Szymon Barylski

Szymon Barylski

Szymon Barylski

Szymon Barylski

Country: Poland
Birth: 1984

Szymon Barylski Polish freelance photographer born in 1984 based in Ireland. He has been published, among others, The Irish Times, National Geographic Poland, The Eye of Photography, Edge of Humanity Magazine. He has had a number of exhibitions in many countries including 3rd Documentary Photography Days in Istambul, MIFA Photography, The SE Centre for Photography- Documentary Photography. His pictures were awarded in many competitions. Szymon is involved in documentary photography and photo essays. Photographing for he is a tool for exploring and learning about the world. He tries to tell a story and show it directly. In his opinion, people are an inexhaustible topic and a source of inspiration. Szymon said: „When traveling, I meet people; as a result, I create the image of my relation with them. The exploration of the environment where I take photos allow me to create emotional and convincing scenes.“ He thinks you cannot photograph the things you do not know well. That is why he prepares himself for each project individually, accurately, going into detail in the newspapers and on the Internet. Next, he looks for an inspiration in other photographer’s photos and conversations, as a result, he can create real pictures. His own narrative presented in his photos are at the same time very personal and common. Szymon thinks that a lot of people can identify themselves with his works. Photographer wish his photos could increase individual and collective awareness about the social, political and economic need and urge people to act, be part of positive changes.

Website

www.szymonbarylski.com

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Pentti Sammallahti

Pentti Sammallahti

Finland
1950

Pentti Sammallahti was born in 1950 in Helsinki, Finland. Growing up, he was surrounded by the works of his grandmother, Hildur Larsson (1882-1952), a Swedish-born photographer, who worked for the Helsinki newspaper Kaiku in the early 1900s. After visiting The Family of Man exhibition at Helsinki Art Hall (1961) Sammallahti made his first photographs at age eleven. Pentti joined the Helsinki Camera Club in 1964. His first solo exhibition was in 1971. Sammallahti has travelled widely as a photographer, from his native Scandinavia, across the Soviet Republics through Siberia, to Japan, India, Nepal, Morocco, Turkey, across Europe and Great Britain, and even to South Africa. Sammallahti’s travels and interest in fine printing and lithography has led him to publish numerous portfolios of which the largest and most well known is “The Russian Way” (1996). As a benchmark figure in contemporary Finnish photography, his work has a supernatural sense of a moment in time with the sensitivity and beauty of the world displayed through its animalistic existence. His particular use of dogs, which reflects the human existential experience, shows the shared nature of the earth with a gentle humor and fleeting attitude. Sammallahti describes himself as a wanderer who likes the nature of the great north, the silence, the cold, and the sea. He likes the people and the animals of far off places and he records the relationships between them and their environment. As a master craftsman, he meticulously tones his prints, which come in various formats, from 4 by 5 inches in image size to panoramas of 6 by 14 inches. In 2010 for his retrospective exhibition in Helsinki he created large format pigment prints, about 9 by 21 inches and 15 by 35.5 inches in size. As a passionate seeker of the perfect mechanical printing method, his own innovative printing techniques and reintroduction of the portfolio form have re-awakened broader interest in published photographic art. Influenced by the idea of ‘artist books’ – individual works in which the artist is responsible for the whole: photography, the making of prints, layout, design and typography, reproduction and often the actual printing process either with the offset or the gravure method. Since 1979, Pentti Sammallahti has published thirteen books and portfolios and has received awards such as the Samuli Paulaharju Prize of the Finnish Literature Society, State Prizes for Photography, Uusimaa Province Art Prize, Daniel Nyblin Prize, and the Finnish Critics Association Annual. From 1974 to 1991 Sammallahti taught at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, retiring when he received a 15-year grant from the Finnish government, an unusually long endowment, which is no longer awarded. Both as a photographer and a teacher, he has had an enormous influence on a whole generation of documentary photographers in Scandinavia. Sammallahti had a solo exhibition at Paris' Mois de la Photographie in 1996 and another in 1998 at Houston Fotofest, Texas. In 2001 the Helsinki University of Art and Design awarded Pentti Sammallahti the title of Honorary Doctorate in Art. In 2004, the famous French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson ranked Sammallahti among his 100 favorite photographers for his Foundation's inaugural exhibition in Paris. The French Photo Poche book series published his book edited by Robert Delpire in 2005, and the same year, Sammallahti had a personal exhibition at the International Photography Festival in Arles. His second exhibition at Recontres d'Arles was a major retrospective in 2012 accompanied by the release of the first retrospective monograph Here Far Away, published in six languages (German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, and Finnish). Among museum collections Sammallahti’s work can be found at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USA; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany; Moderna Museet / Fotografiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; and The Finnish State Collections and the Photographic Museum of Finland.Source: Nailya Alexander Gallery Sammallahti has been photographing the world around him with a poetic eye since the age of eleven. At the age of nine he visited "The Family of Man" exhibition at Helsinki Art Hall, confirming at a young age his photographic path in life. Featured in solo exhibitions by the age of 21, Sammallahti continued to exhibit and teach at the Helsinki University of Art and Design until receiving the Finnish State's 15-year artist grant in 1991. Sammallahti describes himself as a nomad who enjoys the nature of the great north: the darkness, the cold, and the sea. Sammallahti is a master craftsman, carefully toning his prints, to create a poetic atmosphere of desolate silence.   Sammallahti was honored to be included among the 100 favorite photographs in the personal collection of Henri Cartier-Bresson, which was the inaugural exhibition for the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson in 2003. Since 1979, Pentti Sammallahti has published thirteen books and portfolios and has received awards such as the Samuli Paulaharju Prize of the Finnish Literature Society, State Prizes for Photography, Uusimaa Province Art Prize, Daniel Nyblin Prize, and the Finnish Critics Association Annual.Source: Peter Fetterman Gallery

Matthew Pillsbury

Matthew Pillsbury

United States / France
1973

Matthew Pillsbury is a French-born American photographer, living in New York City. The Screen Lives series, inspired by Sugimoto's movie theater photos, features black and white, long-exposure photographs of family and friends sitting in their apartments interacting with their computer and television screens. In 2004 The New York Times Magazine commissioned him to do a portfolio of photos of New York museums after hours. One such photo was taken at the Guggenheim Museum: An installation in progress in the Ronald O. Perelman Rotunda (Oct. 1, 2004.) In addition to New York, he continued to shoot within museums in both London and Paris, including the Musée du Louvre. At the Louvre he photographed the Mona Lisa. The New York Times and the Aperture Foundation published New York Times Photographs in the fall of 2011, featuring one of his photos of the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center For Earth and Space. In the Dec 11, 2011 issue of New York Magazine, Pillsbury's works were published as part of their "Reasons to Love New York 2011" feature. The photos included four shots from City Stages, which included Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park, as well as Jing Fong dim sum, Fausto in Washington Square Park and High Line. His series, City Stages initially ran from February 23, 2012 to April 28, 2012 at the Bonni Bunrubi Gallery in New York City. The exhibition opened in Atlanta, GA on September 13, 2012 and ran until November 17, 2012 at The Jackson Fine Art gallery. In September 2013, the Aperture Foundation published a monograph that includes a retrospective of his works, titled, City Stages. The New York Times Magazine published one of Pillsbury's City Stages photos as part of their Manhattanhenge feature in July 2013. Art Relish conducted an interview in October 2012 with him discussing his City Stages works. In the Oct 1, 2012 edition of Time Magazine, High Line photo, featuring a park in Manhattan constructed of abandoned train tracks, was highlighted as part of his exhibit at the Jackson Fine Art gallery. The Screen Lives series, inspired by Sugimoto's movie theater photos, features black and white, long-exposure photographs of family and friends sitting in their apartments interacting with their computer and television screens. On the CNN Photos Blog, Pillsbury's Screen Lives series was featured in a post about the School of Visual Arts "Myths & Realities" show, which took at the Visual Arts Gallery in New York, Aug 29-Sept 29, 2012. On November 27, 2011, New York Times Magazine featured two of Pillsbury's photos of Jane's Carousel from "City Stages." In April 2014, Pillsbury was one of 11 photographers awarded with the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Approximately 200 Fellowships are awarded each year through two annual competitions that receive between 3,500 and 4,000 applications. Guggenheim Fellowships are grants awarded to "advanced professionals in mid-career" who have demonstrated exceptional ability by publishing a significant body of work within the fields of natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and the creative arts, excluding the performing arts. In 2014, Pillsbury photographed various cities in Japan, with the focus being in and around Tokyo. Recent photographs from his work in Tokyo were revealed in a photo essay published on July 18, 2014 in The New York Times Magazine and include images from Tokyo Disneyland, Robot Restaurant and the CupNoodles Museum in Yokohama. In April 2014, The New York Times Magazine first ran a photo essay of Pillsbury's work that centered around the hanami parties that occur during the week when the cherry blossoms are at peak bloom. An exhibition of His new Tokyo work opened Sept 10, 2014 and closed November 15, 2014 in New York City at Benrubi Gallery. A portfolio of Pillsbury's new images was featured in The New Yorker in September 2015, and showcased locations that include the High Line, the American Museum of Natural History, Astoria Park Pool and the Coney Island Boardwalk. He has also widened the project's focus to include locations outside of Manhattan, after a move to Brooklyn in January 2015 that inspired him to shoot urban life in the outer boroughs. In a redesign and relaunch in the February 22, 2015 issue, The New York Times Magazine published a photograph Of his on its cover. The long exposure image featured an illuminated spinning globe, which he took in his basement. He is represented exclusively by Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York.Source: Wikipedia

Julien Chatelin

Julien Chatelin

France/United States
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.

Mina Teslaru

Romania

Born in Bucharest, Romania, Mina spent her childhood in theatre, amongst preparing actors, dusty props and costumes, and most summers by the Black sea, capturing the world with her plastic panoramic camera.Fascinated by movies and cinematography, she frames the world in overexposed imagery that reflects the luminosity of her vision. Since her move to NYC, she fell irreversibly in love with Coney Island, a subject that has been the center of her work for the past 3 years. She was a featured artist of the Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn and is a member of Norfolks NYC Art Collective.Mina lives in NYC and travels often, in search of serendipity driven by restless creativity.

Ted Anderson

United States

I'm a photographer and designer (graphics and exhibitions) living in upstate New York, with a passion for photographing landscapes, interiors, and people. The pared down features in many of these photographs reflect my interest in natural history, and in the passage of time and the remnants of the past in the present. While the photographs were taken in places as diverse as the lakes and beaches in Maine, gardens in England, and the rural hills of central New York state, all of the images reveal my preference for the simplicity and a certain joyfulness that can exist with austerity. Is there a story behind each of these images? Always.Ted Anderson is presented by TBM Photography NetworkTBM Photography Network regularly presents the popular series: "Photographer Spotlight.” In this part of their newsletter and FaceBook page various fellow photographers are interviewed to learn more about what motivates them, what their goals are and what direction they wish to take with their art. In this segment they welcome the talents of photographer Ted Anderson. TBMPN: What best describes your particular style of photography? TA:I am drawn to austerity, simplicity and to capturing beauty in places that might seem lonely to some. I think a lot about the relationship between people and their environments, and sometimes I look for a figure or a remnant of the past in my exterior or interior photographs. I do not put elements together artificially, but try to present images as I find them. Sometimes I allow stories to arise from the moments captured with the camera. TBMPN: What equipment do you regularly use? TA:My main camera of choice is a Nikon D90 with an 18-100mm lens and a 50-200mm lens. When shooting landscapes, I often go with the wide angle settings. I use a small variety of filters that include neutral density and polarizing filters. Any processing is done on a Mac computer, and I work primarily in Photoshop’s Camera Raw and in Silver Efex. TBMPN: Who or what do you consider your major influences? TA:There are many photographers and painters whose work I admire, but right now I’d have to say that the photographs of Brett and Edward Westen, Julia Margaret Cameron and Walker Evans come to mind. I also love the paintings of Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper. Visually I am also inspired through music and words that include songs by Bill Callahan, novels by Marilynne Robinson, and the poems by W.S. Merwin. TBMPN: Why did you choose photography as your method of expression? TA:As a kid I loved to draw, and I’ve also composed songs on the guitar for years. Photography, however, is what brings to me the greatest level of creative satisfaction and that sense of connection to others. Just about anyone can take a photograph, but to create an image that might move another person emotionally or intellectually is a challenge that I enjoy. TBMPN: What do you wish to accomplish with your photography? TA:I wish to continue expressing myself both artistically and emotionally and to keep creating images with which people can connect. I recently heard from an old friend, someone I haven’t seen in years, who had requested a print that she’d seen online. That sort of thing does not happen every day, and when it does, it’s quite wonderful. TBMPN: What are your current projects? TA:This past year I have been photographing more portraits, and I’m in the process of setting up a few more portrait sessions. I will be having a solo exhibition in 2016 at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. This exhibition will include landscape and interior images from New York State as well as portraits. In the meantime I am always thinking about new locations to explore. TBMPN: What are your plans for future projects? TA:I’d like to see my photography business expand a bit over the next couple of years. I would like also to take on more portrait and interior photography projects. This next July (2014) I will be in England for two weeks and will have an opportunity for some informal wedding shots in the countryside. I’ll also have the chance to do some street photography in London. I can’t wait!

Maureen Ruddy Burkhart

Maureen Ruddy Burkhart

United States
1954

My creative quest has always been about the 'journey' as opposed to the 'destination'. The ﬁrst is experiential, alive, organic; that latter seems rushed. I grew up in places that I now see as exotic, but at the time I just thought it was terribly inconvenient and definitely too far from friends back 'home'. In 1971, at age 17, I left Iran, after three years, in tears and some relief. I immediately thought 'why didn't I take any pictures there?'. I fell in love with that country and its people, but I would not be going back (at least, not yet!). Holding onto what memories I had taken with me, I vowed this would not happen again. So I enrolled in the SFAI. Many years have unfolded since then, and I've been a ﬁlmmaker (when 'ﬁlm' was ﬁlm), a writer/director, an I.Q. tester, stock photographer, and a documentary and ﬁne art photographer. My most seminal work to date, in terms of how it changed my worldly perceptions, came after spending some three years on and off working for a documentary project in the Kibera slum of Kenya. "Kibera: A Slice of Heaven" earned numerous international awards and press, but my favorite was a local 'Artist of the Year' in Longmont, Colorado. The Firehouse Art Center curator, Jessica Kooiman Parker, called it an 'act of bravery'. Reﬂecting on that, I realized that bravery is a way to change the world AND the photographer, one heart at a time. The power of photography is truly unlimited. Amidst a crazy world (and always being on the move), I developed a love of landscape photography. Most people acknowledge that nature can be a place of solace and inspiration. While it is deﬁnitely the same for me, I've been creating 'scenes' from nature. I often photograph the same landscape over and over, taking my favorite parts of the series and compositing them into a singular landscape that mimics my relationship to it. It's fantasy, whimsy, and hope. In my darker landscapes, there's a moody melancholia…but I never lose sight of the hope. Exclusive Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart

Caras Ionut

Romania

Born in February of the late 70s, I seemed to have taken passion in cooler weather as my inspirations for photography in my life as a romanian artist; so much of my work shows depictions of fall and winter and my mechanics entail several hues of blues and whites. Most people when considering dreams would think of good positive dreams, and I like to think I captured that in my work. I also seem to visit the darker side of what people may see of dreams, not necessarily what one would see as negative, but possibly a dream that one could not quite understand or may feel alone. The definition of art can be quite broad, however one aspect of art that is widely explored is art through dreams. One’s perception of a dream is vast, which in comparison to the views of art, it helps to encompass what artists want from their viewers. That is the perception of many different opinions from their work. Art becomes most popular by both their similarities in view and also their differences. After all that is what art truly can be defined as, using such work in your own life because art is not useful without personal admiration and profess. Source: carasdesign.com

Michael Ernest Sweet

Michael Ernest Sweet

Canada

Michael Ernest Sweet is a Canadian photographer and arts writer. He is the author of two photography monographs, The Human Fragment and Michael Sweet's Coney Island, both from Brooklyn Arts Press in New York. Michael is best known for his gritty black and white images of people composed at odd angles, which often omit people's faces. His work has been praised by such master photographers as Roger Ballen, Martin Parr, and Jay Maisel. A recipient of many awards, Michael holds both a Prime Minister's Award and a Queen Elizabeth II Medal from Canada for significant contributions to education and the arts. In 2018, Michael appeared in the film, Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable, and again in 2021 in the film, Fill The Frame. Michael is a senior contributing writer for Photo Life Magazine and a former writer for HuffPost. He holds several degrees including a Master of Liberal Arts from The Johns Hopkins University. Michael lives and teaches in New York City. Statement: My photography is about pleasing myself. I do not photograph for an audience. Quite frankly, that would be too hard for me. I make photographs of things that interest me. I like weird angles and odd compositions because they tend to tell a better story. As a writer, I look for the story, not just the image. Photographs need to be able to be read from left to right, all across the frame, just like a good book. Everything in the frame matters. Everything that is not in the frame matters. Most people don't get my work. They don't try hard enough. My photos cannot be consumed in 10 seconds on an iPhone. Those who put in the effort get to see what I saw, get to feel what I felt, and, most importantly get to enjoy the moment as I did when I made the image. For me, a photo that is easy to look at and quick to understand is a boring, pedestrian photograph. I am not here to photograph aunt Betty's Birthday party.

Ricardo Reis

Portugal
1981

Why I Photograph As a young person, I needed and had to put out there so many things that were stuck inside me, and very quickly, I realized that I had a different way of seeing the world. I started noticing that even if there were many people looking at the same thing as me, they weren't seeing what I was seeing. Photography became the most realistic representation of my perspective. Photography blends all the art mediums and I am inspired to create amalgamations of the dream world with the real. I love the challenge of being able to put onto paper the ideas and surreal world of my own creation. My Purpose When I create a photograph image, I want to engage in a dialogue-to make the viewer feel something, even if it's a negative reaction. I appreciate the negative reaction, because I understand I've drawn something out in the viewer: an honest reaction is more potent than an indifferent one. I want to be able to convey an inner conversation-an ambience, a vibe- to create curiosity in the viewer for the lives and moments depicted in my images. My Method I prefer to shoot with black and white 35mm film, because I find it's more honest and direct, at least for me. I like the mental exercise of having to prepare the picture in your mind first and do the chain of thoughts necessary to translate the idea into the final work. Color can be distracting and disruptive of the real intent and emotion I am trying to achieve. My favorite camera is the Canon EOS 1 RS film camera; it has plenty of functions which allow me to have more control over the final product. I love to prepare a playlist and just go and take a walk with my camera and put myself in the mood: a limbo between voyeurism and participant. My Path When I started I wanted to be a war photographer, but in my home country of Portugal, it's very difficult to get the connections necessary to achieve that. I was fortunate to get an internship at a daily newspaper in Portugal which led to my work being published in several major newspapers and magazines. I began to work more in fashion photography and was assigned to the fashion weeks that took place in Europe. During the shows, I found that I always preferred the backstage where I had more freedom to do different things, take more risks. Photography has been the driving force through all my creative pursuits. My love of music, music photography and music videos comprise a large part of my work. As a cinematographer/director for album and DVD covers, I work in collaboration with several European photography agencies in Portugal and in the UK. The more artistic side of my work is represented in several countries and in private collections, from Canada, the UK, France, Netherlands, Australia, China, Portugal, and the United States. Currently I am living in Lisbon, but who knows what's next.

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