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Chad Cowan
Chad Cowan
Chad Cowan

Chad Cowan

Country: United States
Birth: 1984

Chad Cowan is a photographer and aspiring filmmaker who has been chasing storms across America's Tornado Alley over the past 10 years and 200,000 miles. His goal is to capture the awe inspiring beauty of nature in the most extreme and violent weather on earth. Cowan's current film project for which he is seeking financing and distribution is a collection of timelapses of these supercells shot in 8k resolution.

Growing up in Kansas, the epicenter of severe weather on the planet, he quickly became obsessed with thunderstorms. Inspired by a few timely weather-related gifts from his grandfather at a young age, Cowan decided he wanted to chase them once he had his driver's license.

Cowan's photos have been published around the globe and his work has appeared in major motion pictures, and on most national news outlets. In 2010, his 'Icemaker' photo of the supercell that dropped the largest hailstone ever recorded on earth came in second place in a National Geographic photo contest.

He has a BS in Economics from Kansas State University

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Roger Grasas
Roger Grasas
Spain
1970
Roger Grasas (Barcelona, 1970) begins his professional career as a photographer in 1998 documenting cooperation projects for national and international foundations and NGOs as well as for UNESCO. Since then, traveling becomes the core of his artistic work, translating his experiences and reflections into visual arts. Between 2005 and 2009 he is the director of the BisouFoto communication studio and co-founder of the phototroupe Studio agency. In both projects he is in charge of the commissions related to travel photography, editorial portrait and social report. Regular contributor to several Spanish and international publications. In 2009 he moves to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) where he leads the foundation of the photography department at Imagine Communication, a high end quality agency for social photography and events. During his stay in Saudi Arabia and later on until 2016 he develops the project 'Inshallah', a personal project about the extreme transformation of Middle eastern societies through the urban contemporary landscape in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Emirates, Oman etc. His body of work approaches the role and importance that technology reveals within the post-modern digital society, the state of strangeness and confusion that human being suffers in the contemporary landscape and the increasingly connections between art and science. Sociopolitical issues such as globalization and philosophical concepts such as the 'difference', 'hyperreality' and 'alienation' generated by the postcapitalist society and the accelerated implementation of new technologies are also common places of their work. Since 1997 he has combined his professional activity with teaching in photography. Between 1997 and 2004 he teaches Photography and Landscape Production courses at the UPC's Image and Multimedia Technology Center. He also works as an academic at the Groc School of Plastic Arts (Barcelona), at the Communication Faculty of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and at the Mamori Art Lab Foundation in Brazil. He has also given various workshops and seminars related to travel anthropology and contemporary society such as "The Art of Travel: Photography and Travel" and "Why Travel? Ethics and Aesthetics of Leisure and Tourism". His His works have been exhibited on galleries of Spain, France, Netherlands, Germany, U.S.A., El Salvador, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. About 'Min Turab' In the space of a few decades, the landscapes of the Arab Gulf region have undergone a wholesale mutation driven by increased income from the oil, globalization and mass tourism. These countries have seen so a huge transformation, moving from the nomadic lifestyle of the bedouin tribes to a hi-tech urban society. The work takes the title from an arabic expression meaning “from the land”, and is an observation of this process oscillation between these two poles: an austere, traditional civilization on one extreme, and a postmodern culture under the powerful influence of capitalism and consumerism on the other. Founded on the idea of travel as an artistic method, these photographs hold up a mirror to the dyad of nature and technology in a place where the old and the new come together and the lines between them blur. This tension is evident both in the vast desert landscapes and in the images of cities, where the past and the future are compressed into the close quarters of the present. These representations of the landscapes of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Qatar throw into sharp relief the binary opposition of the natural and the constructed. This sense of dislocation feeds into this idea of travel as an artistic dérive, drifting with no particular destination in mind, in search of new situations and experiences. In these dreamlike images, the author reflects on the concepts of the real and the unreal, with viewers left uncertain as to what is really going on. Almost completely lacking in human presence, these photographs show the mark left upon the landscape by consumer society at the same time as they seek out the beauty in strangeness. With a dry wit, the artist focuses his gaze on the idea of the simulacrum. The visual and conceptual glimpses of this world documents the colonization of contemporary landscapes by technology and the alienation of human beings in the digital societies of the Arabian Gulf countries. These images of silent architecture do not offer viewers any conclusions, but rather invite them to reflect and leave the way clear for a multiplicity of interpretations that connect with viewers' own imaginary.
Lilian Caruana
Lilian Caruana
United States
"As an immigrant from Italy growing up in New York, I was drawn to observing people and fascinated by differences in cultural behavior. I saw myself always faced with the dilemma of interpreting and reconciling home country with adopted country norms and behavior. Things that were perfectly normal in one culture could be foreign, even problematic, in the other. I developed “antennas” having to constantly read and interpret cultural cues or nuances in interactions with people. This feeling of being an outsider made me want to know more about people, how they lived, what they believed in. Seeking this, anthropology has been a lifelong study that I explore photographically. Photography has served as a passport that allows me entry to worlds normally closed to me. The central theme of my photography is individuals who are outside the mainstream of the larger society. I have photographed immigrants, punks and skinheads, Austrian farmers in the Italian Alps, inner city youth and gang members. My work explores how individuals who, either by choice or because they are seen as “the other,” live outside the dominant culture. My goal is to explore how individuals shape their identity and give voice to their own existence." REBELS: Punks and Skinheads of New York’s East Village "New York’s East Village has always been a haven for strivers, a home for immigrants, artists, poets and later the place where the punk movement was born. In 1984 I moved there and was fascinated by the young people walking around sporting body metal, torn clothing, tatoos, and chains. I photographed them in the streets, in the abandoned buildings they called home and in the clubs like CBGB where they played their hardcore music. These were young people who were looking for a more authentic way to be and did not see a place for themselves in mainstream society. It was exciting to see, in what appeared to be squalor and dissolution, something being born. With grit and ingenuity they took vacant lots filled with rubble and turned them into urban gardens, abandoned buildings into housing, and anger into art, music and community. Despite the drugs, poverty, and violence that battered the East Village at the time, the creative response was there, raw and beautiful, and that is what interested me."
Vesa Pihanurmi
Vesa Pihanurmi
Finland
1967
Vesa Pihanurmi is a multi award winning fine art photographer based in Helsinki, Finland. He was born in 1967. His photographs cover wide range of subjects from architecture to abstract studies and from landscapes to street photography. Regardless of the subject the main focus of his photography is in the emotional impact of the images. He interprets reality with minimalistic approach revealing alternative perspectives of our world through methods like long exposure, monochrome conversion and selective coloring. His photographs are often described as minimalistic, poetic, atmospheric and soothing. He has received several awards in the most important photography competitions worldwide (SWPA, IPA, PX3, ND Awards, Monochrome Awards, etc.).
Joël Tettamanti
Joël Tettamanti
Switzerland
1977
Joël Tettamanti was born in 1977 in Efok, Cameroon, and grew up in Lesotho and Switzerland. He studied photography at ECAL, Lausanne, where his teachers were Pierre Fantys and Nicolas Faure. Following his studies, he worked as an assistant to the photographer Guido Mocafico in Paris. Tettamanti is established as a commercial and media photographer for clients such as Wallpaper*, Kvadrat, and international architects. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Europe, and has been the subject of several monographs, including Local Studies (2007) and Davos (2009). He lives in Lausanne. The Swiss photographer Tettamanti creates works that focus on the impact of human settlement on the landscape, from Asia to the Arctic Circle. The images are often without people, examining instead the contradiction of human frailty and resilience, and the relationships people form with the land. His work is a vast archive of the structures, villages, and cities people create, and of the landforms and climates that shape them. Like many photographers who have been drawn to archive the world, Tettamanti’s interest lies beyond collecting artifacts of the human imprint on the land. The questions he asks of a place – why things look the way they do, and how they came about – lead to profoundly social narratives about the people who are uplifted and sometimes defeated by the land they inhabit. Tettamanti gravitates toward inhospitable environments where these relationships play out in spectacle: the juxtaposition of sublime natural beauty and buildings of startling banality, or ingenuity, or of land seemingly without limit and the meager architecture put upon it. The story can be one of use and misuse, where urban sprawl or industrial incursions have degraded the land and corrupted its beauty, as well as one of human adaptability and resourcefulness. The land is shaped by people as much as it shapes them. His quest as an artist recalls the expeditionary photography of the American West in the nineteenth century, when territories previously unexplored by Americans were opened to visual imagination by the camera. Today, when technology and globalization make distant cultures accessible, there is still a sense of revelation in Tettamanti’s work. For this artist, much like the nineteenth-century pioneers of the medium, photography remains a means of understanding the world, and retains the power to astonish with images of places that exist beyond the imagination. Source: MIT Museum
Jan Enkelmann
Jan Enkelmann
Germany
1970
Jan Enkelmann (born 1970 in Stuttgart, Germany) is a documentary, street and travel photographer based in London. He is dividing his time between commercial commissions and personal projects. Jan's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and publications and he has been commissioned by magazines internationally. Jan's book Happiness (co-authored with his wife Maren) won the ITB Book Award for best Travel Photobook. His latest publication is the book Smoking Chefs. Pause On the 23rd of March, the evening the lockdown was announced in the UK, I was on my bike, cycling through an already deserted London, experiencing the city like I had never seen it in the 20 years I have been living here. I decided that taking the camera on my nightly cycling excursions - my chosen form of daily exercise - would be a safe way to document different parts of London without endangering myself or others. I felt compelled to document the lack of crowds in usually crowded locations. But looking at the images I have made over these weeks, I feel these photos are less about the lack of human presence and rather about the stillness of a city being allowed a breather, to reveal a beauty that often goes unnoticed. I have launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise funds to publish a photobook of these unique images. It's called 'Pause' and it's going to be a 148-page hardcover book with 90 of the photos from the series. Kickstarter Campaign
Claude Cahun
Claude Cahun
France
1894 | † 1954
Claude Cahun (25 October 1894 - 8 December 1954), born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, was a French Surrealist photographer, sculptor and writer. Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914 and is best known for their self-portraits, in which they assume a variety of personae. Cahun's work was both political and personal, and often undermined traditional concepts of static gender roles. In their autobiography, Disavowals, they explained their rejection of gender, "Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me." This declaration is an important consideration when analysing Cahun's photography as they intentionally play with and subvert the viewers' understanding of gender. This quote, together with their unconventional appearance and their gender-ambiguous pseudonym, means that it is not infrequent to see the pronoun 'they' used nowadays in critical studies on Cahun. There is no evidence that they ever adopted 'they' as their preferred pronoun, but one should take into account the cultural and historical context behind this. Given that French pronouns were extremely binary and the use of gender neutral pronouns for nonbinary individuals wasn't common in the European interwar period, it isn't unreasonable to imagine Cahun would have used gender neutral pronouns had it not been for their environment. In any case, the use of the gender neutral pronouns in reference to Cahun is less of an attempt to apply contemporary norms to a historical figure, but rather a way for their gender to remain an open question in academia. During WWII, Cahun was also active as a resistance worker and propagandist. Source: Wikipedia
Anton Gorlin
Anton Gorlin
Australia
Anton Gorlin is a landscape and real estate photographer, who tries to capture the essence of the moment and beauty of shapes and forms. Originally from Ukraine, he now lives and works in Gold Coast, Australia. Anton enjoys the beauty of Australian nature and does several trips a year to keep his portfolio growing. Prints of his photos landed in Ukraine, Russia, Germany, Australia, USA and other countries. Anton's works have been published in various magazines and newspapers internationally. Photography for Anton started off as a hobby when he was sent to Australia for the first time for business. He got a compact camera and became involved instantly. After a short course to get into the techie stuff, he bought his first DSLR Nikon D80 and it served him well for years - until it got drowned in the ocean. Anton is mostly self-taught. After that short initial course, he gained 99% of his knowledge through the internet, articles and later digital editing course by Sean Bagshaw. Editing was always harder to master and Sean's course appeared to be a game changer for him. Anton has been freelancing since 2011 as a real estate photographer and in 2018 he's started growing his business, getting more clients and getting more involved in the real estate photography. Anton runs a photography blog with educational guides and tutorials and some free 4K wallpapers for download. He also performs landscape photography workshops in Gold Coast, Australia and editing lessons both online and offline.
Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges
United States
1949
Jeff Bridges is one of Hollywood's most successful actors and an Academy Award® winner. Over a career that spans five decades, his work has been recognized by the Academy Awards®, the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild. Truly passionate about photography, he makes behind-the-scenes pictures of the actors, crew and locations on his film sets. After completion of each motion picture, he edits the images into a book and gives copies to everyone involved. The books, which have become valued by collectors, were never intended for public sale, but in the fall of 2006, powerHouse Books published Pictures: Photographs by Jeff Bridges, a compilation of photos made on numerous film locations over the years, to much critical acclaim. Proceeds from the book benefit the Motion Picture & Television Fund, a nonprofit organization that offers charitable care and support to film industry workers. Source: International Center of Photography
Bara Prasilova
Bara Prasilova
Czech Republic
Bara Prasilova gratuated from the Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University in 2012. She lives and works in Prague (Czech Republic) and focuses on fine art , portrait and fashion art photography. She is the winner of several contests including the Screenings Awards (2013), the Photographer of the Year (2011 Czech Grand Design), the Photographer of the year (2009 Czech Grand Design), finalist of the Hasselblad Masters (2014), finalist of the New York Photo Awards (2012), finalist of the Hasselblad Masters (2009), she was also the Quiksilver Woman Ambassador and the winner of the Frame 005 awards. Her work was featured in many exhibitions around the world.
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Latest Interviews

Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Jan Janssen
Dutch photographer Jan Janssen explores universal human experiences through his long-term project It Matters, winner of the May 2025 Solo Exhibition. Begun in 2016, the series captures intimate moments of everyday life—love, loss, connection, and belonging—across Central and Eastern Europe. Working in countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, Janssen spends extended time within communities, building relationships based on trust and respect. His approach allows him to move beyond observation, revealing deeply human and authentic moments. Rooted in travel and personal discovery, It Matters reflects Janssen’s search for what connects us all in an increasingly divided world. The project is ongoing and will culminate in a photobook scheduled for publication in 2026.
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Interview
Exclusive Interview with Henk Kosche
German photographer Henk Kosche turns his lens toward the streets of Halle an der Saale, capturing everyday life in the late years of the former German Democratic Republic. At the time, Kosche was studying design and exploring the city with his camera, drawn to the atmosphere of its industrial landscape and the quiet rhythms of daily life. His series Street Photography at the End of the 80s, selected as the Solo Exhibition for July 2025, revisits a body of work created just before a period of profound change. Rediscovered decades later in a small box of 35mm negatives, these photographs offer glimpses of a city and its people at a moment suspended between the familiar and the unknown.
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Exclusive Interview with Anastasia Samoylova
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Exclusive Interview with Marijn Fidder
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Exclusive Interview with Marijn Fidder
Marijn Fidder is a Dutch documentary photographer whose work powerfully engages with current affairs and contemporary social issues. Driven by a deep sense of social justice, she uses photography to speak on behalf of the voiceless and to advocate for the rights of those who are most vulnerable. Her images have been widely published in major international outlets including National Geographic, CNN Style, NRC Handelsblad, Volkskrant, GUP New Talent, and ZEIT Magazin. Her long-term commitment to disability rights—particularly through years of work in Uganda—culminated in her acclaimed project Inclusive Nation, which earned her the title of Photographer of the Year 2025 at the All About Photo Awards. She is also the recipient of multiple prestigious honors, including awards from World Press Photo and the Global Peace Photo Award. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
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Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Interview
Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Josh S. Rose is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, film, and writing. His practice bridges visual and performing arts, with a strong focus on movement, emotion, and the expressive potential of the image. Known for his long-standing collaborations with leading dance companies and performers, Rose brings together authenticity and precise composition—a balance he describes as “technical romanticism.” His work has been commissioned and exhibited internationally, appearing in outlets such as Vogue, at the Super Bowl, in film festivals, and most recently as a large-scale installation for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. A sought-after collaborator, he has worked with major artists, cultural institutions, and brands, following a previous career as Chief Creative Officer at Interpublic Group and the founder of Humans Are Social. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
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Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
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Exclusive Interview with Peter Ydeen
Winner of AAP Magazine #45 Travels, his series reflects this unique vision—capturing the spirit of place through subtle layers of light, color, and emotion. Whether traveling abroad or observing the rhythms of his own surroundings, Ydeen creates images that feel both grounded and enchanted, inviting viewers into a world where reality and reverie meet.
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Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
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Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
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Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
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Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
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