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Win a Solo Exhibition in April 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Win a Solo Exhibition in April 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Sylwia Makris
Sylwia Makris
Sylwia Makris

Sylwia Makris

Country: Poland
Birth: 1973

There is a spark within everything. A living light in the eyes of a person, a memory that flares up, the glow of a passion that was never declared. A face always tells more than it knows, wich is why photography is never a mere reproduction of what is. A good photo tells what was, why might have been or what is waiting painfully beneath the surface.

Sylwia Makris has been in pursuit of these sparks since she first held a camera. Her quest produces images that may delight or disturb but always move the beholder. She photographs people. People who are strong or delicate, broken or dynamic. She photographs faces of our time-and in doing so gives a face to our time. Nakedness is the most natural state. And in our day the most intrusive and common-every-where naked bodies are used to tempt, advertise and sell. Nakedness can only say as much as it is allowed to say. Sylwia Makris respects the nude body as part of a story that must be told. As part of a story that tels of people, nakedness regains its original magic, its archaic power and its complexity of expression in Makris' photos.

Until the viewer sometimes feels more naked than the model in the image. Sylwia Makris was born in 1973 in Gdynia, Poland. She worked as a sculptor before finding her way to photography in 2007. Today she lives in Munich as freelance photographer.
 

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Milton Rogovin
United States
1909 | † 2011
Milton Rogovin was born in New York City in 1909. He graduated from Columbia University in 1931 with a degree in optometry and a deep concern for the rights of the worker. He moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1938, where he established his own optometric practice in 1939. In 1942, he married Anne Snetsky. That same year, he purchased his first camera, and was inducted into the U.S. Army, where he served in England as an optometrist until 1945. Upon his discharge, he returned to his optometric practice and his growing family. By 1947, the Rogovin's had two daughters, Ellen and Paula, and a son, Mark.Source: www.miltonrogovin.com Milton Rogovin (1909–2011) was a documentary photographer who has been compared to great social documentary photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis. His photographs are in the Library of Congress, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Center for Creative Photography and other distinguished institutions. Milton Rogovin was born December 30, 1909 in Brooklyn, New York City of ethnic Jewish parents who emigrated to America from Lithuania, then part of the Russian empire. He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City and enrolled in Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1931 with a degree in optometry. Following graduation Rogovin worked as an optometrist in New York City. Distressed by the rampant and worsening poverty resulting from the Great Depression, Rogovin began attending night classes at the New York Workers School, a radical educational institution sponsored by the Communist Party USA. In 1938 Rogovin moved to Buffalo and established an optometry practice there. In 1942, he married Anne Snetsky (later changed to Setters). In the same year, he was inducted into the U.S.Army, where he worked as an optometrist. After his discharge from the Army, Milton and Anne had three children: two daughters (Ellen and Paula) and a son (Mark). Rogovin was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1957. Like many other Americans who embraced Communism as a model for improving the quality of life for the working class, he became a subject of the Committee's attentions in the postwar period: He was discredited — without having been convicted of any offense — as someone whose views henceforth had to be discounted as dangerous and irresponsible. The incident inspired Rogovin to turn to photography as a means of expression; it was a way to continue to speak to the worth and dignity of people who make their livings under modest or difficult circumstances, often in physically taxing occupations that usually receive little attention. In 1958, a collaboration with William Tallmadge, a professor of music, to document music at storefront churches set Rogovin on his photographic path. Some of the photographs that Rogovin made in the churches were published in 1962 in Aperture magazine, edited by Minor White, with an introduction by W.E.B. Du Bois, a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). That same year Rogovin began to photograph coal miners, a project that took him to France, Scotland, Spain, China, and Mexico. Many of these images were published in his first book, The Forgotten Ones. Rogovin traveled throughout the world, taking numerous portraits of workers and their families in many countries. His most acclaimed project, though, has been The Forgotten Ones, sequential portraits taken over three decades of over a hundred families who resided on Buffalo’s impoverished Lower West Side. The project was begun in 1972 and completed in 2002. In 1999, the Library of Congress collected more than a thousand of Rogovin’s prints.Source: Wikipedia
Marie-Laure Vareilles
- Testify to the variety of cultures on our planet.Education: Interior architect. I travelled on all continents, camera in hand, to testify of the diversity of countries on our planet. Over the years I have experienced different cultures, landscapes, encounters … The cultures of the entire world are in constant evolution. My work is to serve the memory of the people and their countries all around the world.- Creation of photo montage : imagine a universe of possibilities, elaborate the encounter of the unlikely. Mixing elements, transforming scale relations, rejecting logical constructions... Today I give a new life to the thousands of negatives taken, recreating imaginary worlds where poetry, dreams and surrealism alternate.- Permanent exhibition : Marseille : galerie Massalia; Vaison la Romaine, in the old town : atelier ANSATU & MAILOAll about Marie Laure Vareilles:AAP: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer?It was not my dream.AAP:Do you have a mentor?I remember about the first exhibition I have visited : it was Salgado with beautiful works in black and white. The subject he had worked on was men working by hand, all over the world... Beautiful.AAP: How long have you been a photographer?I took my first photo in 1985, while traveling in Turquey. It was my first trip alone abroad and I wanted to share my impresion with my family. Taking photos seemed to be the best medium for sharing places I had visited, people I had met.AAP: What or who inspires you? Since I am travelling and taking photos, I have realised how fast our world is changing. Faster and faster. Shooting is a way to keep testimony from a time which doesn’t exist any more : the more I travel, the more I realise that our differences are less and less visible.AAP: How could you describe your style?I shoot what I see, very quickly. But as soon as light is changing I shoot again ! Landscape, architecture, sky, people... many subjects can be interesting for the montages I create when I come back in my studio.AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film?Since the begining, I am working with Nikon cameras. During the last few years, I have definitly adopted digital camera. My last one is the D-800.AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images?Not enough : after shooting, I spend a lot of time creating montages. For this reason I keep each photo, just in case ! But it might be a problem in the futur with hardware !AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?They are so many. Editing a list would be a nightmare. Especially if I forgot to mention some of them.AAP: Your best memory has a photographer?I will never forget my experience in Bangladesh. I had never seen so many people working by hand, what ever they do, transport, create, make… they do not use use any machine. They work hard in bad conditions but they keep smiling!AAP: Your worst souvenir has a photographer?I had a bad time in Guinea. Working for an editor who wanted me to take photos from the Niger river and the every day life. The problem is I had to deal with blackmail from the people who were supposed to help me.
Mahya Rastegar
I am Mahya Rastegar, born 1980 in Tehran, Iran, a graduate in Photography and a Documentary Photographer, based in Tehran, Iran. I began to study Graphic Design in 2000, but quit it very soon in 2001 to find my field of interest somewhere else. After many years, in 2010, I started to study Photography, and graduated in 2013. I am mainly a social documentary photographer, most interested to capture the influential stories of women's lives.From the aspect of appearance, face and fashion, women are different from each other, but they are all the same in the way that all of them make efforts to get stronger in their inner world and possess the ability to live independently. From 2015 until now, I've been working on a long-term documentary photographing project with topic of Iranian women with influential stories. The collections of photos about each woman have the form of stories of their lives, meaning that I'm talking about the lives of these women by taking pictures of them. While holding on to the passion of presenting all type of women issues as a woman and after some serious researches and studies, I started shooting Iranian women trough different projects since 2013. In addition to all my ongoing projects, I have been working on a project called "To Remain Such a Woman" since 2016. I pictured all the women I live inside myself trough more than 10 women living under different conditions in the real/outside world (more on portfolio). This project will be released as a book soon. Some of my photos had the chance to be released on different pages and magazines such as: Panospictures, UK, L'HEBDO Magazine, France, Refinery29 Blog, PRI Org, NYTimes, women Photograph: 2018 year in Pictures, welt.de, leparisien.fr, NBC news, Euronews, Photo printing in Lens magazine 2019, Fine art photography awards 2020 (portrait nominee), Tow Phot's from NBCnews.com's November gallery of Women defying stereotypes in Iran won an AI-AP award in 2020. About Soudabeh Soudabeh was born in 27 October 1976 Soudabeh is the deputy of women bodyguards in ISBTA association. she said : "l was seeking for a sport-educational system for years to evacuate my excitements and beside that I could be able to protect myself in front of bullies and also in dangerous situations", until I got to know the international security and bodyguard training association or ISBTA. This association legally and officially works. Soudabeh's son, Pouria, was born in 25 March 1997. He was 10 when Soudabeh got divorced. Soudabeh has given motivation of independence to his son and Pouria has learned to sport and having a healthy body from his mother. The first reason I chose Soudabeh was the divorce thing.In Iran ‘s society divorce and being divorced is still a taboo for women. A divorced woman can't easily go to work and still has challenges in her work communications with men. Soudabeh and even me are divorced women and we are facing obstacles in this patriarchal society and we were able to prove ourselves with an appropriate job in this society. Which means we can continue living despite the fact that we are divorced. Soudabeh has been a body building coach for 8 years. Before being a coach she used to work in an advertising company in the graphic section. Soudabeh went to a beauty salon which is owned by one of her students. She is student of body building and she just goes to gym for sport. Soudabeh, It's right that she is doing a masculine sport but at first she is a woman and then a mother and ultimately she is a woman bodybuilder. Her position as a deputy in this organization means she can holds ISBTA bodyguard classes for women and she she can teach in this classes as a coach.
Asako Naruto
Japan
1974
Asako Naruto is a Japanese photographer living in Madrid since 2005. After obtaining a BA of Science of Design in Tokyo, she studied Art History, specializing in El Greco until she completed doctoral studies. Although she has been taking photographs for some time, it was around 2020 that she began to rediscover and immerse herself in photography as a personal creative activity. Her photographic style is characterized by a sense of introspection while using a street snapshot approach. In 2022, she won the annual Grand Prix of Digital Camera Magazine (Impress, Japan). Since then, she has received numerous awards from various international photography competitions including VIEPA, PISPA, IPA, BIFA, TIFA and many more. Recently, she has been working on a series of fantastical urban fragments using prismatic filters, one of which, "Reverve+Graphy", won the Gold Medal at the Paris International Street Photography Awards (2023). Statement: Press the shutter button to take a picture. I like the simplicity of it. For me, the real pleasure of photography lies in this physicality of moving my hands and feet and feeling the connection between sight and brain. For me, photographic expression may be an attempt to translate my inner thoughts, which are difficult to verbalize, while capturing fragments of my daily life with a camera. I feel that I want to be a storyteller more than an observer. I try to reveal or represent the scenes I collect in the city by overlaying them with the stories that unfold in my mind. Nevertheless, I carefully avoid encouraging the viewer to have a fixed interpretation of my work by explaining in detail the message it may contain. I want my work to be open to gradations of interpretation and to stimulate the viewer's personal emotional recall.
Tamas Dezso
Hungary
1978
Tamas Dezso (b.1978) is a documentary fine art photographer working on long-term projects focusing on the margins of society in Hungary, Romania, and other parts of Eastern Europe. His work has been exhibited worldwide, with solo exhibitions in 2011 in Poland, Bangladesh, Budapest, New Mexico, and at the Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco, and recent exhibitions at the New York Photo Festival, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, and FOAM Photo Museum in Amsterdam. He was twice Hungarian Press Photo’s Photographer of the Year (2005 and 2006), and has received awards from organizations such as World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism, and PDN. His photographs have appeared in TIME magazine, The New York Times, National Geographic, GEO, Le Monde magazine, and many others. Dezso has recently been nominated for the 2012 Prix Pictet. Tamas Dezso's series 'Here, Anywhere' offers a desolate yet beautiful look at the people and places left behind during the post-communist transition in Hungary. Begun in 2009, the series explores the unique atmosphere of the country's now 20-year-long transition, and changing notions of Eastern European identity. With the introduction of democracy in the 1990s came euphoria and promise, but unrealized expectations of quickly catching up with the West have led to widespread disappointment and frustration, compounded by the current serious economic difficulties have fanned the popularity of far right politics, as well as an anachronistic nostalgia for the stability of communism. Presently Hungary has a right wing populist government and the strongest opposition party is the neo-Nazi party with nearly 1/8th of the eligible voters and gaining popularity. Dezso's layered images present unsettling moments of stillness that poetically allude to this gritty reality. Motivated by the isolation he sees his country facing, Dezso photographs the people and places of Hungary as symbols, where "a certain out-dated, awkward, longed-to-be-forgotten Eastern Europeanness still lingers." This award-winning series has garnered international attention, earning Dezso First Place at the 2011 CENTER Project Competition in Santa Fe, the Daylight Magazine & Center for Documentary Studies Project Prize, and Grand Prize at the Jeune Création Européenne Biennal 2011/2013 in Paris-Montrouge.Source: Robert Koch Gallery Interview with Tamas Dezso All About Photo: When did you realize you wanted to be a photographer? Tamas Dezso: Soon after I left the University of Technology in Budapest in 2000. AAP: Where did you study photography? TD: I am self-taught. AAP: How long have you been a photographer? TD: I started as a photojournalist with a political daily in 2000. AAP: What or who inspires you? TD: Music. Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. AAP: How could you describe your style? TD: Documentary. AAP: Do you have a favorite photograph or series? TD: Richard Avedon 'Italy #9', 'Boy and Tree, Sicily, July 15, 1947' AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film? TD: Phase One cameras with various Schneider Kreuznach lenses. AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)? TD: Richard Avedon and Irving Penn AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer? TD: "Follow the advice of others only in the rarest cases." -- Beethoven AAP: What are your projects? TD: I am interested in the transitional period, the period after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. AAP: Your best memory as a photographer? TD: My first trip to Romania. AAP:If you were someone else who would it be? TD: A pianist. AAP: Your favorite photo book? TD: Walter Niedermayr's Civil Operations.
Oliver Stegmann
Switzerland
1970
I was born in 1970 in Basel, Switzerland. Since my late teen years, photography has become a key medium for me to express myself. Professionally, however, I took a different path, studying economics and now working in a management position. I'm married and a father of two lovely daughters. On many trips to different continents, I have continuously worked on improving my skills as a photographer and on developing my own visual language. I participated in various workshops of well-known photographers such as Mary Ellen Mark, Anders Petersen or Ernesto Bazan. Until 2007 I photographed exclusively with black-and-white film and made all prints in my own darkroom. In 2005, I started scanning the negatives, editing them in Photoshop and creating fine art prints. Two years later, I started to use also digital cameras. My long-term project on circuses behind the scenes is planned to be published as a photo book in 2021. My other on-going personal project is to document the childhood years of my children. Statement I love music, but I have never played an instrument. So the camera has become the "instrument" for my creative work: I compose images instead of songs. I prefer black and white photography because leaving out the colors, the way we usually see the world, directs the viewer's eye to the essence of the image. I have always had a passion for observing people. Their emotions, facial expressions, interactions, activities and personal moments inspire me. Photographing people is a way to communicate with them, to capture perhaps just a fraction of their lives. A powerful photograph becomes a true gift of the moment when it manages to capture some sort of mystery or magic. My photos are meant to transport the viewer into a world less known to them, perhaps reminding them of experiences long past or leading them mentally into a possible future. With my photos I do not want to tell everything, but deliberately suggest unanswerable behind what is shown.
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