All about photo.com: photo contests, photography exhibitions, galleries, photographers, books, schools and venues.
Win $1,000 in Cash Prizes and Get Published: Enter AAP Magazine B&W!
Win $1,000 in Cash Prizes and Get Published: Enter AAP Magazine B&W!
Patrick Morarescu
Performers catalogue
Patrick Morarescu
Patrick Morarescu

Patrick Morarescu

Country: Germany


Statement
"Due to the natural dynamic and complexity of the individual, I have always been drawn to portraiture. I photograph persons to whom I feel an initial attraction and try to reflect this force in images. A power that you cannot describe in words or in rational concepts but it captures the attention and creates a strong curiosity, a sort of addiction not only to body shapes, eyes, skin tonalities, but to what is behind: the thoughts and the mental state of that persons. And I feel a sort of instinct of possession, a desire to materialize the moment that this person is living.

The human presence, with it’s emotionality, is some times too strong; it is almost insulting, shouting to get all the attention: Like a red dot in the green, like a flash in the darkness. To balance that force I need the background, the space that as a negative form defines the contour of the figure. Through that supplementary space I create a whole story. The key of my research lies in the dialogue between the person and its background; sometimes I think I am not portraying a person with a background, but the background with a person; sometimes it is the opposite. The background speaks about fear, happiness, peace, desperation; it speaks about the circumstances through an atmosphere. There is one basic element that is crucial to bring all the elements together: The light. Like a thread that creates structure and consistence in a tissue; the magical substance of photography. It is a physical condition that contains many extraordinary qualities. The photography is a chemical reaction in which the light is transcripted in a plain surface, creating a code that by the eyes suggest reality; but photography is not reality itself but an abstraction of it. And this is the point that fascinates me; the possibility of recreating the reality through the chemical process."
-- Patrick Morarescu
 

Inspiring Portfolios

Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #49 B&W
Publish your work in AAP Magazine and win $1,000 Cash Prizes
 
Stay up-to-date  with call for entries, deadlines and other news about exhibitions, galleries, publications, & special events.

More Great Photographers To Discover

Erwin Blumenfeld
Germany/United States
1897 | † 1969
Born in Berlin in 1897 to Jewish parents, Erwin Blumenfeld began his career working as an apprentice dressmaker to Moses and Schlochauer in 1913. He opened his own company in Amsterdam in 1923, the 'Fox Leather Company', a leather goods store specialising in ladies handbags. After moving to new premises in 1932, Blumenfeld discovered a fully equipped dark room and began to photograph many of his -predominantly female- customers. The company went bankrupt in 1935, just as Blumenfeld's photographic career was beginning to take an upward turn. Following a move to Paris in 1936, Blumenfeld was commissioned to take the portraits of personalities including George Rouault and Henri Matisse and secured his first advertising work for Monsavon. Blumenfeld quickly captured the attention of photographer Cecil Beaton who helped him secure a contract with French Vogue. After World War II in 1941, Erwin Blumenfeld moved to New York where he was immediately put under contract by Harper's Bazaar and after three years, he began freelance work for American Vogue. Over the next fifteen years, Blumenfeld's work was featured on numerous Vogue covers and in a variety of publications including Seventeen, Glamour and House & Garden. During this period, he also worked a photographer for the Oval Room of the Dayton Department Store in Minneapolis and produced advertising campaign for cosmetics clients such as Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden and L'Oreal. In the late 50s, he also began to create motion pictures, hoping to use them commercially and began work on his biography and his book My One Hundred Best Photos which, despite being a renowned fashion photographer, only included four of his fashion images. Following Blumenfeld's death in 1969, numerous books on his work have been published, namely The Naked and the Veiled by his son, Yorick Blumenfeld, and his photographs have been exhibited at international galleries including the Pompidou Gallery in Paris, The Barbican in London and The Hague Museum of Photography in the Netherlands. In the 1960s, he worked on his autobiography which found no publisher because it was considered to be too ironic towards society, and was published only after his death.Source: Wikipedia Erwin Blumenfeld is considered to be one of the early pioneers of fashion photography alongside George Hoyningen-Huene, Cecil Beaton, and Horst P. Horst. It was not only his employment of experimental techniques in the darkroom, Dada and Surrealist influences, and groundbreaking street work, but Blumenfeld’s unique and masterful combination of elegance and eroticism that transformed fashion into high art and paved the way for Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Herb Ritts, and other photographers who enjoyed such prominence and recognition in the history of art. In addition to holding the record for the most covers of Vogue, Blumenfeld’s works were abundantly reproduced within the pages of Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Life and Vogue during the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Many of the images from these shoots will be featured in this exhibition and have since become icons of the history of fashion photography. Some have never been seen before. But all of the prints showcase not only Blumenfeld’s innovation as a photographer of fashion but also his spectacular skill as a printmaker. In his retrospective examination of Blumenfeld’s work, William Ewing writes, “His highly original and visionary work was a seamless blend of the negative and positive: taking the picture in the studio and making it in the darkroom.” In the studio, Blumenfeld often employed mirrors, glass, and backgrounds reproduced from paintings, images of cathedrals, or mosaics of magazine covers. He often used veils, which could distort or elongate the figure, confident that a woman partially concealed was more erotically charged that one seen fully nude. He also believed the printing of the image was as every bit as important as the process of capturing it, and like Man Ray, he was tirelessly inventive in the darkroom, deploying a variety of optical and chemical tricks, including multiple exposures, solarization and bleaching.Source: Edwynn Houk Gallery
Torrance York
United States
1966
This Fall Torrance York published her monograph, Semaphore, with Kehrer Verlag and exhibited her Semaphore project in a solo show at Rick Wester Fine Art, NYC. She earned a BA from Yale and an MFA in photography from RISD. York's recent awards include: selection for Atlanta Photography Group's Portfolio 2022 exhibit; Lenscratch 2021 Art & Science Awards, Honorable Mention; Critical Mass 2021 finalist; and semifinalist and Olcott award winner from The Print Center 95th ANNUAL International competition (2020). The monograph was recently awarded 1st place/book/monograph by the Lucie Foundation's International Photography Awards. Her work is in private and public collections, including AllianceBernstein, New York, NY; John & Sue Wieland Collection at the Warehouse, Atlanta, GA; and RISD, Providence, RI. York has had solo shows at Silvermine Galleries, New Canaan, CT; New Canaan Museum & Historical Society; and Southport Gallery, Southport, CT, among others. Her work has been exhibited at Littlejohn Contemporary, New York, NY; Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA; TILT, Philadelphia, PA; Schelfhaudt Gallery, University of Bridgeport, CT; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY. She was a resident artist at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO, and received a Connecticut Artist Fellowship grant in 2010. Semaphore Semaphore examines the shift in my perspective after having been diagnosed seven years ago with Parkinson's disease. Through images, I consider what it means to integrate this life-altering information into my sense of self. What does acceptance look like? Post diagnosis, everyday items and experiences take on new meaning. As I look around me, the branches of trees become networks of neurons or resemble tendons in my wrist imaged by an MRI. Simple tools now present a challenge. Acknowledging these signals facilitates the process of adaptation. Optimism holds the key for me right now. Connection inspires. Light, always an inspiration, illuminates a path for me to follow. And I go. Parkinson's disease is the world's fastest growing brain disorder. Currently, over ten million people live with Parkinson's worldwide. While this project is relevant to the Parkinson's community, it also connects with others whose journeys require growth, patience, and perseverance to move forward. Published by Kehrer Verlag, Semaphore has 96 pages, includes 67 images, and an essay by Rebecca Senf, PhD, Chief Curat
Nanci Milton
United States
1957
Nanci Milton is a primarily self-taught photographic artist. Her experience with the camera, film and image making began at an early age with the gift f an Instamatic from her father for whom photography was his passion though not his profession. Subsequent Christmas gifts of cameras followed, as well as access to his own various cameras. She was smitten. As the only child of artistic parents, both teachers as well, she was continually exposed to writing, image making, art viewing and inquiring into the creative process. As an only child of older parents, she also was included in many adult events, dinners, lectures, visits with artists of many arenas and backgrounds and absorbed the many layers of inspiration and process they possessed. She found it a gift to be an only child as it allowed her the access to a larger world early on and also left her to her own devices to imagine and make without the comparison or competition with a sibling. Everything was available and potent. The ''legacy'' of artists can be heavy though, and even as she continued to make images and write, she struggled to find a form that was her own. That form led to a detour into the performing arts, modern dance and theater which were her university studies. Ultimately, these fell short of what she had been immured in all her life, and the turn back o the photographic arts and writing was undeniable. The detour however undeniably informs her work with a sense of narrative and staging, in addition to a conceptual approach that pushes the images beyond the static. In a world that is in such flux, Milton is attracted to empty, vacated or in some way, disrupted spaces and how our intimately personal or common and archetypal experience layer on and stain that space, be it exterior or interior; she finds a landscape of both body and mind to reveal. There is redemption in that effort and the rescuing of the lost, and in both the symmetry and the chaos found there. Methodology and materials are less important and she utilizes any and all that will support the idea. Milton has been included in domestic and international exhibits at Praxis gallery, LA Noble Gallery, A Smith Gallery, The 9th Annual Koblenzanalog portfolio and exhibit, and was an Honorable Mention in the Fine Art category for the 17th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards.
Peter Nitsch
Peter Nitsch was part of the late eighties of the German Skater scene. He studied communication design in Munich and graduated as a designer from the University of Munich, Department of Design (specializing in motion design). As an on-air designer, he worked for clients such as Universal Studios, ProSieben, 13th Street, SciFi Channel, and the United Nations. He then began to concentrate on corporate design and photography. Nitsch has won several international awards both as a designer (New York Festival, BDA) and photographer (Los Angeles International Photography Award, Hasselblad Masters semifinalist). He is co-founder of 'Playboard Magazine', 'RUPA' and the former culture blog 'get addicted to'. In 2020 Nitsch became a lifetime member of The Royal Photographic Society of Thailand. Tango in the Big Mango For me, my photography has always been related to people, stories, and life's journey. Tango In The Big Mango is an attempt in observing moments of people in dialogue with life. The series explores Bangkok as a city in which the coexistence of different cultures and people from different countries, despite their peculiarities, have found a way to live together. Tango in the Big Mango photo book is a mixture of documentary/street and conceptual images. The series consists of four parts: documentary/street photography, and conceptual themes of greed, growth, and angst. Tango in the Big Mango captures the intensity of urban life and barrage of consumption, culture, and eccentricity in Bangkok. More about Tango in the Big Mango photo book
Louis Stettner
United States
1922 | † 2016
Louis Stettner was an American photographer of the 20th century whose work included streetscapes, portraits and architectural images of New York and Paris. His work has been highly regarded because of its humanity and capturing the life and reality of the people and streets. Starting in 1947, Stettner photographed the changes in the people, culture, and architecture of both cities. He continued to photograph New York and Paris up until his death. My way of life, my very being is based on images capable of engraving themselves indelibly in our inner soul’s eye. -- Louis Stettner Louis Stettner was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he was one of four children. His father was a cabinet maker, and Louis learned the trade when young, using the money he earned to support his growing love of photography. He was given a box camera as a child, and his love affair with photography began. His family went on trips to Manhattan and visited museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where his love of art began. At 18, in 1940, Stettner enlisted in the United States army and became a combat photographer in Europe for the Signal Corps. After a brief stint in Europe he was sent to New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan. Back from the war Stettner joined the Photo League in New York. Stettner visited Paris in 1946 and in 1947 moved there. From 1947 to 1949 he studied at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris and received a Bachelor of Arts in Photography & Cinema. He went back and forth between New York and Paris for almost two decades and finally settled permanently in Saint-Ouen, near Paris, in 1990. Stettner still frequently returned to New York. Stettner's professional work in Paris began with capturing life in the post-war recovery. He captured the everyday lives of his subjects. In the tradition of the Photo League, he wanted to investigate the bonds that connect people to one another. In 1947 he was asked by the same Photo League to organize an exhibition of French photographers in New York. He gathered the works of some of the greatest photographers of the era, including Robert Doisneau, George Brassaï, Edouard Boubat, Izis, and Willy Ronis. The show was a big success and was largely reviewed in the annual issue of U.S. Camera. Stettner had begun a series of regular meetings with Brassaï who was a great mentor and had a significant influence on his work. In 1949, Stettner had his first exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Brassaï showed me that it was possible to find something significant in photographing subjects in everyday life doing ordinary things by interpreting them in your own way and with your own personal vision. -- Louis Stettner In 1951 his work was included in the famous Subjektive Fotografie exhibition in Germany. During the 1950s he freelanced for Time Magazine, Life, Fortune, and Du (Germany). While in Paris he reconnected with Paul Strand, who had also left New York because of the political intolerance of the McCarthy era—Strand had been a founder of the Photo League that would be blacklisted and then banned during those years. In the 1970s Stettner spent more time in New York City, where he taught at Brooklyn College, Queens College, and Cooper Union. In his own work, Stettner focused on documenting the lives of the working class in both Paris and New York. He felt that the cities belong to the people who live there, not to tourists or visitors. His upbringing caused him to take great care in capturing the simple human dignity of the working class. He also captured noteworthy architectural images of both cities, including bridges, buildings, and monuments. Stettner produced well-known images, including: Aubervilliers, Brooklyn Promenade, Twin Towers with Sea Gull, Penn Station, and the Statue of Liberty, Battery Park. In his nineties, Stettner turned to a large format camera of the dimensions used by his hero, Paul Strand; an 8×10 Deardorff in order to photograph details of the landscape of Les Alpilles in Provence where Van Gogh often painted, assisted by his wife Janet. Stettner received numerous honors, and in 1950 he was named Life's top new photographer. In 1975 he won First Prize in the Pravda World Contest. Louis Stettner’s works are posthumously managed by the Louis Stettner Estate.Source: Wikipedia
Filip Gierlinski
United Kingdom
My uncle is a very accomplished craftsman and very keen and skilled amateur photographer. I always loved to see him draw, paint, design and gave me my fist Minolta x370 35mm manual camera when I was about 8, so it started there. At school and Uni I studied art subjects. I graduated in Graphic Design, worked for a year as a junior designer, but all the time thought I wanted to be the guy who came into our office with a contact sheet of commissioned photography, and not the guy sitting at a screen and designing the layouts for his photos. A friend was working in a Commercial Photo studio and needed some summer intern cover, and I jumped at the chance. 3 months tuned into nearly 4 years at the studio, and I learnt the skills, techniques, discipline, equipment and it opened my eyes to the industry and business of commercial photography. I have always had a passion for travel and I was eager to get outside, into the sun, and shoot people and places...we worked on products, catalogues and room sets at the studio which was an amazing experience and training, but not what I most desired to be shooting. I was fortunate enough to learn my trade in the days of film, and came to professional photography just as digital was breaking in and the industry was opening up and shifting. This gave me the technical skills of shooting on film for many years, and the ability to by my first semi-pro digital slr and advertise online for freelance jobs - so I had the best of (understanding) both worlds. After some travel and teaching TEFL with my wife, we came back to the UK and I started to freelance, shooting mostly art projects, working for the Arts Council and delivering educational programmes, and all the time slowly building up my freelance business. So since about 2003 I have worked as a commercial and corporate photographer, covering a wide range of subjects and industries and have had the opportunity to work with some amazing and diverse clients. The work as a tutor gives me the opportunity to travel and practice my craft and I bring that inspiration back to my business. Part of my early freelance work was shooting business portraits, and so I started to advertise specifically for Corporate Headshots and Portraits as a separate arm of my work, and this has become the main source of my income and commissions over the past few years. I have shot for huge companies with 1000's employees, as well as small businesses, professionals and entrepreneurs. I try to bring a sense of style and creativity, and an editorial feel to the ‘Corporate Headshot' and think that defines me with a distinctive look and product. I enjoy bringing a bit of creativity and style into the corporate world in my own little way, and years of shooting 1000s of people means I can read with my sitters quickly, make them feel at ease and connect with them which is something that shows through in my portraits. The skill is to do that within the 4 or 5 minutes I have with each person, sometimes up to 60-100 times a day! Most recently I shot a campaign for a bowling alley company, working with a sports marketing agency, and so in between my corporate work and travels, I work with agencies for hospitality, sports and automotive industries. Working on set with director Shane Meadows was a great experience, as well as shooting the bands I loved since I was a kid from the press pit and back stage at rock festivals - a real pinch yourself moment. As I often photograph a lot of faces and people in my daily work, it is always nice to get a luxury hotel commission where it's all about the rooms and design, architecture and details and make for a pleasurable change of pace. I was born in Poland in 1977, at 2 months packed into basket and flown to Tunis as my father was a civil engineer and contracted out there for a few years. We then lived in Poland and France and then moved to the UK when I was a child and so travel is in my blood. Since then I have been lucky to visit so many amazing countries. I have never really had money to just go travel, but always seeked out jobs where I could see the world. I have spent time as a tour guide in South America, teaching English in Nepal and India, and more recently working as a tutor has taken me all over the world. I have been lucky enough to be able to balance seeing the world, with a family life and earning here in the UK. I don't shoot travel stock or go with any intent to produce a commercial library, but more to see the people, to document their lives, to capture a story, as I feel my travel images are much more personal stories and of a more editorial feel than commercial. This may all change as i shoot new projects and seek to follow my vision. It is still my dream to find a way to move more towards travel and editorial commissions but I am lucky to be able to make ends meet through a job that I love every day.
Advertisement
Win a Solo Exhibition in June
Photo Basel 2025
AAP Magazine #49: B&W

Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Eric Davidove
Eric is addicted to street photography — and he’s been chasing its highs since 2014. Logging thousands of miles through city streets, he captures quirky, satirical, and often humorous moments that reflect the absurdities of modern urban life. His recent series, Life Is But a Dream, won him a solo exhibition and challenges viewers to look up from their screens and truly observe the world around them. Through his lens, the ordinary becomes extraordinary — and sometimes, even a wake-up call.
Interview with Anna and Jordan Rathkopf: On Seeing Ourselves Through Illness
Visual storytellers Anna and Jordan Rathkopf didn’t set out to make a book, an exhibition, or a lecture series. When Anna was diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer at 37, their shared creative language—photography—became a way to stay connected, grounded, and emotionally present. Nearly a decade later, that body of work has evolved into HER2: The Diagnosed, The Caregiver, and Their Son—a book and traveling exhibition that blends fine art, writing, and lived experience to explore how illness reshapes marriage, identity, and family. The exhibition opens June 7 at Photoville Festival in New York City and will travel through Czechia beginning in Fall 2025. Below, Anna and Jordan reflect on how they shaped the project, how their perspectives stayed distinct, and how it became the first major initiative of their nonprofit, the Patient Caregiver Artist Coalition (PCAC).
Exclusive Interview with Jackie Mulder
Amsterdam-based artist Jackie Mulder took an unconventional path into photography. After working in fashion and graphic design, she shifted her creative focus later in life—graduating from the Fotoacademie in Amsterdam at the age of 60. Since then, she’s embraced photography not as an end but as a beginning: a base layer in a deeply personal and tactile artistic process that blends images with wax, embroidery, and drawing.
Exclusive Interview with Mark S. Kornbluth
Five years after Broadway’s Great Intermission, Mark S. Kornbluth’s series DARK returns to AIPAD’s The Photography Show with Cavalier Gallery. Capturing the haunting beauty of New York’s shuttered theaters during the pandemic, DARK is both a tribute to resilience and a testament to the enduring power of the arts. With new works debuting at his upcoming exhibition ENCORE, we asked Mark a few questions about his life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Sarah Ketelaars
British photographer Sarah Ketelaars combines a background in literature, journalism, and social science with a distinctive visual style that is both thoughtful and evocative. Based in Brighton, her work has been exhibited internationally and featured on book and magazine covers. Her recent project The 544 earned her a solo exhibition in May 2024.
Exploring the Photography Market with Artsy: An Interview with Casey Lesser
Photography has long played a crucial role in the art market, bridging fine art and contemporary culture while attracting a diverse range of collectors. With digital platforms reshaping how art is discovered, collected, and valued, Artsy has emerged as a key player in making photography more accessible. In this exclusive interview, Casey Lesser, Artsy's Director of Content and Editorial, shares insights into the current photography market, emerging trends, and how digital tools are shaping the way collectors engage with the medium. From the growing demand for portraiture to the impact of price transparency, Lesser offers a behind-the-scenes look at the evolving landscape of photography collecting.
Exclusive Interview with Fabiola Menchelli
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.
Call for Entries
AAP Magazine #49 B&W
Publish your work in AAP Magazine and win $1,000 Cash Prizes