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Quentin Shih
Quentin Shih

Quentin Shih

Country: China
Birth: 1975

Quentin Shih (a.k.a. Shi Xiaofan), born in Tianjin, China in 1975, lives and works as a camera artist, and filmmaker between New York and Beijing.

A self-taught photographer, he began to shoot photos in college for local underground musicians and artists.

After graduation, he came to Beijing to develop his career as a professional photographer/artist. From 2000 to 2002, he participated in exhibitions in China and America with his fine art photographic works and his works have been collected by American museums, such as the Danforth Museum of Art and the Worcester Art Museum.

During the last few years, he has been producing work for top commercial clients and international publications such as Adidas, Microsoft, Sony, Siemens, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Esquire. His advertising campaigns work have won numerous prestigious international advertising and photography awards. In 2007, Quentin was named 'Photographer of the Year' by Esquire Magazine (China). In the following years, he joined lots group exhibitions and solo exhibitions in China, Europe, Southeast Asia and United States. As one of the leading Chinese photographers, Quentin Shih is well recognized for his individual artistic style which utilizes vast sets and dramatic lighting to engage in emotional narratives.

Now, he is returning to his roots in fine art photography and challenging its techniques and concepts into his commercial and fashion photography in order to achieve a unique symbiosis. At the same time, he is also working on his film projects, A Parisian Movie (2011) was his first short movie shot in Paris, France.
 

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Spencer Tunick
United States
1967
Spencer Tunick is an American photographer best known for organizing large-scale nude shoots. Since 1994, he has photographed over 75 human installations around the world. Spencer Tunick was born in Middletown, Orange County, New York into a Jewish family. His father Earl owned a keychain photo-viewer franchise in the Catskills. In 1986, he visited London, where he took photographs of a nude at a bus stop and of scores of nudes in Alleyn's School's Lower School Hall in Dulwich, Southwark. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Emerson College in 1988. In 1992, Tunick began documenting live nudes in public locations in New York through video and photographs. His early works from this period focus more on a single nude individual or small groups of nudes. Tunick cites 1994, when he posed and photographed 28 nude people in front of the headquarters of the United Nations in midtown Manhattan, as a turning point in his career; "It all started there, moving my work from just photography into installation and performance photography," he says. Since then, he has organized and photographed over 65 temporary site-related installations in the United States and abroad. Tunick's philosophy is that "individuals en masse, without their clothing, grouped together, metamorphose into a new shape. The bodies extend into and upon the landscape like a substance. These grouped masses which do not underscore sexuality become abstractions that challenge or reconfigure one's views of nudity and privacy." Sometimes, after gathering his subjects together, Tunick grades them by gender, long hair, age or other characteristics. Registration for modeling on his website includes questions about skin tone. A color chart shows seven boxes ranging from stark white to baby-powder pink and dark chocolate. In his work, he plays off different flesh tones or groups people of the same color. Tunick is also interested in the juxtaposition between the organic and the mechanical, and often chooses famous buildings or unusual structures as his backdrop. As of 2021, Tunick is the star of forthcoming pandemic documentary film Stay Apart Together, directed by Nicole Vanden Broeck, in which Tunick reinvents his photography "to find a way to bring everyone together while staying apart". To mark International Women's Day on March 8, 2021, the twenty-fourth session of the Stay Apart Together project saw Tunick and Vanden Broeck collaborate with Mexican-American visual artist Daniela Edburg to depict 75 Latin American women in 11 poses, incorporating the colors purple and green (symbols of the Latin American feminist movement) and hot pink, selected by Edburg for its liveliness.Source: Wikipedia Spencer Tunick has been documenting the live nude figure in public, with photography and video, since 1992. Since 1994, he has organized over 100 temporary site-related installations that encompass dozens, hundreds or thousands of volunteers, and his photographs are records of these events. In his early group works, the individuals en masse, without their clothing, grouped together, metamorphose into a new shape. The bodies extend into and upon the landscape like a substance. These group masses, which do not underscore sexuality, often become abstractions that challenge or reconfigure one's views of nudity and privacy. The work also refers to the complex issue of presenting art in permanent or temporary public spaces. Spencer Tunick stages scenes in which the battle of nature against culture is played out against various backdrops, from civic center to desert sandstorm. In 2002 he started to work with standing positions for his group formations referencing traditional group portraiture. Now, for some installations, he adds objects that the participants are often holding or wearing and has included body paint. Spencer has and continues to make group installations/photographs elevating awareness of HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ rights, equality and climate change, among other issues. Near the end of installations, for the final setups, he sometimes separates the participants into smaller groups to make additional assemblages: sometimes by sex, sometimes by age, or even by hair color. However, no one is ever excluded from an installation because of the color of their skin, ethnicity, gender identity, sex, race, religion, or political affiliation. If you can make it to an installation you can participate, unless of course there are space limitations. Spencer could not make his art without the generosity of the participants. He is eternally grateful for their participation. He wishes he could credit everyone in his individual and group photographs but there are hundreds and thousands who have taken part collectively. In exchange for taking part, participants receive a limited edition print. Spencer Tunick's temporary site-specific photographic installations have been commissioned by the XXV Biennial de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2002); Institut Cultura, Barcelona (2003); The Saatchi Gallery (2003); MOCA Cleveland (2004); Vienna Kunsthalle (2008) and MAMBO Museum of Modern Art, Bogota (2016), among others.Source: www.spencertunick.com
Eve Arnold
United States
1912 | † 2012
Eve Arnold was born Eve Cohen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the middle of nine children born to immigrant Russian-Jewish parents, William Cohen (born Velvel Sklarski), a rabbi, and his wife, Bessie (Bosya Laschiner). Her interest in photography began in 1946 while working for Kodak in their Fair Lawn NJ photo-finishing plant. Over six weeks in 1948, she learned photographic skills from Harper's Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. She married Arnold Schmitz (later Arnold Arnold) in 1941. Eve Arnold photographed many of the iconic figures who shaped the second half of the twentieth century, yet she was equally comfortable documenting the lives of the poor and dispossessed, "migrant workers, civil-rights protestors of apartheid in South Africa, disabled Vietnam war veterans and Mongolian herdsmen." Her joyful picture of a Cuban couple with their child was selected in 1955 for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man and seen by 9 million visitors. For Arnold, there was no dichotomy: "I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary," she said in a 1990 BBC interview, "I see them simply as people in front of my lens." Arnold was particularly noted for her work using available light, concentrating on the image in the lens and eschewing extensive use of photographic lighting and flash. Of this she said "By the time you set up lights the image is gone" in a Guardian interview in 2000. Arnold's images of Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits (1961) were perhaps her most memorable, but she had taken many photos of Monroe from 1951 onwards. Her previously unseen photos of Monroe were shown at a Halcyon Gallery exhibition in London during May 2005. She also photographed Queen Elizabeth II, Malcolm X, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford, and traveled around the world, photographing in China, Russia, South Africa and Afghanistan. Arnold left the United States and moved permanently to England in the early 1970s with her son, Francis Arnold. While working for the London Sunday Times, she began to make serious use of color photography. In 1980, she had her first solo exhibition, which featured her photographic work done in China at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. In the same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. In 1993, she was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and elected Master Photographer by New York's International Center of Photography. She did a series of portraits of American First Ladies. In 1997, she was appointed a member of the Advisory Committee of the National Media Museum (formerly the Museum of Photography, Film & Television) in Bradford, West Yorkshire. She was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2003. She lived in Mayfair for many years until her last illness, when she moved to a nursing home in St George's Square, Pimlico. When Anjelica Huston asked if she was still doing photography, Arnold replied: "That's over. I can't hold a camera any more." She said she spent most of her time reading such writers as Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Thomas Mann and Leo Tolstoy. Arnold died in London on January 4, 2012, aged 99. Source: Wikipedia Eve Arnold was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Russian immigrant parents. She began photographing in 1946, while working at a photo-finishing plant in New York City, and then studied photography in 1948 with Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research in New York. Arnold first became associated with Magnum Photos in 1951, and became a full member in 1957. She was based in the US during the 1950s but went to England in 1962 to put her son through school; except for a six-year interval when she worked in the US and China, she lived in the UK for the rest of her life. Her time in China led to her first major solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1980, where she showed the resulting images. In the same year, she received the National Book Award for In China and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. In later years she received many other honours and awards. In 1995 she was made fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and elected Master Photographer - the world's most prestigious photographic honour - by New York's International Center of Photography. In 1996 she received the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award for In Retrospect, and the following year she was granted honorary degrees by the University of St Andrews, Staffordshire University, and the American International University in London; she was also appointed to the advisory committee of the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, UK. She has had twelve books published. Source: Magnum Photos
Sajedeh Zarei
I am an Iranian documentary photographer based in Shiraz, Iran. I was born in 1983 and have a MSc degree in Geology. Being a photographer has been my lifelong goal so I started photography since March 2018 and I left my job as an associate research director to focus all my attention on visual storytelling. As part of my career, I have performed some researches in water management and climate change. That is why my photography projects focus on environmental issues and their social impacts. In addition, cultural and social themes attract my curiosity. My aim is to photograph people and create stories that witness the multiplicity of human experience. The Longest Paths Begin With A Step Patrilineal is one of the important indicators of male superiority over women that is observed in all patriarchal societies such as Iran. The patriarchy considers the continuation of the generation through men. This project is about a rural mother who has been trying to change this belief and tradition since her pregnancy and provide an environment free of discrimination between her six-year-old daughter and her son. Although maintaining this balance in the village is difficult due to group life, but the mother's efforts have been so successful that the girl's relationship with her brother is sincere and away from jealousy. This project has started since the mother's pregnancy, about 17 months ago, and is a continuation of the project that started about 2 years ago in one of the remote villages of Fars province in southwestern Iran. This project is still ongoing. Under the Roof of the Davar
Filippo Poli
Italy
1978
Filippo Poli, an architect by training, is based in Milan and has worked as a photographer since 2008 with architecture studios, foundations, and publishers. His personal projects explore the cultural landscape and the evolving relationship between humans and nature, along with its consequences. His work appears in leading international magazines and publications. He received numerous accolades: 5th National New Photographic Vision León (2025), Enaire Foundation (2017, 2025), Architecture Photography Master Interior, PX3 Paris, ND Awards, Hopper Prize, Arles OFF (La Kabine), IPA Prize, Monochrome, FotoDoc, Arte Laguna, and PhotoEspaña Master Scholarship. Exhibitions include a solo show in León (2025), Dispara Gallery (collective Quatro Amigos), PhotoEspaña (2017, 2025), Venice Biennale, Climate Summit (COP25, 2019), ARCO Madrid (2018), and Vila Casas Foundation. His photographs are in public and private collections, including Enaire Foundation, Deutsches Architekturmuseum (Frankfurt), and Basho Gallery (USA). Roças of São Tomé: an [almost] lost treasure Discovering São Tomé and Príncipe is like going to an island that does not exist, so small that it does not appear on maps, and it is hard to notice it in the Gulf of Guinea—but all of us, sooner or later, have tasted a piece of it. In the mid-nineteenth century, this tropical land, made up of two islands lying on the equator, 300 km from the African coast, became the world’s largest cocoa producer. On this island, the cocoa plant found its perfect habitat and labor at will, cheaply imported from Cape Verde and the nearby African continent. It is not clear, even today, whether the archipelago was, before the arrival of the colonizers, uninhabited or already populated by people of Angolan origin. What is certain is that, from the 15th century, the island’s economy was primarily based on sugar cane production as well as the slave trade. For centuries, the island served as a classification hub for African deportees, who were embarked on ships of European powers to be sold in the American colonies. It was only in the 19th century that São Tomé and Príncipe became a wealthy colony, when Portuguese settlers founded large farms to grow coffee and cocoa. This lasted until 1869, when a slow decline began following the abolition of slavery, due to workers’ rebellions and the international boycott against the “slave cocoa” of the Portuguese colony. The production system endured until 1975; the last companies closed in 1990, and since then, this place has fallen into relative oblivion. A remarkable architectural heritage, however, still remains: the “roças.” This Portuguese term refers to the complex system of land exploitation that shaped the history of this small country for centuries under colonial rule. This vast agricultural machinery typically included greenhouses, dryers, warehouses, “senzalas”—the workers’ quarters—a church, a school, and sometimes even a railway connecting the different branches to the main roça and the sea. The main house, where the patrão—the landlord—lived, along with the hospital, dominated the entire settlement, either at the end of a monumental axis or from an elevated position of control. Both structures, characterized by Portuguese and European architectural styles, symbolized power. They were off-limits to the workers, who were subjected to strict working hours and restrictions on their freedom: they could not leave the farm or return to their homeland. Physical barriers—such as access to the main house or upper floors of hospitals reserved for Europeans—were clear, but the psychological boundaries, shaped over centuries of domination, still linger. They persist in the form of limited self-determination and organization. The people of São Tomé experience mixed feelings toward the roças: a blend of nostalgia and resentment for a past that provided work for all, but no rights. Architecture remains the last tangible symbol of this world and forms part of the population’s identity. The stories told by inhabitants reveal pride in the beauty of these structures, but also a sense of distance and impossibility toward spaces they never occupied. Even after expropriations in the 1980s, feelings of inferiority and lack of economic means prevented many from claiming ownership, leading to looting and eventual abandonment. The imposed divide between the world of the master and that of the workers has not disappeared since independence in 1975. The dichotomy between patrão and roças, masters and senzalas, has evolved into a new social boundary, reflected in the pejorative term “gente da roça”—people of the plantation—still marginalized within society. This photographic narrative, centered on around thirty roças, seeks to reconstruct the memory of these places by documenting their present condition and bringing renewed attention to an architectural heritage on the verge of disappearance. The project unfolds through two main approaches: the first focuses on the principal structures of the roças, photographed with long exposure to evoke a sense of untouchability and highlight the enduring tension between their grandeur and their surroundings; the second presents portraits of daily life within these communities, which, despite ongoing challenges, remain an active part of this history.
Steve McCurry
United States
1950
Steve McCurry has been one of the most iconic voices in contemporary photography for more than 30 years, with scores of magazine and book covers, over a dozen books, and countless exhibitions around the world to his name. Born in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; McCurry studied film at Pennsylvania State University, before going on to work for a local newspaper. After several years of freelance work, McCurry made his first of what would become many trips to India. Traveling with little more than a bag of clothes and another of film, he made his way across the subcontinent, exploring the country with his camera. It was after several months of travel that he found himself crossing the border into Pakistan. There, he met a group of refugees from Afghanistan, who smuggled him across the border into their country, just as the Russian Invasion was closing the country to all western journalists. Emerging in traditional dress, with full beard and weather-worn features after weeks embedded with the Mujahedeen, McCurry brought the world the first images of the conflict in Afghanistan, putting a human face to the issue on every masthead. Since then, McCurry has gone on to create stunning images on all seven continents and countless countries. His work spans conflicts, vanishing cultures, ancient traditions and contemporary culture alike - yet always retains the human element that made his celebrated image of the Afghan Girl such a powerful image. McCurry has been recognized with some of the most prestigious awards in the industry, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal, National Press Photographers Award, and an unprecedented four first prize awards from the World Press Photo contest. The Minister of French Culture has also appointed McCurry a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters and most recently, the Royal Photographic Society in London awarded McCurry the Centenary Medal for Lifetime Achievement. McCurry has published books including The Imperial Way (1985), Monsoon (1988), Portraits (1999 | 2013), South Southeast (2000), Sanctuary (2002), The Path to Buddha: A Tibetan Pilgrimage (2003), Steve McCurry (2005), Looking East (2006), In the Shadow of Mountains (2007), The Unguarded Moment, (2009), The Iconic Photographs (2011), Untold: The Stories Behind the Photographs (2013), From These Hands: A Journey Along the Coffee Trail (2015), India (2015), On Reading (2016), Afghanistan (2017), A Life in Pictures (2018), Animals (2019), In Search of Elsewhere: Unseen Images (2020). @stevemccurryofficial "What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment, and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own, with its own place and feeling" -- Steve McCurry If the photographer's images have made the rounds of newspapers around the world, like the portrait of the young Afghan woman with piercing eyes, it is also due to their aesthetic impact. Steve McCurry spoke of the importance of colour in his photographs, the importance of post-production and retouching, and their ability to touch the viewer: "each single picture has its single story, and we put ours in it" (Steve McCurry). "Sometimes with pictures and photography, what is interesting is that the imagination can go off in different directions. Everything should not be explained" (Steve McCurry): the photographer stresses the importance of leaving their share of mystery to the photographs. Steve McCurry was confronted with the horror of war; his images bear witness to this. If Susan Sontag suggests in Regarding the Pain of Others that photography “beautifies” and “bleaches out a moral response to what is shown”, the photographer brings an entirely different perspective to the issue. He refers to the mission of war reporters to fight against the blindness and ineptitude of public opinion: "Should we be informed about what's happening in our world? Should we let our governments tell us ? I think that would be a very bad idea. [...] Somebody has to go and give us their impression. We need some person to go there and find the truth" (Steve McCurry).Source: www.sciencespo.fr
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