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Paul Coghlin
Paul Coghlin
Paul Coghlin

Paul Coghlin

Country: United Kingdom
Birth: 1967

Growing-up near southern England's beautiful New Forest and coast, Paul Coghlin developed an interest in creative photography from a young age, regularly travelling out with a camera to capture the natural surroundings.

Now based in eastern England, the award-winning photographer has continued to expand his creative style across a range of subjects, with his images regularly appearing in exhibitions and international publications, and is a Fellow of the British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP).

In 2011, Paul's work was also selected for the high profile “Wild Aid Auction” in San Francisco and for the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts' “Summer Exhibition” in London. At the beginning of 2013, Paul released his largest body of work to date: "Petalum", a series of thirty stunning black and white botanical studies, featuring the fine-art photographer's distinctive style and attention to subtle detail.

In addition to his photographic qualifications, Paul also holds a BSc(Hons) Degree in Environmental Science from Plymouth University and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Remote Sensing (Earth imaging/Photogrammetry) from University College London/Imperial College.
 

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Robert Frank
Switzerland/United States
1924 | † 2019
Robert Frank was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century." Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage. I’m always looking outside, trying to look inside. Trying to say something that is true. But maybe nothing is really true. Except what’s out there. And what’s out there is always changing. -- Robert Frank Frank was born in Zürich, Switzerland, the son of Rosa (Zucker) and Hermann Frank. His family was Jewish. Robert states in Gerald Fox's 2004 documentary Leaving Home, Coming Home that his mother, Rosa (other sources state her name as Regina), had a Swiss passport, while his father, Hermann originating from Frankfurt, Germany had become stateless after losing his German citizenship as a Jew. They had to apply for Swiss citizenship for Robert and his older brother, Manfred. Though Frank and his family remained safe in Switzerland during World War II, the threat of Nazism nonetheless affected his understanding of oppression. He turned to photography, in part as a means to escape the confines of his business-oriented family and home, and trained under a few photographers and graphic designers before he created his first hand-made book of photographs, 40 Fotos, in 1946. Frank emigrated to the United States in 1947 and secured a job in New York City as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar. In 1949, the new editor of Camera magazine, Walter Laubli (1902-1991), published a substantial portfolio of Jakob Tuggener pictures made at upper-class entertainments and in factories, alongside the work of the 25-year-old Frank who had just returned to his native Switzerland after two years abroad, with pages including some of his first pictures from New York. The magazine promoted the two as representatives of the 'new photography' of Switzerland. Tuggener was a role model for the younger artist, first mentioned to him by Frank's boss and mentor, Zurich commercial photographer Michael Wolgensinger (1913-1990) who understood that Frank was unsuited to the more mercenary application of the medium. Tuggener, as a serious artist who had left the commercial world behind, was the "one Frank really did love, from among all Swiss photographers," according to Guido Magnaguagno and Fabrik, as a photo book, was a model for Frank's Les Américains ('The Americans') published ten years later in Paris by Delpire, in 1958. He soon left to travel in South America and Europe. He created another hand-made book of photographs that he shot in Peru, and returned to the U.S. in 1950. That year was momentous for Frank, who, after meeting Edward Steichen, participated in the group show 51 American Photographers at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); he also married fellow artist Mary Frank née Mary Lockspeiser, with whom he had two children, Andrea and Pablo. Though he was initially optimistic about the United States' society and culture, Frank's perspective quickly changed as he confronted the fast pace of American life and what he saw as an overemphasis on money. He now saw America as an often bleak and lonely place, a perspective that became evident in his later photography. Frank's own dissatisfaction with the control that editors exercised over his work also undoubtedly colored his experience. He continued to travel, moving his family briefly to Paris. In 1953, he returned to New York and continued to work as a freelance photojournalist for magazines including McCall's, Vogue, and Fortune. Associating with other contemporary photographers such as Saul Leiter and Diane Arbus, he helped form what Jane Livingston has termed The New York School of photographers (not to be confused with the New York School of art) during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1955, Frank achieved further recognition with the inclusion by Edward Steichen of seven of his photographs (many more than most other contributors) in the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man that was to be seen by 9 million visitors and with a popular catalog that is still in print. Frank's contributions had been taken in Spain (of a woman kissing her swaddled babe-in-arms); of a bowed old woman in Peru; a rheumy-eyed miner in Wales; and the others in England and the US, including two (one atypically soft-focus) of his wife in pregnancy; and one (later to be included in The Americans) of six laughing women in the window of the White Tower Hamburger Stand on Fourteenth Street, New York City. The truth is somewhere between the documentary and the fictional, and that is what I try to show. What is real one moment has become imaginary the next. You believe what you see now, and the next second you don’t anymore. -- Robert Frank Inspired by fellow Swiss Jakob Tuggener's 1943 book Fabrik, Bill Brandt's The English at Home (1936), and Walker Evans's American Photographs (1938), and on the recommendation of Evans (a previous recipient), Alexey Brodovitch, Alexander Leiberman, Edward Steichen, and Meyer Schapiro, Frank secured a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1955 to travel across the United States and photograph all strata of its society. Cities he visited included Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan; Savannah, Georgia; Miami Beach and St. Petersburg, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Butte, Montana; and Chicago, Illinois. He took his family along with him for part of his series of road trips over the next two years, during which time he took 28,000 shots. 83 of these were selected by him for publication in The Americans. Frank's journey was not without incident. He later recalled the anti-Semitism to which he was subject in a small Arkansas town. "I remember the guy [policeman] took me into the police station, and he sat there and put his feet on the table. It came out that I was Jewish because I had a letter from the Guggenheim Foundation. They really were primitive." He was told by the sheriff, "Well, we have to get somebody who speaks Yiddish." ... "They wanted to make a thing out of it. It was the only time it happened on the trip. They put me in jail. It was scary. Nobody knew where I was." Elsewhere in the South, he was told by a sheriff that he had "an hour to leave town." Those incidents may have contributed to the dark view of America found in the work. Shortly after returning to New York in 1957, Frank met Beat writer Jack Kerouac "at a New York party where poets and Beatniks were," and showed him the photographs from his travels. However, according to Joyce Johnson, Kerouac's lover at the time, she met Frank while waiting for Kerouac to emerge from a conference with his editors, at Viking Press, looked at Frank's portfolio, and introduced them to each other. Kerouac immediately told Frank, "Sure I can write something about these pictures." He eventually contributed the introduction to the U.S. edition of The Americans. Frank also became lifelong friends with Allen Ginsberg, and was one of the main visual artists to document the Beat subculture, which felt an affinity with Frank's interest in documenting the tensions between the optimism of the 1950s and the realities of class and racial differences. The irony that Frank found in the gloss of American culture and wealth over this tension gave his photographs a clear contrast to those of most contemporary American photojournalists, as did his use of unusual focus, low lighting, and cropping that deviated from accepted photographic techniques. This divergence from contemporary photographic standards gave Frank difficulty at first in securing an American publisher. Les Américains was first published in 1958 by Robert Delpire in Paris, as part of its Encyclopédie Essentielle series, with texts by Simone de Beauvoir, Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner, Henry Miller and John Steinbeck that Delpire positioned opposite Frank's photographs. It was finally published in 1959 in the United States, without the texts, by Grove Press, where it initially received substantial criticism. Popular Photography, for one, derided his images as "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness." Though sales were also poor at first, the fact that the introduction was by the popular Kerouac helped it reach a larger audience. Over time and through the inspiration of later artists, The Americans became a seminal work in American photography and art history, and is the work with which Frank is most clearly identified. In 1961, Frank received his first individual show, entitled Robert Frank: Photographer, at the Art Institute of Chicago. He also showed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1962. By the time The Americans was published in the United States in 1959, Frank had moved away from photography to concentrate on filmmaking. Among his films was the 1959 Pull My Daisy, which was written and narrated by Kerouac and starred Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and others from the Beat circle. The Beats emphasized spontaneity, and the film conveyed the quality of having been thrown together or even improvised. Pull My Daisy was accordingly praised for years as an improvisational masterpiece, until Frank's co-director, Alfred Leslie, revealed in a November 28, 1968 article in the Village Voice that the film was actually carefully planned, rehearsed, and directed by him and Frank, who shot the film with professional lighting. Though Frank continued to be interested in film and video, he returned to still images in the 1970s, publishing his second photographic book, The Lines of My Hand, in 1972. This work has been described as a "visual autobiography", and consists largely of personal photographs. However, he largely gave up "straight" photography to instead create narratives out of constructed images and collages, incorporating words and multiple frames of images that were directly scratched and distorted on the negatives. None of this later work has achieved an impact comparable to that of The Americans. As some critics have pointed out, this is perhaps because Frank began playing with constructed images more than a decade after Robert Rauschenberg introduced his silkscreen composites—in contrast to The Americans, Frank's later images simply were not beyond the pale of accepted technique and practice by that time. Frank and Mary separated in 1969. He remarried, to sculptor June Leaf, and in 1971, moved to the community of Mabou, Nova Scotia in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in Canada. In 1974, his daughter, Andrea, was killed in a plane crash in Tikal, Guatemala. Also around this time, his son, Pablo, was first hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia. Much of Frank's subsequent work dealt with the impact of the loss of both his daughter and subsequently his son, who died in an Allentown, Pennsylvania hospital in 1994. In 1995, in memory of his daughter, he founded the Andrea Frank Foundation, which provides grants to artists. After his move to Nova Scotia, Canada, Frank divided his time between his home there, in a former fisherman's shack on the coast, and his Bleecker Street loft in New York. He acquired a reputation for being a recluse (particularly since the death of Andrea), declining most interviews and public appearances. He continued to accept eclectic assignments, however, such as photographing the 1984 Democratic National Convention and directing music videos for artists such as New Order ("Run"), and Patti Smith ("Summer Cannibals"). Frank produced both films and still images, and helped organize several retrospectives of his art. His work has been represented by Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York since 1984. In 1994, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. presented the most comprehensive retrospective of Frank's work to date, entitled Moving Out. Frank died on September 9, 2019, at his home in Nova Scotia.Source: Wikipedia I have been frequently accused of deliberately twisting subject matter to my point of view. Above all, I know that life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love. It is important to see what is invisible to others—perhaps the look of hope or the look of sadness. Also it is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph. -- Robert Frank
Nikos Economopoulos
Nikos Economopoulos (b.1953) is a Greek photographer known for his photography of the Balkans and of Greece in particular. Born in Kalamata, Economopoulos studied law at university and worked as a journalist. He only started taking photographs at 25 when a friend in Italy showed him a book of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, which had an impact that was both instant and lasting. Cartier-Bresson "showed me a new way to see things... What I saw in his work was not only geometry and composition, but a kind of ambiguity." Economopoulos recalls that even then he did not start photography for over two years but instead bought photography books. Then he started photography: "I never photographed sunrises or made souvenir pictures of my children. For about eight or nine years I photographed at weekends and during my holidays, always in a serious way, working from morning to night." As early as 1984, Economopoulos says, "it bothered me ideologically that Greeks and Turks were enemies", and he visited Turkey to take photographs. "No Greek at that time would go to Turkey on holiday", he writes, and his Greek friends were incredulous; but Economopoulos quickly felt at home in Turkey, where the atmosphere "was exactly the same as when I was a kid in the 1960s." (Much later, he would add that Greece and western Turkey had replaced tavernas with McDonald's, while east Turkey still preserved the values of the past.) In 1988, Economopoulos finished work as a journalist and set off on a two-year photographic survey of Greece and Turkey. Nikos Economopoulos was encouraged to join Magnum Photos by the Greek-American photographer Costa Manos, and became an associate member in 1990 and, after his work in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and the former Yugoslavia, a full member in 1994. His early work won him the 1992 Mother Jones Award for Documentary Photography. In 1993, Frank Viviano, who had first met Economopoulos in Timișoara just after the fall of Nicolae Ceauşescu, wrote that: "Economopoulos says his intention is to document the existence of what he calls the 'Balkan Man': to knit together the skeins of a collective identity in a region whose historical convulsions have made its name a synonym for implacable differences. It would appear to be a fool's errand. But almost anyone who has crossed the madman's web of frontiers and borders that stretches over the Balkans, from Istanbul to the Italian border, is likely to agree with Economopoulos's premise — and to recognize, in his work, the contradictions that sum up Balkan truth." With support from the Little Brothers of the Poor, in 1994 Economopoulos photographed gypsies in Greece, and in 1995–96 lignite miners and Muslims in Greece. In 1997–98 he concentrated on people living on the "Green Line" separating Northern Cyprus, illegal migration across the Albanian–Greek border, and young people in Tokyo; and for the next two years Albanians fleeing Kosovo. He also worked on a commission from the University of the Aegean on storytelling in the region. Economopoulos was dissatisfied with the assignment in Japan, as he felt unable to communicate with people and was just as estranged after three weeks of work as he had been on his arrival. By contrast, he writes that "I prefer to spend my time in my corner of the world, south Europe and west Asia, where I understand the codes and can make connections." This does not mean that the Balkans are an open book to him: Economopoulos has also written of the paradoxes apparent in Albania; and also across the Balkans, where faces can be sad even in wedding parties. Economopoulos's photography of Turkey won him the 2001 Abdi İpekçi Award for promoting friendship between Turkey and Greece. Painfully aware of the bitterness often encouraged in both Greece and Turkey toward the other, he has written appreciatively of the personal welcome given to him by the Turks that he meets. "There are no real differences [between Greeks and Turks]. I love Turkey and I can live there. I can't live in Paris or in London. But Istanbul — I can live there." Economopoulos's photographs have been published in The Guardian, The Independent, Le Monde, Libération, The New York Times, El País, and Die Zeit. He feels that there is no future in photojournalism. There is a loss of quality in photographs in newspapers, and Robert Capa would not take photographs if he were living today. But he concedes that Abbas and James Nachtwey would be among those who disagree.Source: Wikipedia In the mid-1990s, he started photographing the Roma and other minorities. In 2000, he completed a book project on the Aegean islands storytellers, commissioned by the University of the Aegean. A retrospective of his work titled Economopoulos, Photographer was published in 2002 and later exhibited at the Benaki Museum, Athens. Returning to Turkey, he pursued his long-term personal project, where he received the Abdi Ipektsi award (2001), for peace and friendship between Greek and Turkish people. He has recently turned to the use of color. Currently, he is spending most of his time away from Greece, traveling, teaching and photographing around the world, in the context of his long-term On The Road project.Source: Magnum Photos
Mark Steinmetz
United States
1961
Mark Christopher Steinmetz (born 1961) is an American photographer. He makes black and white photographs "of ordinary people in the ordinary landscapes they inhabit". Steinmetz's work was shown in a group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1993/1994 and in solo exhibitions at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2015, the High Museum of Art in 2018 and at Fotohof in Salzburg, Austria in 2019. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunter Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Steinmetz was born in New York City and raised in the Boston suburbs of Cambridge and Newton until he was 12. He then moved to the midwest before, aged 21, he went to study photography at the Yale School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut. He left that MFA program after one semester and in mid 1983, aged 22, moved to Los Angeles in search of the photographer Garry Winogrand, whom he befriended. He moved to Athens, Georgia in 1999 and was still living and working there as of 2017. Marc Steinmetz makes photographs "of ordinary people in the ordinary landscapes they inhabit", and "in the midst of activity". Most of his work has been made in the USA but also in Berlin, Paris, and Italy. His books combine portraits (portrait-like but spontaneous) and candid photos of people, and also include animals and still life photos. He finds many of his subjects whilst walking around but he has also spent time at Little League Baseball and summer camps. Steinmetz predominantly works with black and white film, usually medium format, developed and printed in his own darkroom. He has mostly worked the same way with the same film, chemicals, and cameras since beginning in the mid 1980s.Source: Wikipedia Mark Steinmetz is an Athens, Georgia-based photographer whose work captures black-and-white images of Southern Americana as seen in urban, rural and suburban landscapes. “I like to stress the poetry and ambiance of a place, while still trying to be truthful,” he has remarked, and his candid shots of everyday life reflect this statement. Examples of this sentiment are strikingly portrayed in Steinmetz's new photo series Terminus, showing the everyday moments of people passing through airports. “At the airport, people from all over the world and from all walks of life can be found in the midst of their journeys,” Mark Steinmetz has said. “Though my main subject has been the passengers, I am also photographing the people who work at the airport, the interiors and exteriors of the planes, as well as the hotels, parking lots and neighborhoods that surround and support the airport.” Mark Steinmetz draws inspiration from a number of Southern artists whose talents extend beyond the realm of photography, and has remarked “the South has many great writers—William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers—and they've influenced me.” Surprisingly, Mark Steinmetz did not originate in the South. In fact, he attended high school in Iowa and received his MFA from Yale University in 1986. (Though he initially dropped out in 1983 in order to move to Los Angeles and work with photographer Garry Winogrand) It wasn’t until 1999 that he left shooting freelance in Chicago and moved south for a teaching job at the University of Tennessee. He has remained in the South ever since. “I love the South for the weeds growing through the cracks of its sidewalks, for its humidity and for its chaos,” he has said. Interestingly, Mark Steinmetz has worked with analog since the beginning of his career, and even uses the same camera, film and development process today as he did as a novice photographer. Mark Steinmetz’ monographs include South Central (2007), South East (2008), Greater Atlanta (2009) and Summertime (2012). He has also been published in Aperture, Blind Spot and DoubleTake magazines. In 1994, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1998 he participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program. Mark Steinmetz has taught at a number of institutions, including Harvard, Sarah Lawrence College, Emory University and Yale. Steinmetz’ photos can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.Source: Jackson Fine Art
Kathryn Oliver
United States
Kathryn discovered a love for making pictures as a small child and developed a rich inner life of impressions. As she grew, creative aspirations led her to bring this inner world forward through art. Self taught, her creative journey has repeatedly taken her into the field of metaphor and myth as a way to express something eternal within herself. Her professional arts background of painting, theater and dance feeds the photography she does now as she blends hints of all these elements into her images. She currently creates and exhibits black and white fine art photography and photo encaustics, teaching workshops on the midcoast of Maine throughout the year. Drawn to the symbolic language of myth and archetypes, I am forever on a quest, seeking a visual narrative that evokes an internal recognition of nature — something in exile, lost, or hidden — yet leaves an impression inwardly known.About the series The Wild Garden Of Childhood: When I was a child the best part of me was wild. The Wild Garden Of Childhood is an exploration into the untamed vitality and sacred beauty of being young. That universality of raw spirit, where emotional authenticity reigns naturally and fiercely -- dancing on the edge of innocence. Arising from my own fragmented memories, inspired by the open innocence and un-self conscious freedom of my subjects, a world is conjured, somewhere between the real and imagined - where the fertile ground of being is at play. The most precious of stories are stored away for safe keeping, Somewhere In the wild garden of childhood awaiting becomingness
Sandra Tamos
Lithuania
1989
Since my childhood I was attracted to visual arts, painting mostly. I had a dream to become a fashion costume designer when I grow up. When I was 14 things changed. I didn’t lose my passion for painting, but the camera my dad gave me drew me into photography. Since then I started taking self-portraits and gained some photography experience. Later I started reading books about photography and wasn’t taking any pictures for the time being. When I was 18 I bought my first digital camera and started taking pictures of nature. I became addicted to macrophotography, as the camera revealed worlds unseen by a naked eye. When I graduated from school I studied, Technology of photography at Vilnius University of Applied Engineering Sciences, and obtained a Photo Journalist bachelor degree. In photography my most beloved avenues are portrait and dance photography, especially ballet. Ballet for me is something above reality, something spiritual, fantastic. In photos I try to show ballet, the way I see and feel it. I try to create pictures which remind fairy tales or dreams, which look out of this world.All about Sandra Tamos:AAP: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?Before graduating, as I remember. It's hard to say what led me to like it. it simply drew me. I never wanted to, but I suppose it was my destiny to become a photographer.AAP: Where did you study photography?Vilnius College of Technologies and Design, Lithuania.AAP:Do you have a mentor?NoAAP: How long have you been a photographer?Since my first shot, five years aproximatelyAAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?The first digital photo was a dandelion fluff with water drops. However my absolutely first picture was self-portrait, photographed with old russian film camera, when I was 14.AAP: What or who inspires you?Little bits of everything, I would have to write a book to metnion everything what inspires me, so I will save your time and will only mention few key sources of inspiration. Life, from germination/birth to blossom and so on. Water, in all forms. Fog, tiny drops on leaves or spider web, rain, ponds, rivers.AAP: How could you describe your style?Sensual, mystical, darkly romantic.AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film?I use Pentax K-5 digital camera, and my favorite lenes are SMC Pentax A 50 f/1,7 and Sigma 30 f/1,4.AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images?Yes, it takes skill and time to turn diamonds into brilliants, same with photos. But I enjoy the process so I dont mind if it takes time.AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?Too many to mention all of them. Lately especially admire Gregory Colbert creation.AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?Learn how to operate the camera perfectly, theres nothing worse than perfect moment slipping away, or when a moment that was felt right for a perfect picture, ends in dissapointment of failing to freeze it in camera, when it simply doesnt look the way it had to and the way it was perceived.AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid?Loosing faith, should be avoided.
John Delaney
United States
1963
In today's growing global society the precious differences between our many world cultures are rapidly eroding away. What do we all lose when an ancient culture disappears and centuries of tradition are abandoned and then forgotten? For me, photography has become a way to speak out against this passing. It is a way to record an existence that may soon vanish, to capture and celebrate what it is that makes a people unique, not just in appearance, but also in spirit. The method and style of my photography is very traditional. My equipment has changed little in over a century. I travel with a large format wood view camera and a portable studio tent. My traveling studio not only controls the light but also serves as a common meeting ground in which my subjects present themselves. I give them little direction and I let serendipity rule the moment. The goal is to create a portrait that reveals something beneath the obvious: a sense of grace, nobility, or humanity. The photograph needs to be more than just an observation. It is my hope that the connection made between the subject and myself will be passed on to others through my work. My wish is to honor my subjects in a simple un-patronizing and respectful way. The images that are captured on film come to life for me in the darkroom. Irving Penn said, "A beautiful print is a thing in itself, not just a halfway house on the way to the page". I love to dig deep into a negative to create a print that is full of the light, textures, and depths of expression that I experienced in the field. The result should be an image that not only tells a story about its subject, but is also a beautiful object in itself. Native Americans referred to photographers of the 19th century as "shadow catchers", and feared that the camera would steal away their spirit. That, in fact, is exactly what I hope to do. Not only to capture light, but also the "essence" of the people I photograph. In this way maybe I can preserve more than just a moment before it fades away into time.My love of photography began when I discovered Irving Penn's Worlds in a Small Room. Penn's work, as well that of Bruce Davidson, sparked my creative imagination. I attended Rochester Institute of Technology where I was taught the science and history of photography. But my real education began at the Richard Avedon Studio. I started as his studio assistant then eventually became his master printer. For 15 years I observed his passion, intelligence and meticulous craftmanship. That relationship opened the door to working with my original heros, Irving Penn and Bruce Davidson. Each of these masters informs and inspires my work. Mr. Penn for his wide range and love for the exquisite print; Davidson for the way he immerses himself in his subject, instilling trust; and Avedon with his intense preparation and skillfull cajoling, getting behind the "masks" of his subjects. Source: www.johndelaney.net
Peter Bogaczewicz
Poland/Canada
1974
Peter Bogaczewicz is a Canadian photographer and an architect currently developing projects in the Middle East. He divides his time between the two disciplines, often blurring the line between them, and uses his photography as a commentary on the built environment and the human community, how both are changing at a time of rapid progress and growing global interconnectedness, and the impact this has on the natural environment. There is no clearer reflection of a society's aspirations than through its collective "footprint" on nature; it is in the relationship of the constructed world to the natural world that a crucially revealing conversation takes place. Examining this dialogue captures Peter's imagination and appears as a common thread throughout his work, inviting the questions: How do we relate to the places we inhabit? And what does it reveal about us? Peter has recently had his photographs of Saudi Arabia published as a monograph by Daylight books and is regularly receiving recognition for his work. Kingdom of Sand and Cement Looking from the outside, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia appears doubly inaccessible: a seemingly endless inhospitable landscape populated by a traditionalist culture distrustful of outsiders. But looking from the inside reveals a subtler view: the culture, as different as it is, struggles with its identity like other cultures do at a time of growing global interdependencies and pressures to progress. What distinguishes Saudi Arabia in its struggle is that this country has had very little time to adapt. Though its abundance of oil wealth has given it an unprecedented advantage, at the same time, it ironically threatens its way of life. "Kingdom of Sand and Cement" explores the particular challenge Saudi Arabia is faced with as the country transitions from the tribal desert culture to an influential world power. It is a profound change, taking its population from mud buildings to the tallest of skyscrapers in less than a century. And while the whole country rapidly transforms from arid landscapes dotted with settlements, that seem to simply grow out of the ground, to imposing modern interventions, cutting, filling, and monumentalizing dominance over nature and the land, Saudi Arabia finds itself precariously balancing at a crossroads of old and new. The population adjusts, straddling both tradition and modernity, while its changing landscape readies it for more to come. The Series documents this relatively unfamiliar place at a time of its unique turning point. By photographically examining its past and present "markings" on nature—that crucial intersection of the built environment with that of the natural environment—the Series brings to light the country's aspirations tensely juxtaposed with its traditionalist past. The contrasts reveal an image of a place much different from our own, yet a place ultimately not so dissimilar to others in its ambition to progress, and susceptible as any to the risks of rapid and often careless transition. More about the book Kingdom of Sand and Cement
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Currently on view at the Norton Museum of Art, certain silence marks artist Fabiola Menchelli’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States. Running through March 23, 2025, the show offers an immersive exploration of photography’s materiality, challenging conventional notions of perception and image-making. Comprising more than 20 works—including previously unseen pieces—Menchelli’s ethereal compositions unfold through a meticulous process of folding, exposing, and developing light-sensitive materials. Created without a camera or negatives, her works blur the boundaries between control and chance, revealing intricate layers of abstraction and poetry. Through this interplay of light and form, certain silence invites viewers into a meditative space where perception itself becomes the subject of inquiry.
Exclusive Interview with Kristin Taylor and Kyli Hawks on Art, Activism, Policy, and Power at MOCP
Art, Activism, Policy, and Power is an educational framework offering resources and opportunities for high school students to engage with artist-activists. The program focuses on various justice topics, utilizing the MoCP’s exhibitions, visiting artists, and collections as teaching tools. Students explore how artists incorporate research into their work to amplify urgent social issues, while also gaining insight into the power of the arts in advancing activism.
Exclusive Interview with Jaume Llorens
Jaume Llorens, born in Porqueres, near Girona, has been passionate about photography since his teenage years. Though he began exhibiting his work later in life, his artistic journey has quickly gained recognition on the international stage. His work is characterized by a deep, contemplative connection with nature, where silence and observation shape his artistic vision. His poetic project Gaia, inspired by this reflective approach, earned him the December 2023 Solo Exhibition. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Asiya Al Sharabi
Asiya Al Sharabi is a Yemeni-American visual artist whose work has been recognized both nationally and internationally. She began her career as a journalist and photographer before shifting her focus to artistic photography, using her lens to explore the complexities of identity, culture, and migration. Now based in the U.S., her work is deeply rooted in the experiences of Middle Eastern women, young adults, and immigrants—themes that continue to shape her creative vision.
Exclusive Interview with Members of Circulo Collective
Círculo Collective is a photography group dedicated to fostering unity and shared humanity during these challenging times. This exclusive collective brings together photographers from five countries: India, Tanzania, Iran, Brazil, and Poland. In a world increasingly defined by division and conflict, the mission of Círculo Collective holds profound significance. Through their work, they seek to remind us of the connections that bind us and the power of community in overcoming adversity. We reached out to them with a few questions to gain deeper insights into their project.
Exclusive Interview with Manuela Federl
Manuela Federl is a journalist and documentary filmmaker with over 15 years of experience. She studied languages, economics, and cultural studies, focusing on the Mapuche people in Chile, which became the subject of her published thesis. In 2016, she founded her company, bergjournalisten, and has since created award-winning documentaries like 100 Hours of Lesbos and THE GAME. Gambling Between Life and Death. For the past two years, she has traveled extensively, documenting social issues through photography and storytelling. Her series The Roma Princesses earned her the January 2024 Solo Exhibition.
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