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Marcel Van Balken
Marcel Van Balken
Marcel Van Balken

Marcel Van Balken

Country: Netherlands

Marcel van Balken is a self-taught photographer from the Netherlands for about 40 years. As a photographer he is interested in specific themes and conceptual photography. He believes in working thematically with an absolute preference for surrealistic and creative photography. He gives himself a kind of theme or assignment and will not stop making photographs unless he thinks he got everything out of this assignment.

Marcel moves as a photographer ideally in the field of surrealism and magic realism. He prefers to create photographic images inspired by everyday reality combined with his own imagination. He strives to carefully compose photographic compositions of realistic looking scenes in unreal and sometimes magical spheres.

With his pictures he wants to tell a story with some level of abstraction: the image is not an explicit example of the concept, but a general expression of the idea. His goal in conceptual photography is to create a concrete image of abstract definition; to take a concept or idea and create a visual representation of it. A way of looking at the world in a completely different, sometimes surrealistic, manner.

Website

www.photure.nl

 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Brian Ulrich
Brian Ulrich
United States
1971
Brian Ulrich is an American photographer known for his exploration of consumer culture. Ulrich's work is held many collections including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo District News named Ulrich as one of 30 Emerging Photographers (2007). He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009). His work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine; Time Magazine; Mother Jones; Artforum; and Harper’s. Aperture and the Cleveland Museum of Art published his first major monograph, Is This Place Great or What (2011). The Anderson Gallery published the catalog Closeout: Retail, Relics and Ephemera (2013).Source: Rhode Island School of Design Ulrich was born in Northport, New York, and lives in Providence, Rhode Island. He received a BFA in photography from University of Akron in Akron, Ohio (1996) and an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago (2004). He has taught photography at Columbia College Chicago and Gallery 37, both in Chicago; and at the University of Akron. He is an Associate Professor of Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2001 in response to a national call for citizens to bolster the American economy through shopping, Ulrich began a project to document consumer culture. This project, Copia, is a series of large-scale photographs of shoppers, retail spaces, and displays of goods. Initially focused on big-box retail establishments and shoppers, the series expanded to include thrift stores, back rooms of retail businesses, art fairs, and most recently empty retail stores and dead malls. Ulrich works with a combination of 4×5 large format and medium format cameras, and also incorporates found objects as sculpture, juxtaposed with his photographs on gallery walls.Source: Wikipedia
Salvatore Valente
Salvatore Valente
Italy
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Salvatore Valente was born in Ostuni (Italy) on 10 June 1960. He began his career in the eighties, he discovered the passion for Ethnic groups in the world and above all for all those communities that are disappearing by organizing travels in search of populations in danger of extinction. During his professional growth as a photojournalist he has made several photo exhibitions, rich in lights and colors, natural landscapes, splits of everyday life and the expressiveness of the people who, with his looks, recount their lives. He has won more than 70 International Awards with a remarkable success in Mondo.
Monika Maroziene
Monika Maroziene
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Born in Lithuania and raised along the Amber Coast, Monika Maroziene’s work is a fusion of science and emotion, discipline and instinct. With a master’s degree in chemistry, her artistic journey began from a quiet yearning, what she calls “a void where art should be.” That longing gradually led her to photography, where she found the perfect medium to weave her scientific understanding with deep rooted personal stories and poetic vision. Her approach is experimental and tactile. By melting pine tree resin onto her black-and-white prints, Monika not only enhances the texture and warmth of her imagery but also introduces natural preservation qualities. This technique plays a central role in her latest series, Woman and The Sea (later called Amber Coast), a deeply personal project that pays homage to the Amber Coast of her childhood. The use of raw, unfossilised resin adds a subtle golden hue and evokes the scent and spirit of Baltic summers. In Monika’s work, art and chemistry converge into a quiet kind of alchemy. Her images are defined by a strong visual identity, at once melancholic and ironic, delicate yet resolute. Her subjects, often women, are portrayed as multifaceted beings: powerful, enigmatic, nurturing, dramatic, and elusive. She draws inspiration from the unique landscape of the Curonian Spit, with its ever changing dunes and untamed sea, and from the women who shaped her, especially her grandmother. “My photography is a form of freedom,” she says. “Solitude shaped me. The silence, the seagulls, the endless rhythm of waves, these moments now live in my images. I work in black and white because colour feels out of place in the world I capture. The touch of pine resin brings back the warmth of sunlit days and the memory of home.” Her evocative work has received international recognition: Fine Art Photographer of the Year – 1st Place, Monochrome Photography Awards 2024, 1st Place and Gold Winner, Fine Art/Portrait – Tokyo International Foto Awards 2024 (TIFA), Silver Winner – Prix de la Photographie Paris (PX3) 2024, Silver, Fine Art/Nudes – Budapest International Foto Awards (BIFA) 2024, Bronze and Honorable Mention – Exposure One Awards 2025, Bronze, Fine Art – One Eyeland Awards 2024, Honorable Mention – International Photography Awards (IPA) 2024 Her photographs have been exhibited at Trieste Photo Days and featured in renowned publications, including the URBAN Photo Awards catalogue and the Monochrome Photography Awards Annual Book 2024. She also held a solo exhibition at Petra Gut Contemporary Art Gallery in Switzerland and took part in a group show featured by Profifoto magazine during the opening of the 56th Rencontres d’Arles in 2025. AAP Magazine: AAP Magazine 49: B&W
Monica Denevan
Monica Denevan
United States
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Monica Denevan studied photography at San Francisco State University. Her ongoing series, "Songs of the River: Portraits from Burma," began in 2000. Since then, she has returned to many of the same small villages in Burma/Myanmar, making intimate photographs of fishermen and their families in the spare and graphic setting of the Irrawaddy River. She travels with a medium format film camera, one lens, and bags of film, working with natural light and making composed images. Once home, she makes photographic prints in her traditional darkroom. Denevan's photographs have been exhibited internationally including solo shows at Scott Nichols Gallery (Sonoma, CA), Duncan Miller Gallery (Santa Monica, CA), Tao Gallery (Hong Kong) and Serindia Gallery Annex (Bangkok.) In 2020, she was one of 25 artists included in Photo-Eye Gallery's (Santa Fe, NM) first-ever juried exhibition. Her work is currently displayed on The Strand Cruise ship in Burma/Myanmar. She was a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 finalist in 2019 and 2012. In 2016, ten of Denevan's images were published in a book of Lao photographs published by Nazraeli Press and Friends Without A Border in NY. In addition, her photographs have been published in ZYZZYVA, LensWork, SHOTS, and Bangkok Airways Inflight Magazine among others. She is the All About Photo 2020 Photographer of the Year award recipient. Monica Denevan is represented by Scott Nichols Gallery. She lives and works in San Francisco. Statement In my ongoing series "Songs of the River: Portraits from Burma," I make portraits of fishermen and their families by the Irrawaddy River. Burma (Myanmar) has a long troubled history, which continues into the present and now receives much more international notice and condemnation since my first trip in 2000. However, little has changed in the quiet villages I often visit. Generations of families live together in thatched roofed huts built on stilts. Women wash clothes in the river. Girls collect river water in large plastic containers that they balance on their heads. Men and boys are often out all night fishing. In the evening, children play, sing, bathe, and joke around at the river's edge. The sounds echo over the water. When in the villages, I am most interested in making portraits of the people I spend my time with, some of whom I have photographed since I first visited the country. I am grateful to be allowed briefly into their lives. The nearby area is stark, minimal, and ever changing, and I use that environment in my photographs. The landscape becomes another subject, another portrait within the picture. As families grow, I incorporate new people into my images, combining the spare, external world with the physicality of the individual. To return to the same place annually and find a new way to see it or to look for what is different is a daily adventure that I enjoy.
Tommi Viitala
Tommi Viitala
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Helsinki based Tommi Viitala has started active street photography over four years ago. However, the camera is not a new device for him because he has been filming more and less actively throughout his life, starting with film cameras from the 90s. Since the camera is almost always with Tommi, he also goes around the world filming streets, most recently in Budapest, Hungary. Tommi's photos has been published also various street photography publications and exhibitions. Statement: My signature style includes precise composition, sharp contrasts, moody atmosphere and symmetry. Of these, the contrasts are the most what i'm chasing almost every day on the streets. The sunnier the day, the more i look for the shadows. Street photography has also taught me to look at the city in a different way, to look for exceptions and small glitches to pick up small beautiful details from those moments. What attracts me about street photography is that even if like ten different photographers take a picture of the same fleeting moment, each picture is different, i.e. the look of its taker. In addition, the different styles of street photography, such as juxtaposition, geometry and the play of light and shadows inspire me to the streets again and again. AAP Magazine AAP Magazine 36 Street AAP Magazine 39 Shadows AAP Magazine 42 Shapes AAP Magazine 44 Street AAP Magazine 50 Shapes
Nazanin Alipour Jeddi
Nazanin Alipour Jeddi
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Nazanin Alipour Jeddi, known as Sitaaj, is a self-taught freelance photographer and translator born in Tehran, Iran, and currently residing in the United States. She specializes in capturing the nuanced experiences of women, exploring themes of gender, identity, and cultural dynamics. Sitaaj's photography has been exhibited internationally and recognized with multiple awards. Her work highlights the profound interplay between women's experiences and the cultural systems surrounding them, fostering dialogue and understanding through her art. In addition to her photography, Sitaaj is an accomplished translator. Her fifth translated book, Howto Be an Artist, was recently published in Tehran. Through her creative work and translations, Sitaaj seeks to inspire and empower individuals to pursue their passions, regardless of their backgrounds or circumstances. Photography remains her true passion, providing a medium to tell compelling and meaningful stories. Lingering Shadows The photography series "Lingering Shadows" is an attempt to capture the simple yet complex and hidden moments that women experience in their everyday lives. These images use the color blue to emphasize the often invisible fatigue—an endless cycle of tasks that, despite their importance, sometimes feel futile and unproductive. The dominant presence of blue conveys a deep sense of coldness and isolation. The goal of this series is to invite viewers to rethink the aspects of women's lives that often go unnoticed. Simple moments, such as drinking tea, preparing food, or a brief pause amid the daily chaos, take on new meaning in these images, representing the emptiness, futility, and underlying complexities in these seemingly ordinary experiences. These photos are not only a personal narrative but also a reflection of the collective experience of women around the world.
Maja Strgar Kurecic
Maja Strgar Kurecic
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Maja Strgar Kurecic is a fine art photographer and an Associate Professor of photography at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She has been involved in photography for over 25 years. At the beginning of her career, Maja engaged mostly in advertising and journalistic projects. The last few years she devoted to projects that fall within the field of abstract photography. She earned international recognition for her recent projects: Other Worlds, Escape Landscapes and Floating Garden that won many international awards. She exhibited photographs on over 50 group and 20 independent exhibitions, held in country and abroad. OTHER WORLDS (2018) In the intimacy of my room, I immerse myself in an unpredictable, hidden world of colors and liquids. I create abstract motives from scratch. With the camera, I approach the subject and stop the moment of the dynamic process of their interaction. What is elusive to the eye in real time becomes visible in photographs... Although these photographs look like an abstract expression of colors and shapes, for me they mean much more. They represent symbolic landscapes - places where I escape from everyday worries and the real world, symbolize my inner world. What drives me in creation is the eternal search for wider horizons, unfettered spaces that transcend the boundaries of where we are physically standing and transcend into the infinite space of the imagination. For me, creation is a journey to freedom, to an open flow of pure ideas.
Marci Lindsay
Marci Lindsay
United States
1961
Marci Lindsay is a street photographer living in Washington, DC. Briefly a city planner, she has always been a people watcher and street photography lover. She is part of the DC Street Photography Collective (in her city) and the Optic Nerve Street Photography Collective (international). She has been shooting street photography for about five years. Marci Lindsay also loves curating (Street Macadam on Instagram, Women in Street on Instagram and Facebook, and Photographers Under Confinement on Facebook). Her photos have been exhibited in New York, Miami, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brisbane, Cyprus, Trieste, and Paris. Statement I’ve had a love for street photography since I was a child, long before I knew it had a name. Not until a few years ago, once my kids were grown, did I take up the challenge of photographing in the streets myself. I am drawn to ordinary people doing ordinary things. To me, it’s all extra-ordinary—motion, gesture, connection, and humor. We humans are so much more the same than we are different, and hopefully my photos remind people of that. “Every man beareth the whole stamp of the human condition.” ~ Montaigne
Julien Chatelin
Julien Chatelin
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1968
Born in France in 1968 Julien Chatelin began his career has a photojournalist after graduating from New York University. Investigating at first social issues in France, his focus turned increasingly towards major international events, and particularly to the changes taking places in Eastern Europe that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Chatelin then expanded his horizons to other territories focusing his attention to the fate of nations struggling for independent statehood. This series included works from the Caucasus, Kosovo, Western Sahara, Kurdistan, Xinjiang and Tibet. Between 2004 and 2006 Chatelin set forth to create a visual fresco of Israeli society. Israel Borderline was published in 2008 in a 160-page monograph. In a constant quest to explore new visual dialectics and narratives, Julien Chatelin, produced Egyptorama: A journey through Egypt's semi-desert lands, shot in large format, which received the 2013 Camera Clara award. Egyptorama is the first opus of a larger body of work in progress, which deals, in various territories, with the issue of urbanization and the cyclical transformations of our environments. Chatelin is co-founder of the award-winning magazine De L'air and a former member of Rapho agency.
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