Gregory Dargent

Country: France
Birth: 1977

Gregory Dargent is a French musician and photographer born in 1977 in Argenteuil. A graduate of the Strasbourg Conservatoire, he has an international career as a musician (electric guitar and oud) as well as a composer. His creations have taken him all over the world, from the Berlin Philharmonic to a small place in the Itabuna Church in Brazil, from the Doha Oud Festival to the "Poisson Rouge" in New York, from the Jazz Festival in Cairo to the auditorium of Warsaw Radio.

Somewhat belatedly fascinated by photography he discovered it accidentally the day of his 38th birthday, anchored in the temporality of film, committed to the abstraction of black and white and advocating its subjectivity, he created in 2018 the Book H., published by Saturn, his first photographic work.

It is an echo in images to the disc H (contemporary trio setting to music the French nuclear tests in the Sahara). This book tells his feelings and his personal awareness during 3 short trips around the seventeenth ground zero French atomic explosions in the 60s, in Reggane and Tamanrasset, Algeria.

His book is acclaimed by the press (Christmas selection Telerama for the book + CD, L'Humanit�, L'Oeil de la Photographie, L'Interval, "Par les temps qui courent" on France Culture) and became the subject of his very first exhibition as part of the collective exhibition "Le R�ve d'un mouvement" in Paris in January 2019, alongside, among others, Gilles Roudi�re, Damien Daufresne, Stephane Charpentier and Gael Bonnefon. This exhibition then travelled to Studio Spiral (Grenoble) in March/April 2019, at Retine Argentique (Marseille) in April/May 2019, Sharjah Art Foundation (E.A.U), Galerie VU'(Paris), Dar Abdelaatif in Algiers and will be on view at Studio Baxton (Brussels) in 2020.

He is selected in 2019 as a "young talent photographer in residence" as part of the Festival Planche (s) Contact of Deauville for which he will create a new exhibition, L'Echapp�e, and is currently working on his next personal projects, mixing photography, video super 8 and music. The first project is about spirituality and poetry in Haiti, "Black Venus", the second one is about the feeling of underground life mixed with ancient mythologies in Cairo (with musician and photographer Frederic D. Oberland).

Website

www.gregory-dargent.com

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Philippe Halsman

Latvia/United States
1906 | † 1979

Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) was born in Riga, Latvia and began his photographic career in Paris. In 1934 he opened a portrait studio in Montparnasse, where he photographed many well-known artists and writers � including Andr� Gide, Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier, and Andr� Malraux, using an innovative twin-lens reflex camera that he designed himself. Part of the great exodus of artists and intellectuals who fled the Nazis, Halsman arrived in the United States with his young family in 1940, having obtained an emergency visa through the intervention of Albert Einstein. Halsman�s prolific career in America over the next 30 years included reportage and covers for every major American magazine. These assignments brought him face-to-face with many of the century�s leading statesmen, scientists, artists and entertainers. His incisive portraits appeared on 101 covers for LIFE magazine, a record no other photographer could match. Part of Halsman�s success was his joie de vivre and his imagination � combined with his technological prowess. In 1945 he was elected the first president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP), where he led the fight to protect photographers� creative and professional rights. In 1958 Halsman�s colleagues named him one of the World�s Ten Greatest Photographers. From 1971 to 1976 he taught a seminar at The New School entitled �Psychological Portraiture.� Halsman began a thirty-seven year collaboration with Salvador Dali in 1941 which resulted in a stream of unusual �photographs of ideas,� including �Dali Atomicus� and the �Dali�s Mustache� series. In the early 1950s, Halsman began to ask his subjects to jump for his camera at the conclusion of each sitting. These uniquely witty and energetic images have become an important part of his photographic legacy. Writing in 1972, Halsman spoke of his fascination with the human face. �Every face I see seems to hide � and sometimes fleetingly to reveal � the mystery of another human being. Capturing this revelation became the goal and passion of my life.�

Piotr Zbierski

Poland

Piotr Zbierski - Studied photography at National Film School. Author of three individual exhibitions (White Elephants, Here, Love has to be reinvented), participant in collective exhibitions and publications including Photokina and Lab East. He presented his works in many countries like Poland, Germany, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia. As well as magazines (Shots Magazine, Ninja Mag, Archivo Zine, Die Nacht, Gup Magazine). In 2012 he won the prestigious prize for young photographer Leica Oscar Barnack Newcomer Award. His work was nominated to Deutsche B�rse Photography Prize and has been shortlisted in many other prizes (Les Nuits Photographiques 2012, Terry O�Neill Award) for his series Pass by me. His works has been shown at festival in Arles 2012 and are in collection of Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts. He lives and works in Lodz.About Love has to be reinventedThe series "Love has to be reinvented" began in 2012 and its starting point was not an image but my personal experience, which changed my view and redefined my opinion on many issues. At the same time, it is neither my diary nor any personal document; recently such a name is given to whatever cannot be named. Titles of my series are just mottos for my creative works at their particular stages. Words are created by letters in the alphabet, which is a matter of convention depending on culture. I build my series out of emotions, which are a biological fact, they are unquestionable. The key objective I identify for myself is availability of a feeling. I really want the person looking at my photographs to experience something more and not just say whether photographs are good or bad. Photography does not begin with an image, it does not end with an image, either; I put on authenticity, and not on originality. An image is a form of communication of a higher art form, which is life itself. I took the title from the French poet, Artur Rimbaud, who wrote these words and expressed criticism of France and times he lived in about a hundred years ago. I returned to these words because I think the world has not changed so much, and I criticize a contemporary world, which has gone in the wrong direction, in my opinion. And I do not mean people but structures built around the castle, which the book hero has never reached. A major objective of my work is to get through to the essence of human emotions, to their purest form with no additions, no gadgets. To show a man in the way he has been created, a man from a primeval village. In a contemporary world, such an image may be created using a certain type of imagination because we are very far away from such a status quo; therefore, my work is reality-based but it is not the reality itself. It is an attempt to invoke and depict certain human impulses with full acceptation of their inherent contradictions. Like love: it is as full of adoration as hatred; a day could not exist without a night. I will finish this three-year's series in spring 2015 during the total sun eclipse, which can be observed in Iceland. It is a characteristic clamp for my creative work in which I start from a personal, private and single experience at the very beginning, and come through an image to a part, which is common for us all, and independent of me. A macro scale has its reflection in a micro scale while a normal scale, in which we live in, is its pulsating reflection. To follow theories of contemporary scientists, only a ballet-dancer may be smaller, and in macro scale - a multiple universe. Life is a film directed by the universe while the world is the largest accumulation of sensually available metaphors, a secret in secret or a metaphor in a metaphor. Rimbaud has also written that eternity is skies mixed with water; quite right: black and white, grey on grey; in a child's drawing huge blue and objectively sacred transparency. In my opinion, there is one reality and infinitely many visions. To sum it up as simple as I can: if the world is a tree growing more and more branches (metaphors), then life is the fruit. While love is juice of various tastes in the same way as resin is what a tree uses for weeping. All this happens in the surroundings of eternal gases where toxic ones come away leaving space to healthy ones. Rootstocks and roots grow expanding in the same way. Who are people then?Undoubtedly, they are savages from a primeval village who have learnt what a real taste of love is: they adored each other at the expense of "god's" hatred, they are Adam and Eve. It is only owing to such a full image of love that new generations could come into existence. I also invite to see the video work titled "Lodz", in which I develop motifs I have earlier discussed. Another continuing video is in progress. Bottomless source is RGB without DNAPiotr Zbierski

Katerina Belkina

Russia
1974

Katerina Belkina was born in Samara, a city in the South-East of the European part of Russia. She grew up in an artistic atmosphere; her mother is a visual artist and, in herplace of birth, she got an education in the art of painting at the Art Academy. She continued her education in 2000 at an Academy for Photography also in Samara and exhibitions of her mysterious self-portraits ensued in Moscow and Paris. Katerina Belkina was nominated for the prestigious Kandinsky Prize (comparable to the British Turner prize) in Moscow in 2007. At the moment, Katerina Belkina is living and working in Moscow and Berlin.AAP: Where did you study photography?I started in a studio of photography and then I decided to study photography in an Art College. After several years I learned photography at the Photo Academy in Samara, Russia.AAP:How did you become a photographer?I think of myself as an artist in the broad sense of the word. For me photography is just a medium like a painting, drawing etc. However I like to use photography as a basis for my works. This form of art was always interesting for me. As well as drawing. I was influenced by my family in my childhood to like both mediums.AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?When I was in fifth grade I took my school photo-group. Otherwise everything around me: school friends, street dogs, home yard.AAP:What was your first paid assignment/job?It was for an inexpensive portrait. The client was a girl who looked very similar to Marilyn Monroe. I found out that only when I looked at her in the viewfinder.AAP: What or who inspires you?Other people working in my field. When I see good results and when I see how they work. AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose?Yes, a lot. At first I like the process of editing. In my case it is a combination of photo elements and then layer by layer drawing or correcting and making post-productions. I like when any art work include skills and labor. Every good idea should be perfectly executed.AAP: How do you choose your subjects?I always choose a topic that could be interesting for me at that moment. Then comes the process of thinking about. In the beginning ideas are always abstract. After a while it takes a shape: I choose a subject, composition, color combinations and details. AAP: Can you explain the process that you use to set up a portrait?When the idea takes shape in my mind, I draw a sketch, prepare all the necessary things for shooting and then start. Despite the fact that I know very exactly what I want for my future composition, I like to allow improvisation in the process. Because the result can be interesting and unexpectable. To take self-portraits I use a stative and make it by myself or I ask an assistant.AAP: Your worst souvenir as a photographer?Oh yes I remember! A meeting with a client who paid me and thought the world should rotate around him just because of that.AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?Shoot a lot, take everything that could be interesting for you. Try new things, make discoveries. This is the most important thing. Don�t listen to anybody when they want to teach you something especially when it is in a critical way. AAP: What mistake should a young photographer avoid?Don�t try to be or to do like someone else. Your photography style will become unique over time. You need to be interested by what you are doing even if other photographers or artists can inspire you.

Erik Johansson

Sweden
1985

Erik Johansson (born 1985) is a photographer and visual artist from Sweden based in Prague, Czech Republic. His work can be described as surreal world created by combining different photographs. Erik works on both personal and commissioned projects with clients all around the world. In contrast to traditional photography he doesn't capture moments, he captures ideas with the help of his camera and imagination. The goal is to make it look as realistic as possible even if the scene itself contains impossible elements. In the end it all comes down to problem solving, finding a way to capture the impossible. To Erik it's always important with a high level of realism in his work. He want's the viewer to feel like they are part of the scene. Although his work consists of a lot of work in post-production and combining photogaphs he always tries to capture as much as possible in camera. "No one can tell you that it doesn�t look realistic if you actually captured it for real." Light and perspective are crucial parts when combining images in a realistic way and if some parts are not possible to shoot on location, a similar scene has to be built up in a controlled environment. Having an understanding of both photography and post production is very important to make everything come together seamlessly. Every photograph and part has its purpose. Erik always do all the post production himself to be in complete control of the end result. The idea, photography and post production are all connected. The final image doesn�t become better than the photographs used to capture it. Just like the photographs don�t become stronger than the idea. There are no computer generated-, illustrated- or stock photos in Erik's personal work, just complex combinations of his own photographs. It's a long process and he only creates 6-8 new images a year (excluding commissioned work). Artist Statement "My name is Erik Johansson, I was born in 1985 outside a small town called G�tene in the middle of Sweden. I grew up on a farm with my parents and two younger sisters. For as long as I can remember I have liked drawing. Probably because of my grandmother who was a painter. Early I also got interested in computers, escaping to other worlds in computer games. At the age of 15 I got my first digital camera which opened up a new world. Being used to drawing it felt quite strange to be done after capturing a photo, it wasn�t the process of creating something in the same way. Having an interest in computers made it a quite natural step to start playing around with the photos and creating something that you couldn�t capture with the camera. It was a great way of learning, learning by trying. But I didn�t considered it as a profession until years later. In 2005 I moved to Gothenburg to study Computer engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. During my time studying I took up my interest for retouch once again. I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to realize and I saw it as problem solving trying to make it as realistic as possible. After publishing some of my images online I started to get requests about commissioned work from some local advertisement agencies. I started out freelancing in parallel with my studies while still working on personal projects. I got more and more jobs and at the time I finished my studies with a master in Interaction Design I felt like I rather wanted to try out the photography path. I moved to Norrk�ping in the eastern part of Sweden to start working full time as a freelance. I made new friends and got to work on interesting projects, both local and abroad. In early 2012 it was time for something new as I moved to Berlin, Germany. A very artistic city with lots of inspiration. Today I work with both personal and commissioned projects and I also started doing photography street illusions."Source: www.erikjo.com/

Orestes Gonzalez

United States

I am a NYC based photographer since 1987. I went to UT Austin, where I got a Bachelors of Architecture in 1982. I practiced both Architecture and Photography for many years, finally specializing only in� photographic work after experiencing 9/11. This event made me realize that life is fleeting, and you must do what you truly love. I believe it is a primal human quality to create pictures. From the earliest cave paintings, we've made pictures as a way to validate our existence. History's millennia-long narrative of drawing and painting cannot compare with the short period that photography has been in existence. Yet this form holds a special place in my heart and integrates me to mans recording of his intransigence on this planet.

Peter Lindbergh

Germany
1944 | † 2019

Peter Lindbergh, born Peter Brodbeck, is a German photographer and filmmaker, born on November 23, 1944 in Leszno, Poland (the city was German between 1939 and 1945 and called Reichsgau Wartheland). Peter Lindbergh spent his childhood in Duisburg. After a basic school education he worked as a window dresser for the Karstadt and Horten department stores in Duisburg. At 18, he moved to Switzerland. Eight months later, he went from Lucerne to Berlin and took evening courses at the Academy of Arts. He hitchhiked to Arles in the footsteps of his idol, Vincent van Gogh. After several months in Arles, he continued through to Spain and Morocco, a journey that took him two years. Returning to Germany, he studied Free Painting at the College of Art in Krefeld (North Rhine-Westphalia). In 1969, while still a student, he exhibited his work for the first time at the Galerie Denise Ren� - Hans Mayer. Concept Art marked his last period of interest in art. In 1971 his interest turned toward photography and for two years he worked as the assistant to the D�sseldorf-based photographer, Hans Lux. Peter Lindbergh moved to Paris in 1978 and started working internationally for Vogue, first the Italian, then the English, French, German, and American Vogue, later for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Allure, and Rolling Stone. His mostly black-and-white photographs, implement a pictorial language that takes its lead from early German cinema and from the Berlin art scene of the 1920s. In 1988, Anna Wintour arrived at American Vogue and signed Lindbergh for the magazine. He shot Miss Wintour�s first, then revolutionary American Vogue, November 1988 cover. Lindbergh photographed the "iconic" January 1990 Vogue cover that featured Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford, and Christy Turlington. He made portraits of Catherine Deneuve, Mick Jagger, Charlotte Rampling, Nastassja Kinski, Tina Turner, John Travolta, Madonna, Sharon Stone, John Malkovich, and countless others. When Lindbergh was put under contract to the American Harpers Bazaar by Liz Tilberis in 1992, she made her editor sign a seven-figure check. His first book, 10 Women by Peter Lindbergh, a black-and-white portfolio of ten top contemporary models, was published in 1996 and had sold more than 100,000 copies as of 2008. Twice he has shot the Pirelli calendar, in 1996 and 2002. The latter, which featured actresses instead of models for the first time, was shot on the back lot of Universal Studios, and was described by Germaine Greer as "Pirelli's most challenging calendar yet." He currently maintains residences in Paris, Manhattan, and Arles. Source: Wikipedia

Martin Parr

United Kingdom
1952

Martin Parr is one of the best-known documentary photographers of his generation. With over 100 books of his own published, and another 30 edited by Parr, his photographic legacy is already established. Parr also acts as a curator and editor. He has curated two photography festivals, Arles in 2004 and Brighton Biennial in 2010. More recently Parr curated the Barbican exhibition, Strange and Familiar. Parr has been a member of the Magnum agency since 1994 and was President from 2013 - 2017. In 2013 Parr was appointed the visiting professor of photography at the University of Ulster. Parr�s work has been collected by many of the major museums, from the Tate, the Pompidou and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Martin Parr established the Martin Parr Foundation in 2017. Source: www.martinparr.com Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at aspects of modern life, in particular provincial and suburban life in England. He is a member of Magnum Photos. Born in Epsom, Surrey, Parr wanted to become a documentary photographer from the age of fourteen, and cites his grandfather, an amateur photographer, as an early influence. From 1970 to 1973, he studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic. He married Susan Mitchell in 1980, and they have one child, Ellen Parr (born 1986). He has lived in Bristol since 1987. Parr began work as a professional photographer and has subsequently taught photography intermittently from the mid-1970s. He was first recognized for his black-and-white photography in the north of England, Bad Weather (1982) and A Fair Day (1984), but switched to color photography in 1984. The resulting work, Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton, was published in 1986. Since 1994, Parr has been a member of Magnum Photos. He has had almost 50 books published, and featured in around 80 exhibitions worldwide - including an exhibition at the Barbican Arts Centre, London. In 2007, his retrospective exhibition was selected to be the main show of Month of Photography Asia in Singapore. In 2008, he was made an Honorary Doctor of Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in recognition for his ongoing contribution to photography and to MMU's School of Art. Parr's approach to documentary photography is intimate, anthropological and satirical. Macro lenses, ring flash, high-saturation color film, and since it became an easier format to work in, digital photography, all allow him to put his subjects "under the microscope" in their own environment, giving them space to expose their lives and values in ways that often involve inadvertent humor. For example, to create his book Signs of the Times: A Portrait of the Nation's Tastes. (1992), Parr entered ordinary people's homes and took pictures of the mundane aspects of his hosts' lives, combining the images with quotes from his subjects to bring viewers uncomfortably close to them. The result of Parr's technique has been said to leave viewers with ambiguous emotional reactions, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Source: Wikipedia

Ebru Sidar

Turkey
1975

Ebru Sidar was born on 13 January 1975 in Trabzon. Since her parents were bankers, she traveled to many cities in Turkey and then moved to Ankara. She is now living between France and Turkey. She graduated from Ankara University as a Geology Engineer. She thinks that all types of art affect and are connected to each other. Capturing �the good� in thoughts and the physical world, she believes that any work on which someone focuses mentally, emotionally and physically is meant to be good.Considering photography as a common property and language of humanity, she believes that it should always promote and contribute to sustainable peace. She has been actively working on photography since February 2005. While continuously developing her skills and knowledge, she never wants to give up her amateur spirit.

Jared Ragland

United States
1977

Jared Ragland is a fine art and documentary photographer and former White House photo editor. He currently teaches and coordinates exhibitions and community programs in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is at work on a long-term documentary on methamphetamine users living in northeast Alabama. He is the photo editor of National Geographic Books' "The President's Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office," and has worked on assignment for NGOs in the Balkans, the former Soviet Bloc, East Africa and Haiti. His photographic work is rooted in his lifelong exposure to the landscapes, people, aesthetics, and storytelling traditions of the American South, and his work has been exhibited internationally and featured by The Oxford American, The New York Times, and TIME Magazine. Jared is an alumni of LaGrange College and a 2003 graduate of Tulane University with an MFA in Photography. He resides in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Statement: The rise in use of methamphetamine across the United States over the last decade has led to increased cultural anxiety about the drug and those who use it, while the general perception of the meth-head is perpetuated by popular television programs and pervasive anti-meth campaigns. These limited representations typically paint one-dimensional, demonized characters whose chronic drug use is epitomized by obsessiveness, paranoia, and monstrous physical side effects. But while there are certainly deleterious consequences to meth use and stereotypes often ring too true, existing cultural narratives too often fall short of more complex, individually considered realities. Photographed over 18 months in collaboration with University of Alabama at Birmingham sociologist Heith Copes, Ph.D., GOOD BAD PEOPLE documents the tumultuous lives of meth users from Sand Mountain, a sandstone plateau in northeast Alabama infamous for extreme poverty, poultry processing plants, Pentecostal snake-handlers, and meth production. The images simultaneously reinforce and undermine assumptions of what it means to be a methamphetamine user and present an intimate look into the lives of those who struggle amidst drug use and diminished social status.

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