. ‘Work of Francis Bacon and Marlene Dumas are relevant for the work of Barbara de Vries. Her work contain of digital reworked photographic material printed on Japanese paper. She combines and deforms her images in order to create her layered images. When she uses soft contours it brings in mind an aquarellist way of painting, a style De Vries used frequently before she started to use the computer as a tool in her photographic work. Her background as a stage designer has also influenced her actual work. This experience appears in the theatrical and dramatic setting and in the way she manipulates the light. In the photographic work there can be clear definition of space, but equally she uses an indistinct space that can vary from a sfumato-like space to a space where figures seem to float in. The figures are constructed out of several limbs and elements that are reconstructed in a new way, creating a new figuration. It seems as it is De Vries’ capability to creep under the skin of her model and analyzing the basic psycho logic characteristics’. Barbara de Vries' photography evoke feelings of hope, desire and consolation. Source: Morren Galleries
George Dian Balan
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The "Art of the Chopper" exhibition traveled to the Appleton Art Museum in Ocala, Florida and to Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. Tom's most recent venture is a startup dedicated to creating the first data-driven marketplace for commercial and editorial photography. Zimberoff was born in Los Angeles in 1951 to a family with three grown siblings already a generation older - "like growing up with five parents," he says. His mother owned a boutique in Las Vegas, during the 50s and 60s; and his father was a musician who played the Vegas hotel orchestras that backed up Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Bobby Darrin et al. Young "Tommy" grew up in Las Vegas, returning to California, on and off, to live with his older sister and two years in military school), finally leaving Las Vegas for his senior year at Beverly Hills High School when his parents retired. Then he received his music scholarship to USC. 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Peyman Naderi
Peyman Naderi
Iran
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Peyman Naderi is a Persian contemporary fine art and portrait photographer born in 1990. He is a self-taught photographer who started his first professional projects in the year 2013. As he began his career as a professional photographer, his first motto was to create original and creative photos through which his own perceptions of the world and art could be understood. Also, he is eager to represent a unique way of looking at various concepts in the world. "Concept" is one of the most important parts of his photography projects, and Peyman tries to spend enough time and energy on finding the right concept. To create and discover the right idea he usually listen to classical music during his free time or at nights. Such high-quality music can inspire him and help him to concentrate on finding ways to present the world in ways that he sees. Besides, the colors that he uses in his photos create the illusion of a painting, and, hence, most people usually mistake his works as paintings. 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His work has been published in international publications including Harper's Bazaar Magazine and The Exhibition was In Ontario, 2019 CONTACT Photography Festival and Also The Last Exhibition was in France, 2019 Voies Off, Galerie Des Arènes. Statement My name is Peyman Naderi, and I am a contemporary Persian fine art and portrait photographer. I am a self-taught photographer who started his first professional projects in the year 2013. As I began my career as a professional photographer, my first moto was to create original and creative photos through which my own perceptions of the world and art could be understood. Also, I am eager to represent a unique way of looking to various concepts in the world. My first experience as a subject of portrait photography was quite funny though. I remember that I was only six years old, and I was terrified by seeing various equipment and cameras. Trying to make me calmer, the photographer gave me a toy camera to play with while sitting on the chair. This memory, somehow, triggered my curiosity and interest in this art. I bought my first camera years later, in 2010, and started to take photos of my friends and family members. The more I got engaged in this art, the more I found out about my artistic talents and the passion I have for photography. I remember that I used to go to a burnt cotton factory located on the outskirt of Tehran, my hometown. Although the fire had ruined almost everything in the factory, a small hall with a high ceiling and golden walls was left intact. When I first entered this building, seeing this magnificent scenery inside a totally destroyed and abandoned building took my breath away and provoked my first fine art ideas inside me. As I started my first project, I used to go to this place every day to try different photography techniques and become master in them. Then, I started studio photography to learn about various lighting techniques. I tried to include my own ideas and perceptions here, and manipulate the lighting based on my perceptions and concepts. Winning the silver medal in the Victor Polynsky competition for one of my photos called Oblivion, further increased my self-confidence and my persistence in photography. In the years after that, I won several awards in many competitions like Moscow International Foto Awards, Chromatic Awards, ND Awards, Tokyo International Foto Awards, PX3 and IPA, and I had my works published in various international magazines. "Concept" is one of the most important parts of my photography projects, and I try to spend enough time and energy on finding the right concept. To create and discover the right idea I usually listen to classical music during my free time or at nights. Such high-quality music can inspire me and help me to concentrate on finding ways to present the world in ways that I see. Besides, the colors that I use in my photos create the illusion of a painting, and, hence, most people usually mistake my works as paintings. In this project, I tried to exhibit the mind and though barriers that humans face. To fully present my idea I decided to use handmade metals and natural flowers, and then I tried to expand my idea to show both emancipation and captivity at the same time. Also, I have been attempting to display my own viewpoint in all of my works and to enable the viewer to connect with the world that I see. I genuinely hope to create a permanent path in the art of photography inspire other talented and hardworking artists. AAP Competitions All About Photo Awards 2020 AAP Magazine 10 Portrait
Julien Coomans
Julien Coomans
Belgium
Julien Coomans is a Brussels based amateur photographer with a passion for photographing the natural world. He is a highly artistic individual which led him to pursue a career as an Architect. In his free time he loves to explore his artistic side through the medium of photography and has been commended for his images in several photographic publications. ​ Through experimenting with his camera settings and techniques, Julien seeks to capture scenes of tranquillity and minimalism in a bid to counter the hustle and bustle of his daily city life. ​ He travels widely in Europe, whether it be to the expansive northern beaches of Flanders or the rugged mountains of northern Italy, Julien is happiest when at one with nature. His camera is simply an excuse to get out there, discover beautiful places and capture stunning images. Fishing Huts, Fouras, France I traveled to Fouras on the west coast of France to photograph some unusual but picturesque fishing huts that are dotted along the coast line. Central to my vision was to take a series of long exposures in order to set a tranquil scene and emphasise the elegant wooden structures. The first day was miserable - windy and a lot of rain - yet despite this I was amazed by the beauty of the huts. Undeterred, I used my time to study the scene and find my compositions, ready to pounce when conditions were just right. The hardest part about finding the right compositions was avoiding stretches of land on the horizon as the bay curves quite dramatically. I had to find the perfect balance between fishing hut, weather conditions and the horizon line beyond. After finding my compositions my next challenge was to watch out for the tide times. I had to shoot as the tide was going out not only to physically be able to take the shot but to be sure I was safe. On the second day the conditions improved and I had my window between outgoing and incoming tides. The wind had died down making the water much calmer which was better as I could keep the exposure down to a few minutes to try and improve my chance of avoiding any tripod wobble. After shooting my pre-scouted compositions and checking the LCD screen for sharpness I packed up and went for a well earned beer!
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
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Publication
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.
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Exclusive Interview with Matthew Finley
Interview
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
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Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Interview
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.
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Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
Interview
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.
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Exclusive Interview with Anastasia Samoylova
Interview
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.
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Exclusive Interview with Marijn Fidder
Interview
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.
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