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Win a Solo Exhibition in June 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Win a Solo Exhibition in June 2026 + An Exclusive Interview!
Nieves Mingueza
Nieves Mingueza
Nieves Mingueza

Nieves Mingueza

Country: Spain

Nieves Mingueza is a lens-based, mixed media artist working with experimental photography, collage and text. Born in Spain, based in London. The often-cinematic themes in her projects have in common her fascination with old books, film stills, vintage cameras, poetry and minimal drawings. Ultimately, Nieves' work is about the foggy relationship between fiction and reality. In addition, she is currently exploring about immigration, mental health and human conflicts.

Nieves' work has been exhibited widely, including Copeland Gallery -Peckham 24-, les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Retina Scottish International Photography Festival, The Royal Academy of Arts, PhotoEspaña, Saatchi Gallery and Tate Britain. Publications that have featured her work include Editorial 8mm, Fisheye magazine, Der Greif magazine, Low Light Magazine, Shots magazine, Eyemazing, Sarmad Magazine, YET Magazine and L'oeil de la photographie, among others. Lens Culture also featured a selection of her works.

Recently, in July 2019, her first monograph book was released by IIKKI Books Editorial.

About The malady of Suzanne
"A few months ago, I moved to my new flat in South London. Once settled in my new home, I realised that the building had previously been a mental health hospital. In this hospital, people with mental health issues were treated and helped to reintegrate into society.

One night, I was relaxing, reading in my living room. There was a sepulchral silence, and suddenly I heard a noise coming from the ceiling. I was scared and I noticed that there was a small loft. The next day, a neighbour helped me open the loft. Unexpectedly, we found a suitcase that contained photos, letters and documents that had belonged to a woman named Suzanne.

Reading her letters, I learned that she was a Vietnamese woman who had been a teacher in her home country. There, she fell in love with an Englishman, and finally they decided to move to London together. This happened in 70s. Apparently she began to experience signs of a rare disease: loss of speech and isolation behaviour.

I also found out from her documents that she had changed her name in London, because her real name was very difficult to pronounce for English people. She called herself Suzanne in honour of Leonard Cohen's song.

By combining found archives with my documentary photography work, I am exploring the story of a Vietnamese female with mental issues in 70's London. This is an on-going project about the complex relationship between memory, immigration, mental health and human conflicts.

Additionally, is there any reciprocation between Suzanne and myself? We have both lived in the same space. I am an immigrant in London, I work in a school, and I have modified my name because it was difficult for my students to pronounce. I also love silence. "
-- Nieves Mingueza
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Kathryn Oliver
United States
Kathryn discovered a love for making pictures as a small child and developed a rich inner life of impressions. As she grew, creative aspirations led her to bring this inner world forward through art. Self taught, her creative journey has repeatedly taken her into the field of metaphor and myth as a way to express something eternal within herself. Her professional arts background of painting, theater and dance feeds the photography she does now as she blends hints of all these elements into her images. She currently creates and exhibits black and white fine art photography and photo encaustics, teaching workshops on the midcoast of Maine throughout the year. Drawn to the symbolic language of myth and archetypes, I am forever on a quest, seeking a visual narrative that evokes an internal recognition of nature — something in exile, lost, or hidden — yet leaves an impression inwardly known.About the series The Wild Garden Of Childhood: When I was a child the best part of me was wild. The Wild Garden Of Childhood is an exploration into the untamed vitality and sacred beauty of being young. That universality of raw spirit, where emotional authenticity reigns naturally and fiercely -- dancing on the edge of innocence. Arising from my own fragmented memories, inspired by the open innocence and un-self conscious freedom of my subjects, a world is conjured, somewhere between the real and imagined - where the fertile ground of being is at play. The most precious of stories are stored away for safe keeping, Somewhere In the wild garden of childhood awaiting becomingness
Madhur Dhingra
I was born an only child to my parents, in Delhi, into a family torn apart by the aftermath of the India-Pakistan partition. Hailing from a affluent background in Pakistan my family was now struggling for survival in the walled city of Delhi totally penniless. Imbedded with deep insecurities and freshly bearing the scars of partition my family was now setting up trade in the walled city dealing in fabric. It is relevant for me to mention this background for these very insecurities I too inherited from my family and they remain with me till date even with the changed times and lifestyle. Things improved gradually financially, with the trade flourishing and much because of the sheer hard work of my grandfather, father& chachas(father's brothers).We settled in Delhi at the start as big joint family. I have grown up hearing tales of how we had started life selling fabric on the pavements of the walled city where we now own several properties. My father could never get over those scars of partition. I too was repeatedly made to realize that ( for better or for worse) even though I was born much later in Delhi. At the age of five I was put to school at St.Xavier's High School, Raj Niwas Marg, Delhi. That period was to become the most memorable part of my life. I remember enjoying that period thoroughly. I was always an above average student with a lot of love for extracurricular activities. In school I would love going hiking, camping, swimming & cycling with the boy scouts. From the very start I was naughty and mischievous and was a regular in getting in and out of trouble. After school I went to the Delhi University and took up English Hons as my subject. But nowhere was it in my mind to take up studies serious. Restless from the start I wanted to travel the world. I now join the Merchant Navy at the age of seventeen ,as a deck cadet leaving college in the first year itself. I loved this new experience and was good at learning navigation. Very soon I was promoted to become the navigating officer. For the first year I never came back home at all. I was fulfilling my desire to see the world thoroughly meeting different types of people and experiencing different kinds of cultures . Once while travelling in the city of Jeddah near Mecca during Ramadan I was amazed to see gold slabs and coins being sold on the pavements of the city. On the loudspeaker I then heard the azaan (prayer call) and to my utter astonishment I saw people leave all this gold unattended and enter the nearby mazjid for prayer. Such was the strictness of the prevailing law of the land that anybody caught stealing would have his hand chopped off. Nobody dared to steal. Now quite a different experience was when my ship first entered Thailand. To my utter surprise I saw hoards of women entering my ship. Their numbers must have been no less than a hundred odd. I was on duty and I objected to their entry and was immediately informed by my senior officer to back off as they were entering with the permission of the captain. These were prostitutes who stayed on my ship till the time it stayed there. Nobody was questioning the morality or the ethics. It was gala time for all officers, crew, and the Captain. This was the way of life for most sailors . One horrific incident I remember was when our Burmese radio officer died on the ship due to a liver problem. As we were still some days away from the next port,his body was put in the deep freezer of the ship, the same place where all vegetables and other eatables were stored. Life was going on as if nothing had happened and everybody was eating and drinking as any other day. In a ship life all relationships and friendships are very temporary and the moment a person gets off the ship all these are left behind and forgotten. My bag of experiences was filling up fast. The restlessness and void was again setting in fast. I was getting bored again after about five years of sailing. The novelty had worn off and my inherent nature and upbringing was not that of a sailor in any way .I finally decided to say quits and joined the family business which was waiting for me to return. My dad was overjoyed at this decision of mine. I had no problem settling into this environment as it just happened to be in my blood. I now decide to get married too. I get married and soon after become a father of two adorable children. My age at that period would have been early twenty or so. Time flew by fast earning bread and butter for my family. Nothing was more important than bringing up the kids properly and with a lot of love, something which I was deprived of badly during my childhood days. But now again the same restlessness and void was setting in. I was in a dilemma, now trying out new ways to end this emptiness . I initially tried my hands at learning sculpture at Triveni Kala Sangam Mandi House, but I soon realized that medium was not meant for me. Destiny seemed to have other plans for me and it was during this period that I was gifted a SLR by someone, a Ricoh 500 as I now try to remember. The camera body had a dial with some numbers and also some numbers on the lens of which I had no clue. There were photography classes also being held in Triveni Kala Sangam and I joined these classes with sculpture classes I was already doing. It was here I met my photography teacher and now a lifelong friend Satyasri Ukil for the first time. The Basic course was about learning the techniques of Black & White photography. Satyasri was a dedicated, honest & straightforward teacher. His likes and dislikes purely dealt with the merits of the image and not with the person who had shot the image. I was learning fast with my association with Satyasri at Triveni where he was teaching then . A few of us guys(now renowned photographers), formed a sort of a team under the guidance of Ukil (as we address Satyasri,till date).We were shooting developing and printing the whole day long. Photography was now no longer a hobby but a frenzy. I soon set up my own darkroom in my house and would develop and print negatives all night long. I now start trekking again now with a new SLR in hand going to high altitudes and to very difficult locales. I remember showing my first serious work to Ukil and found him overjoyed. Soon my ambitions grew and I start shooting product for the advertising agencies. My first breakthrough as I clearly remember had come from the agency 0& M whose creative head then was Benoy Mitra, who was one day present at the colour lab called "MultiColour in Jhandewalan, when my portfolio prints were coming out of the lab. He saw my work and quietly handed over his card asking me to see him in the agency. I was overjoyed. This was breakthrough I needed desperately. 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The prayer gong would echo inside the main hall and seep deep inside my soul. I have always equated light with God and have believed that the darkness of the human soul will ultimately come alive with the play of Light (God) on it. My next visit was to Banaras. Here I found people visiting the Ghats in very colorful attires. A activity on these ancient Ghats like the Dashashwamedh Ghat would start very early in the morning. People from all over India visit Banaras to perform various religious rituals, right from the birth of a child to the cremation of the dead and also later to perform rites for their safe and comfortable passage after death. The quality of light that I found in Banaras was very warm & golden and I wouldn't hesitate a moment to call it heavenly. Now a special reference to the Manikarnika Ghat " the ghat of the dead" is needed. People from all over India come to Kashi (ancient name of Banaras)to cremate their dead at Manikarnika.It is believed by Hindus that a cremation at Manikarnika Ghat gives the human soul an unhindered passage to heaven. Pyres are being lit here continuously without getting extinguished for the last 3000 years. But it was on this BURNING GHAT that my worst nightmare was to begin. I would visit this ghat daily looking at the activities. It was not very long before I realised that whenever a body of a poor person would come in, it would be cremated in a bizarre manner. It required two mun wood at the least (mun is an Indian measure of weight equivalent to 20 kgs) to cover a human body completely for cremation. But the person accompanying the dead body did not have that much money in his pocket. So only that much wood was purchased in which only the torso could be covered by wood. The legs and head were left hanging out and the pyre lit. The head would get burnt in a horrific manner with the head and feet falling away from the torso partially burnt. Then these torn away parts were picked up and put into the pyre or thrown into the Ganges. This whole sequence was so bizarre that I decided to get it on film and show it to the world. This I did manage to photograph secretly even after a lot of objections and hindrances from the people in charge at Manikarnika. Man really "was" meeting his God in Kashi, though in a very bizarre manner. So much for Kashi, our GATEWAY TO HEAVEN.I have posted only a few of those pictures on this website just to avoid unnecessary disturbance to people's minds. In the meantime the Purn Kumbh was being held at Hardwar. This again has become a very interesting event to relate. I was aghast to see completely naked so called Naga "sadhus" storming the streets of Hardwar. It was here I came to understand from the local inhabitants of Hardwar that this whole show was a complete farce. These so called ascetics only stormed the streets during the Khumb. Neither do they live in the remoteness of the Himalayas leading a renounced life, but on the contrary live in air conditioned lavishly furnished akharas in Hardwar itself. They were a weird sight. ( I have shown some photographs of them in my Black & White section). Here I saw them fight pitched battles with the police before the procession. DOWNRIGHT CRIMINALS TO THE VERY CORE, MOST OF THEM. On the day of the procession I got up early in the morning and positioned myself on roof top of a house near the Niranjani Akhara.This was very early in the morning and I was testing the auto focusing of my telephoto 300mm Canon lens when I saw a group of nagas in the akhara compound. I was taken aback when I saw one Naga fiddling with the genitals of the other Naga, "AND I TOOK THE SHOT".(later to appear on the first page of THE INDIAN EXPRESS). There were hutments built for sadhus by the kumbh authorities across the river bed. I would visit those and sit with some real sanyasis and listen to their discourses and hear them sing bhajans. This was a very nice and peaceful experience. The Kumbh ended and my exhibition date also was drawing near. The IIC Gallery wanted to see the final prints that I had decided to display. Nowhere in my final selection were those beautiful landscapes to be seen. Their place had been taken by naked sadhus with Trishuls and burning ghats & corpses. The Gallery management told me in no uncertain terms that they will not allow the show to go on unless these pictures were withdrawn. My dilemma was that my photo essay "Where Man Meets God'" was a story of a man's passage of life, his wanderings, his search for God. This essay was incomplete without these pictures. I told the management that I will show my work as it is and will not remove any picture from the list. Much courage to take this right stand was coming from Satyasri Ukil who stood by me all this while withstanding this massive ONSLOUGHT . IIC Management banned my exhibition. It was during this period that me and Satyasri Ukil were introduced to Suneet Chopra a reputed Art Critic. He later introduced us to Siddharth Tagore, a gallery owner at Art Consult Hauz Khas Village. Siddharth Tagore offered to hold my preview party at his gallery inviting respected artists like B.C.Sanyal, Jatin Das and many other artists of repute. The preview was a major success with all these stalwarts in their respective art fields giving their nod to my exhibition. Mr.Khushwant Singh the famous and a very respected writer too came up with an article on me in his column "Malice Towards One And All .Now IIC started shifting its stance and a compromise was reached. "That the images will be allowed to display but only facing towards the Gallery wall, whoever who wanted to see them could do so at his own discretion". Almost everybody saw those images.. Many reputed people visited the exhibition, some of them I mention in my TESTIMONIAL column. Eight major newspapers wrote elaborately on this exhibition. There was a TV interview also held by a channel also. The exhibition was a huge success on the whole. I am now planning another exhibition with a different theme and gearing up to hold another show in Milan. Life for me as a photographer continues...
Ami Vitale
United States
1971
Nikon Ambassador and National Geographic magazine photographer Ami Vitale has traveled to more than 100 countries, bearing witness not only to violence and conflict, but also to surreal beauty and the enduring power of the human spirit. Throughout the years, Ami has lived in mud huts and war zones, contracted malaria, and donned a panda suit— keeping true to her belief in the importance of “living the story.” In 2009, after shooting a powerful story on the transport and release of one the world’s last white rhinos, Ami shifted her focus to today’s most compelling wildlife and environmental stories. Instyle Magazine named Ami one of fifty Badass Women, a series celebrating women who show up, speak up and get things done. She appeared alongside a group of incredible women including Jane Goodall, Christiane Amanpour and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She has been named Magazine photographer of the year in the International Photographer of the Year prize, received the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Reporting and named Magazine Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association, among others. She is a five-time recipient of WorldPress Photos, including 1st Prize for her 2018 National Geographic magazine story about a community in Kenya protecting elephants. She published a best-selling book, Panda Love, on the secret lives of pandas. She is a featured speaker for the National Geographic LIVE series, and frequently gives talks and workshops throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Her photographs have been commissioned by nearly every international publication and exhibited around the world in museums and galleries. She is a founding member of Ripple Effect Images, an organization of renowned female scientists, writers, photographers and filmmakers working together to create powerful and persuasive stories that shed light on the hardships women in developing countries face and the programs that can help them. She is also on the Photojournalism Advisory Council for the Alexia Foundation. Currently based in Montana, Ami Vitale is a contract photographer with National Geographic magazine and frequently gives workshops throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Ami Vitale talks about Climate Change Awareness
Jaroslav Rössler
Czech Republic
1902 | † 1990
Jaroslav Rössler was a pioneer of Czech avant-garde photography and a member of the association of Czech avant-garde artists Devětsil (Butterbur). He was born to the Czech-German father, Eduard Rössler, and a Czech mother, Adéla Nollová. From 1917 to 1920, Rössler studied in the atelier of the company owned by renowned Czech photographer František Drtikol. Subsequently, he worked with the company as a laboratory technician. At 21 years old, he began a collaboration with the art theorist Karel Teige, who assigned him to create a typographic layout for magazines Pásmo, Disk, Stavba and ReD (Revue Devětsilu). While working on these tasks, Rössler deepened his knowledge of photographic methods. In his works he utilized and combined the techniques of photogram, photomontage, collage and drawing. The beginnings of his photographic work were influenced by Cubism and Futurism, but he also attempted to create the first abstract photographs. In 1923, he became a member of the avant-garde association Devětsil. In 1925, he went on a six-month study visit to Paris. The same year he began working as a photographer in the Osvobozené divadlo in Prague. Before his second departure to Paris, he co-worked as a commercial photographer with the pictorial magazine Pestrý týden. In 1927, Rössler moved to Paris together with his wife, Gertruda Fischerová (1894–1976). Initially, he focused on commercial photography. He collaborated with the experimental studio of Lucien Lorell, and worked on commissions for notable companies such as Michelin and Shell. However, later he found an interest in the "street life" of Paris, which influenced his future stay in the city. During a demonstration, he encountered the protesters and took photographs of the event. Shortly after that he was arrested, and after a six-month imprisonment, he was expelled from the country, in 1935. The alleged reason for his expulsion was his German-sounding surname. After his return from Paris, Rössler and his wife resided in Prague, Žižkov. He opened a small photographic atelier, but difficulties associated with the management of the studio caused a significant gap in his artistic work, lasting for almost two decades. In the 1950s, he resumed his previous activities and again began experimenting with the camera and photographic techniques. He created so-called prizmata (prisms), photographs taken through a birefringent prism. Additionally, he experimented with solarisation and explored the possibilities of the Sabatier effect. Jaroslav Rössler, together with František Drtikol, Josef Sudek and Jaromír Funke, is today considered an important exponent of Czech modern photography and avant-garde art.Source: Wikipedia Jaroslav Rössler was one of the most distinctive artists of the Czech avant-garde, known for fusing disparate elements of Symbolism, Pictorialism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, New Objectivity and abstract art. From 1917 to 1920, Rossler studied and worked as a lab technician under František Drtikol, but he quickly abandoned the pictorialist style of his famous teacher, turning instead to more avant-garde techniques and compositional approaches, including experiments with photograms, enlarged detail, diagonal composition, photomontage, double exposure, and experiments with color advertising photographs and still lifes produced with the carbro print process. Jaroslav Rössler often photographed objects against stark backgrounds, or used long exposures, to reduce subjects to their elementary lines and geometric shapes. In 1923 he became a member of the assocation of Czech avant- garde artists Devětsil. From 1927 to 1935, he lived and worked in Paris, producing work influenced by Constructivism and New Objectivity. After his return to Prague, he was relatively inactive until the late 1950s, when he renewed experimentations with solarization and photographing through a prism.Source: Robert Koch Gallery
Sara Markese
United States
1975
Sara Markese is a child psychologist by day and a photographer in every spare moment in between. A long hiatus from creative work began anew as she returned to photography, and macro photography especially. With a background in psychoanalytic clinical psychology training at the CUNY Graduate Center, NYC, research in microanalysis of mother-infant communication at Columbia University NYSPI, and study of mother-infant howler monkeys in Nicaragua, as well as a decade as a play therapist in NYC and fifteen more years in play therapy since, she has always been a keen observer of behavior, nuance, affect and detail. She approaches photography as she did cherished treasure walks as a child, letting her eye be caught and emotion and visual wonder guide the image. She uses simple elements of nature, daily life and common objects, and childhood themes of wonder, hiding, seeking and peeking to create feeling mementos in each photograph. With a focus on bringing elements of color, light and simple detail to center stage, her photographs encourage the viewer to see things as they would look if you just got on your knees and peered carefully. Champion of the tiny, wanderer with purpose, she is drawn to the things out of place, the slivers of light and gleams of color. In her work, she seeks to show the world in its infinitesimal detail and beauty, to convey the majesty of the miniscule and the extraordinary nature of the ordinary things that go unnoticed in our bustling world. She is often a quiet observer, always with camera in hand, moving through the many busy places she has lived. Raised in suburban Chicago, she has lived in NYC, Boston, and now lives in suburban Washington DC. 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Summers growing up in suburban Chicago felt that way, oppressively humid, stretching, and filled with unease as I wandered the micro world of my backyard dreading the end of the season. At night, to the contrary, everything seemed to come to life on my block. Then I was missing out, peering out my window while the sounds of neighborhood games rang from the street. I was inside looking out, like I was in another world. Since then, I’ve been in many other worlds, only to find myself back as I approach my fiftieth year as a wife and mother in the suburbs of Washington DC. Back in a suburban summer and back in that old feeling. Lost. It started as I followed my daughter, my lovely, brilliant, precociously independent daughter, Elodie, who I have been following for nine years, since she was able to walk and always way ahead of me. It was different this summer, though. Admittedly, something in me was unsettled already. I had always followed her and then joined, but now she spent her time in the deep end, doing things that just didn’t involve me and suddenly I was not following or joining. I was sitting alone. And there was that familiar disconnected feeling –sitting with time, with loneliness, with space, with thoughts – she will grow up, I will miss her – sitting with sadness, with self. Summer is long, and so there is July, like I just described, and there is August. I have tried to remedy my August malaise with an end of summer trip. My daughter and I always leave my husband at home to go on a road trip. I look forward to our trip as a gift from rushing through our days, time to spend freely exploring, roaming, adventuring, being as we wish, together. We have done this since she was very small, and she has always been beyond her years in her ability to roll with the long stretches and unknowns a road trip can bring even with the best planning. We usually know where we are going, but not this year, I didn’t know where to go and didn’t have it in me to plan. No direction, and now she is older, even farther ahead, leaving me to watch from further away. I found myself left with time - to sit and be still, to look at what was near, to gaze at my own hands, the poolside, the light reflecting off the table, the sand on my feet - and then she would return to show me what she created, often bringing me a gift to see or photograph. The gift of a memory shared. We were very often together too, in laughter, joy, closeness, and when she was still and we were together, that was a gift too, and those photos are rare but treasured. “Wayward Summer” is about loss and its depths, but also about turning “lost” into finding a way forward. As much as the feeling of too much space has always been disquieting, I also love to be lost. Wandering is and has always been my strength and my joy. From my childhood lost in the world of grass, bugs and dirt in the backyard, to driving blindly through the Chesapeake on an August trip with my 9-year-old daughter this summer, loss and “lost” are entwined in all my most deeply meaningful experiences. “Wayward Summer” is a project about all the moments that make a summer, the bright, the quiet and calm, the lonely and lost ones, and the turning of feeling lost into wandering. I found that unleashing purpose from the equation and accepting disconnection led me back to one of my greatest joys – untethered wandering. It allowed me to find beauty in the tiny details that stillness allows and a way to see moments that won’t last or stay still because they cannot and should not. The pictures in this series are all memory mementos – each contains elements of the mood evoked, sensory recollections and traces of the thoughts and feelings I was having as I watched my daughter play, learn, leave. Summers have a life of their own and can feel like a lifetime. In that, they can generate enormous unease, but also have room for so much growth. Children come back and they have changed, grown taller, sound different, want different, need less. Summers allow us a burst of freedom, a chance for joy, connection and change before we return to our lives overcome by time demands, structure, separation and parallel movement. They are a treasure veined with the knowing that they will end, but the memories glimpsed as they unfold when we are forced to let go are mementos of the magic that filled them. Awarded Photographer of the Week - Week 42
Mahya Rastegar
I am Mahya Rastegar, born 1980 in Tehran, Iran, a graduate in Photography and a Documentary Photographer, based in Tehran, Iran. I began to study Graphic Design in 2000, but quit it very soon in 2001 to find my field of interest somewhere else. After many years, in 2010, I started to study Photography, and graduated in 2013. I am mainly a social documentary photographer, most interested to capture the influential stories of women's lives.From the aspect of appearance, face and fashion, women are different from each other, but they are all the same in the way that all of them make efforts to get stronger in their inner world and possess the ability to live independently. From 2015 until now, I've been working on a long-term documentary photographing project with topic of Iranian women with influential stories. The collections of photos about each woman have the form of stories of their lives, meaning that I'm talking about the lives of these women by taking pictures of them. While holding on to the passion of presenting all type of women issues as a woman and after some serious researches and studies, I started shooting Iranian women trough different projects since 2013. In addition to all my ongoing projects, I have been working on a project called "To Remain Such a Woman" since 2016. I pictured all the women I live inside myself trough more than 10 women living under different conditions in the real/outside world (more on portfolio). This project will be released as a book soon. Some of my photos had the chance to be released on different pages and magazines such as: Panospictures, UK, L'HEBDO Magazine, France, Refinery29 Blog, PRI Org, NYTimes, women Photograph: 2018 year in Pictures, welt.de, leparisien.fr, NBC news, Euronews, Photo printing in Lens magazine 2019, Fine art photography awards 2020 (portrait nominee), Tow Phot's from NBCnews.com's November gallery of Women defying stereotypes in Iran won an AI-AP award in 2020. About Soudabeh Soudabeh was born in 27 October 1976 Soudabeh is the deputy of women bodyguards in ISBTA association. she said : "l was seeking for a sport-educational system for years to evacuate my excitements and beside that I could be able to protect myself in front of bullies and also in dangerous situations", until I got to know the international security and bodyguard training association or ISBTA. This association legally and officially works. Soudabeh's son, Pouria, was born in 25 March 1997. He was 10 when Soudabeh got divorced. Soudabeh has given motivation of independence to his son and Pouria has learned to sport and having a healthy body from his mother. The first reason I chose Soudabeh was the divorce thing.In Iran ‘s society divorce and being divorced is still a taboo for women. A divorced woman can't easily go to work and still has challenges in her work communications with men. Soudabeh and even me are divorced women and we are facing obstacles in this patriarchal society and we were able to prove ourselves with an appropriate job in this society. Which means we can continue living despite the fact that we are divorced. Soudabeh has been a body building coach for 8 years. Before being a coach she used to work in an advertising company in the graphic section. Soudabeh went to a beauty salon which is owned by one of her students. She is student of body building and she just goes to gym for sport. Soudabeh, It's right that she is doing a masculine sport but at first she is a woman and then a mother and ultimately she is a woman bodybuilder. Her position as a deputy in this organization means she can holds ISBTA bodyguard classes for women and she she can teach in this classes as a coach.
Jamie Johnson
United States
1968
Jamie Johnson is a Los Angeles photographer specializing in children and alternative processes. Winner of the Julia Margaret Cameron Portfolio Award and Spider Black and White Photography Award. Her work has been published in many photography magazines and is exhibiting in galleries worldwide. Jamie's work is in the permanent collection of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and Archaelogy Museum in Alabama and currently has a show at the Norton Museum of Fine Art in Palm Beach Florida. As a mother and fine art photographer whose bread and butter comes from photography, my passion for faces of the next generation has been a life long focus. I travel the world capturing images children and childhood around the globe. From Laos to Cuba, from the Amazon to India, I have found a universality in the world of children. I have always been particularly interested in observing how girls are raised, examining the morals, values, and education of the next generation of young women. My work has been exhibited Internationally in galleries and museums from New York thru London and Paris, and has been published in dozens of magazines. My Journey with the Irish Travellers I have spent my entire career photographing children all over the world. The last five years I have focused my eyes on the Irish Traveller that live in caravans on the side of the road or in open fields throughout Ireland. The Traveller community are an Irish nomadic indigenous ethnic minority. There is no recorded date as to when Travellers first came to Ireland. This is lost to history but Travellers have been recorded to exist in Ireland as far back as history is recorded. Even with their great history they live as outsiders to society and face unbelievable racism growing up. As a mother of two daughters I became so interested in the culture and traditions and lives of these children. The experience I had photographing the grit and beauty, that is the everyday life of a Traveller child, is one that inspires me everyday. Their deep respect for family and cultural values is refreshing, one that can be quite difficult to find in an age with the convince of social media. Not always immediately accepting of an outsider holding a large camera, I took my time getting to know and understand these faces that represent the new generation. My ever growing fascination with the children of today has lead my all over the world, capturing their innocence or in some cases loss of, in its most raw form. Unlike most children they are unable to refer to a history book to learn about their ancestors, a part of this journey was being able to document an era that is so different to any other I have shot. It is one that is and will always be rapidly changing, everytime I visit it is a whole different world yet with the relationships I have been lucky enough to make, it seems to feel like I never left. I am exponentially grateful the young people documented and that I have come in contact with over my years of visiting are able to call me their friend and I can happily say the same. It is with an honest heart I hope to show that these beautiful children who have great hopes and goals and work everyday to reach their dreams no matter how hard they have to fight racisms and stereotypes placed on them for centuries. A child is an innocent, happy, precious part of the world that should be loved and accepted and encouraged no matter where or how they live. More about The Irish Travellers Order the book
Stanley Greene
United States
1949 | † 2017
During the early years of his career, Stanley Greene (USA, 1949-2017) produced The Western Front, a unique documentation of the San Francisco’s punk scene in the 1970s and 80s. An encounter with W. Eugene Smith turned his energies to photojournalism. Stanley began photographing for magazines, and worked as temporary staff photographer for the New York Newsday. In 1986, he moved to Paris and began covering events across the globe. By chance, he was on hand to record the fall of the Berlin Wall. The changing political winds in Eastern Europe and Russia brought Greene to a different kind of photojournalism. He soon found himself photographing the myriad aspects of the decline of communism and the break-up of the Soviet Union. Stanley was a member of the Paris-based photo agency Agence VU from 1991 to 2007. Beginning in 1993, he was based in Moscow working for Liberation, Paris Match, Time, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Le Nouvel Observateur, as well as other international news magazines. In October 1993, Stanley was trapped and almost killed in the White House in Moscow during a coup attempt against Boris Yeltsin. He was the only western journalist inside to cover it. Two of his resulting pictures won World Press Photo awards. In the early 1990s, Stanley went to Southern Sudan to document the war and famine there for Globe Hebdo (France). He traveled to Bhopal, India, again for Globe Hebdo, to report on the aftermath of the Union Carbide gas poisoning. From 1994 to 2001, Stanley covered the conflict in Chechnya between rebels and Russian armed forces. His in-depth coverage was published in the monograph Open Wound: Chechnya 1994-2003 (Trolley 2003) and in the 1995 publication Dans Les Montagnes Où Vivent Les Aigles (Actes Sud). The work also appeared in Anna Politkovskaya’s book, A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya (2001). In 1994, Stanley was invited by Médecins sans Frontières to document their emergency relief operations during the cholera epidemic in Rwanda and Zaire. He has covered conflict and aftermath in Nagorno-Karabakh, Iraq, Sudan, Darfur, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Lebanon. Stanley was awarded a Katrina Media Fellowship from the Open Society Institute in 2006. In 2010, to mark the fifth commemoration of Hurricane Katrina - together with Dutch photographer Kadir van Lohuizen - Stanley made “Those who fell through the cracks”, a collaborative project documenting Katrina's effects on Gulf coast residents. The same year, Stanley’s book Black Passport was published (Schilt). In 2012, Stanley was the guest of honor of Tbilisi Photo Festival and began his project on e-waste traveling to Nigeria, India, China and Pakistan. Stanley has received numerous grants and recognitions including - the Lifetime Achievement Visa d’Or Award (2016), the Aftermath Project Grant (2013), the Prix International Planète Albert Kahn (2011), W. Eugene Smith Award (2004), the Alicia Patterson Fellowship (1998) and five World Press Photo awards. Stanley presented the Sem Presser keynote lecture at the 2017 World Press Photo Award Festival. Stanley Greene is a founding member of NOOR. Stanley passed away in Paris, France on May 19th, 2017. Source: NOOR Greene was born to middle class parents in Brooklyn. Both his parents were actors. His father, who was born in Harlem, was a union organizer, one of the first African Americans elected as an officer in the Screen Actors Guild, and belonged to the Harlem Renaissance movement. Greene's father was blacklisted as a Communist in the 1950s and forced to take uncredited parts in movies. Greene's parents gave him his first camera when he was eleven years old. Greene began his art career as a painter, but started taking photos as a means of cataloging material for his paintings. In 1971, when Greene was a member of the anti-war movement and the Black Panthers, his friend, photographer W. Eugene Smith offered him space in his studio and encouraged him to study photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the San Francisco Art Institute. Greene held various jobs as a photographer, including taking pictures of rock bands and working at Newsday. In 1986, he shot fashion in Paris. He called himself a "dilettante, sitting in cafes, taking pictures of girls and doing heroin". After a friend died of AIDS, Greene kicked his drug habit and began to seriously pursue a photography career. He began photojournalism in 1989, when his image ("Kisses to All, Berlin Wall") of a tutu-clad girl with a champagne bottle became a symbol of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While working for the Paris-based photo agency Agence Vu in October 1993, Greene was trapped and almost killed in the White House in Moscow during a coup attempt against President Boris Yeltsin. He has covered the war-torn countries Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Somalia, Croatia, Kashmir, and Lebanon. He has taken pictures of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the US Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since 1994, Greene is best known for his documentation of the conflict in Chechnya, between rebels and the Russian armed forces, which was compiled in his 2004 book, Open Wound. These photos have drawn attention to the "suffering that has marked the latest surge in Chechnya's centuries-long struggle for independence from Russia". In 2008, Greene revealed that he had hepatitis C, which he believed he had contracted from a contaminated razor while working in Chad in 2007. After controlling the disease with medication, he traveled to Afghanistan and shot a story about "the crisis of drug abuse and infectious disease". Greene has lived and worked in Paris since 1986. He said: "My wife has left me but instead of becoming an alcoholic, I would go and shoot war." Source: Wikipedia Wars and Victims February 18, 2008 "It remains essential for journalists to scour the ground, unimpeded, using the only weapons we know. Our cameras, notebooks and voices make us the unwelcome pests of aggressors around the world. Witnesses are inconvenient. Yet as most of my colleagues will agree, countries such as Irak, Chad, The Caucasus, and Chechnya, are becoming harder to cover. In the world of spot news, publications don't want to pay for long engagements in complicated zones because its getting much harder to afford it. Authorities block access. And the lack of access, infrastructure and personal security makes logistics a nightmare. Despite the odds, sometimes the effort can make a difference, and those rare moments never cease to satisfy in a profession that is otherwise lonely, demanding and thankless. Journalism rewards you with long days and even longer nights. There is no such thing as taking pictures from a place of safety, and you often pack your feelings in a suitcase until you can return to ‘reality.’ Some colleagues living in this perpetual emotional yo-yo are able to maintain a relationship, money in the bank, and perhaps even their sanity. If you're like the rest of us not born under that star, you never stop trying to find it. For the last fifteen years I have bore witness to long histories of invasions, mass migrations, conflicts, wars and destructions. This group of images is to provide a body of work that is about war and victims but also, it's about photojournalism and the importance of those photo-correspondents that are passionate about shining the light in dark places. The resultant series of black and white and color photographs are more than a mere documentation of the darkness which exists in the world. Journalists today are like disaster tourists going from one hot place to the next. It has never been my intention to be such a photographer. I think it is better to build a full body of work which demonstrates the longevity of a working photojournalist, today and yesterday. I think that this should be taken into consideration when looking at this work. It is a fragment, taken from longer and larger photo-essays." -- Stanley Greene (Sometimes We Need Tragedies) Source: fragments.nl
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