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Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
Win a Solo Exhibition this February. Juror: Harvey Stein
Sirli Raitma
Sirli Raitma
Sirli Raitma

Sirli Raitma

Country: Estonia
Birth: 1975

Sirli Raitma is a London based photographer. She was born and grew up in Suure-Jaani in Estonia. Sirli's images span portraiture, landscapes and interiors, but portraiture - especially involving ambiguity via costume or displacement - is her heartland.

Project - Eha

EHA is a series of portraits of my mother, portrayed in a series of unusual situations, poses and attire. Eha was born in Estonia in 1950. Widowed, suffering from epilepsy and lacking great command of English, Eha stayed tightly involved in our lives. In 2015 Eha began to suffer from depression. Life became bleaker. Something had to be done. I came up with a plan to give her something new to focus on, beyond her new procession of doctor's appointments and medications. The 'EHA' project was born.

'Eha revealed herself to be a natural model, happy to play along with my increasingly imaginative visual fantasies. The 'EHA' project has had an effect on both of us. It is encouraging to see that the results for us are also having a resonance for others. The project has featured in UK and Estonian magazines. The feedback from readers has been fantastic and is consistent it that it has prompted many to look at their own family situations and how they treat each other.'
 

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Soumya Sankar Bose
I am a documentary photographer based in India. I did my Post graduate diploma in photography from Pathshala South Asian Media Institute.Born in 1990 Midnapore - Lives and works in KolkataAwards and Fellowships: The Toto-Tasveer Emerging Photographer of the Year. India foundation for the Arts grant for the Project "Let's Sing an Old Song". Magnum Foundation's Photography and Social Justice Fellowship for the Project "Full Moon in a Dark night"Publications: The Telegraph, The Indian Express , Better Photography, Kindle Magazine, Mint Lounge, The Caravan, Wired, A’int-Bad Magazine, Platform, Harmony . As well as online portals such as Scroll.in, The Huffington Post, BBC Online, Gallery Carte Blanche, F-Stop Magazine, Galli Magazine, Fltr , Medium and etc. AAP: Do you have a mentor or role model? Yes, Shahidul Alam who is the principal of Pathshala .And Morten Krogvold was one of my mentor during Chobimela VII .AAP: Do you remember your first shot? What was it?I don't remember my first shot exactly but when I was 7-8 years old, I got a Kodak KB10 from my mother and then I started to capture each and everything around me.AAP: What or who inspires you?My Parents ,Friends, Barnali But mostly my Grand father whose photographs inspire me to become a photographer in my childhood.AAP: How could you describe your style?Once one of my mentor Hasib Zakaria told me that my work is about hyper real. "Hyper reality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins."AAP: What kind of gear do you use? Camera, lens, digital, film?I like to shoot only on 35mm Prime lens in Film and Digital both.AAP: Do you spend a lot of time editing your images? For what purpose?I don't spend lot of time in editing my pictures but what I keep in mind during my editing is that I should not off-tracked.AAP: Favorite(s) photographer(s)?Alec Soth, Stfan bladh, Graciela Iturbide, Diane Arbus, Dayanita Singh and so on.AAP: What advice would you give a young photographer?I am also a young Photographer.AAP: What are your projects?My project documents retired Jatra artists (Jatra is four hundred years old Bengali folk theater which is disappearing day by day) or who have been working in Jatra for more than 25-30 years.AAP: Your favorite photo book?Calcutta Ladies by Dayanita Singh, Fauna and Flora by Dietmar Busse and so on.
Marsel van Oosten
The Netherland
1967
Dutch-born Marsel van Oosten began his career in advertising. Photography started as a means of escaping fast-paced advertising life, but it was during a trip to Tanzania and close encounters with the animals of the Serengeti, where Marsel developed a passion for wildlife photography. Five years later, Marsel left advertising to become a full-time photographer and hasn’t looked back. Marsel’s images, which feature in galleries and museums across the globe, are famed for their composition, lighting, color and perspective. In his work, he tries to keep his images clean and uncluttered, enabling the viewer to focus on the image’s inherent graphic qualities. As a result, he has been decorated with many prestigious awards, including winning the overall titles for: Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Natural History Museum), Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY), and International Nature Photographer of the Year (2x in the International Photography Awards).Source: Nikon UK After graduating from the Academy of Arts with a BA in Art Direction and Graphic Design, Dutch-born Marsel van Oosten started a career in advertising. As an Art Director at various renowned agencies, he won numerous awards for his work, amongst which are one silver and two gold Lions at the prestigious International Advertising Festival in Cannes. The acclaimed TV commercial he made for a Dutch nature conservation organization is representative of both his creative and emotional approach to communication, as well as for his love for the natural world and his concern for the environment. Taking photographs began as a way for Marsel to escape from life in the fast lane. After a trip to Tanzania, however, things started getting more serious. Close encounters with the animals of the Serengeti fueled his passion for wildlife photography, which soon became his specialty. Five years later, Van Oosten took the plunge and swapped his established advertising career for the precarious life of a nature photographer, a move that demands unyielding devotion and commitment. His images are featured in galleries and museums, are used worldwide in advertising and design, and he is a regular contributor to National Geographic. When Marsel is not traveling, he lives in South Africa, with producer and videographer Daniella Sibbing. Together they run specialized nature photography tours for all experience levels to exciting destinations worldwide.Source: Squiver
Ralf Dreier
Germany
1964
Ralf Dreier is a self-taught photographer with more than 25 years of experience. With a particular focus on minimalist black and white photography in the fields of architecture and landscape, he strives first and foremost to convey emotions and moods with his images. Statement: My pictures are essentially about conveying feelings and moods, so I don't really try to tell a story with them. These moods and feelings are what I feel when I look at a landscape that I would also photograph. It's about relaxation and letting go of everyday problems. But if a story does develop in the viewer's mind, it's definitely positive, because it's their very personal story that they associate with my pictures. However, it makes a difference whether we look at a landscape directly and immediately or whether we only look at a picture of it. Directly in the landscape, our brain is able to block out everything that distracts or disturbs us. At least this works if the distractions are not too dominant. In a photograph, small things often distract us and prevent us from finding the necessary calm and relaxation to engage with the image and let the feelings and moods come to us. I therefore try not to include any of these distracting elements in my pictures. I achieve this in my minimalist black and white pictures, for example, through the choice of image detail. Other disruptive elements that create unrest and therefore attract attention can be the sky or uneven water surfaces. For water surfaces, I usually use long exposures of up to two minutes in my pictures. This makes the surface soft and smooth and suddenly even conveys additional calm. With a turbulent sky, on the other hand, the only thing that usually helps is to wait for better conditions. My favourite subjects are mainly landscapes and architecture. However, for me, the two tend to merge seamlessly. I prefer open landscapes that allow you to look into the distance. From my point of view, this helps me to detach my thoughts from the realities of everyday life. In densely built-up areas or mountainous landscapes, however, a clear view is often only possible in the direction of the sky. For this reason, the sky is becoming increasingly important in my pictures. And it also depends on the structure of the sky. A uniformly blue or grey sky is often somewhat boring, at least in a photo. On the other hand, restless clouds with strong contrasts can attract more attention than they deserve. It's simply important to wait for the sky to be as suitable as possible. In some cases, however, my pictures manage without looking into the distance. Then geometric shapes and structures take over the task of detaching thoughts from everyday life. The order of the geometric shapes and the regularity of the structures have a calming effect on the viewer and in this way help them to get into the mood of the picture.
Gilles Caron
France
1939 | † 1970
Gilles Caron (8 July 1939 – 5 April 1970) was a French photographer and photojournalist. He was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France, of a Scottish mother and a French father, Edouard Caron, an insurance company manager. After the divorce of his parents in 1946, Caron spent 7 years in a boarding school in Argentières, Haute-Savoie. A keen horserider, Gilles Caron briefly embraced a career in horse racing, before moving to Paris where he attended the lycée Janson de Sailly. He then moved on to study journalism at the École des Hautes Études Internationales, still in Paris. He served his National Service in Algeria from 1959 as a paratrooper in the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment (3e RPIMa). After nearly 2 years fighting a war he opposed, Caron refused to fight after the Generals' putsch, an aborted coup d'état attempted by 4 former French generals in April 1961. As a result, he spent 2 months in a military prison before finishing his military service in 1962. After returning to Paris Gilles Caron married Marianne, a long-time friend. They had 2 daughters, Marjolaine (born 9 March 1963) and Clémentine (born 8 December 1967). In 1964 Gilles Caron started working with Patrice Molinard, a fashion and advertisement photographer. In 1965 he joined the APIS (Agence Parisienne d'Informations Sociales) where he met Raymond Depardon, then working for Dalmas agency. It was during this period that he had his first major success as a photojournalist, with one of his photos illustrating the leading article of France Soir (21 February 1966 issue, on the Ben Barka affair). After leaving the APIS and briefly working for a celebrity photography agency, Caron joined Depardon and the founders of the recently created Gamma agency in 1967. For the next 3 years Caron covered most of the high-profile conflicts in the world in various countries: Israel in June 1967 during the Six-Day War; Vietnam in November and December 1967, where he was present during the infamous battle for Hill 875 in Dak To; Biafra in April 1968 where he returned twice (in July and November the same year), and where he was with his very good friend Don McCullin and where he met Bernard Kouchner, future co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières; France in May 1968 to cover the student upheaval in Paris; Mexico in September 1968, when the military and armed men shot student demonstrators in Mexico City days before the opening ceremony of the Olympics; Northern Ireland in August 1969 to cover The Troubles; Czechoslovakia in August 1969 for the anniversary of the end of the Prague Spring the year before. In 1970 Gilles Caron went to Cambodia after king Norodom Sihanouk was deposed by Lon Nol on 18 March 1970. On April 5, Gilles Caron disappeared on Route 1, a road between Cambodia and Vietnam controlled by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.Source: Wikipedia In the space of just a few years Gilles Caron, a passionate and audacious young journalist, made his mark in the world of photography breathing new life into a genre: photojournalism. He founded the photographic agency Gamma in 1968 with Raymond Depardon and rapidly made a name for himself by covering all of the period’s major conflicts: the Middle East, Vietnam, Chad, Northern Ireland, Biafra… Wherever there was fighting, he was there with his camera until one day in April 1970, 5 April to be precise, when he disappeared in Cambodia in a zone controlled by the Khmer Rouge. Although he was primarily known as a war reporter, Caron’s photography is also remarkable for the way he managed to capture the quintessential spirit of the 1960s: cinema and France’s Nouvelle Vague, fashion, music, the rebellious younger generation and politics are amongst his main subjects, those that inspired some of his most striking images. His extremely realistic account of the events of May 1968, in particular his famous photo of Daniel Cohn-Bendit confronting a CRS riot policeman, are indelibly fixed in our collective memory. In just a few short years, Caron managed to prove that he was one of photojournalism’s greats.Source: Jeu de Paume
Dan Winters
United States
1962
Dan Winters (b. October 21, 1962) is an American photojournalist, illustrator, filmmaker and writer. He was born in Ventura County, California on October 21, 1962. He first studied photography and the darkroom process starting in 1971 while a member of his local 4-H club. In 1979, while still a high school senior, he began working full time in the motion picture special effects industry in the area of miniature construction and design. He went on to study photography at Moorpark College, in California. After receiving an associates arts degree there, he entered the documentary studies program at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany, focusing mainly on narrative photojournalism. In 1986, he began his career in photography as a photojournalist in his home town in Ventura County, at the Thousand Oaks News Chronicle. After winning several local awards for his work, he moved to New York City, where magazine assignments came rapidly. In 1991, he moved to Los Angeles and married Kathryn Fouts, who became his photo rep and studio manager. In 1993, his son Dylan was born in Los Angeles. In 2000, while maintaining a home in LA, he moved to Austin, Texas. There he set up a studio outside Austin in a historic building built in 1903, that had originally served as a general store, gas station and post office for nearly 100 years before he arrived. Known for the broad range of subject matter he is able to interpret, he is widely recognized for his iconic celebrity portraiture, his scientific photography, his photojournalistic stories and more recently his drawings and illustrations. He has created portraits of luminaries such as Bono, Neil Young, Barack Obama, Tupac Shakur, the Dalai Lama, Stephen Hawking, Leonardo DiCaprio, Helen Mirren, Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg and Al Gore. He has won over one hundred national and international awards from American Photography, Communication Arts, The Society of Publication Designers, Photo District News, The Art Directors Club of New York and Life, among others. In 1998, he was awarded the prestigious Alfred Eisenstadt Award for Magazine Photography. In 2003, he won a 1st place World Press Photo Award in the portrait category. In 2003, he was also honored by Kodak as a photo "Icon" in their biographical "Legends" series. In addition to regular assignments for magazines such as Esquire, GQ, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York, Texas Monthly, Wired, Fortune, Discover, Audubon Magazine, Details, Premiere, W, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Life, Newsweek, Time, Vibe and many other national and international publications, his clients for print and advertising include Nike, Microsoft, IBM, LG, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Bose, Saturn, Sega, Fila, Cobra, ABC, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Dreamworks, Columbia TriStar and Twentieth Century Fox. Regular music clients include RCA, A&M, Sony BMG, Interscope, Warner Bros., Elektra Records and Epitaph. His work has appeared in four solo exhibitions in galleries in New York and Los Angeles. A book of his work entitled "Dan Winters: Periodical Photographs" was published in 2009 by Aperture. In addition, he has photos in permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery (United States), the Museum of Fine Art Houston, The Whitliff Collection at Texas State University and the Harry Ransom Center for Photography in Austin, Texas.[6]He currently has a solo exhibition at the Telfair Museum/Jepson Center in Savannah, GA entitled Dan Winters's AMERICA: Icons and Ingenuity. A catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition. His book Last Launch which chronicles the final launches of Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis in 2011, signaling the end of an era in space travel, will be released October 22, 2012 by UT Press and available in bookstores everywhere. He currently lives in Austin, Los Angeles and Savannah, Georgia with his wife and son. Source: wikipedia
Sheila Metzner
United States
1939
Sheila Metzner (born 1939) is an American photographer. She was the first female photographer to collaborate with the Vogue magazine on an ongoing basis. Metzner lives in Brooklyn, New York. Metzner graduated from the Higher School of Art and Design and the Faculty of Visual Communications of the Pratt Institute. After that, she was engaged in promotional activities. In the 1960s, she became the first woman to be promoted to art director by Doyle Dane Bernbach, an advertising agency. Thanks to this, she successfully collaborated with well-known photographers, including Richard Avedon, Melvin Sokolsky, Bob Richardson and Diane Arbus. Inspired by the work of 19th-century English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, who painted pictures of her family, Metzner photographed her husband, artist Jeffrey Metzner, and her children. In the first 10 years, she shot only her family without publishing photos. Her first show in New York was called Friends & Family. She decided to show part of the images to the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, John Sarkovsky. In 1978, he bought one and included in MoMA exhibition Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960. A second exhibition – Photography (Spring 1981): Couches, Diamonds and Pie – took place there. After that, The New York Times and The Sunday Times published a photograph of Sheila's husband. In 2008 the School of Visual Arts presented the exhibition Time Line: Shelia Metzner at the Visual Arts Museum, New York. Sheila Metzner lives in New York. She was married to the artist Jeffrey Metzner, with whom she had seven children.Source: Wikipedia Sheila Metzner's unique photographic style has positioned her as a contemporary master in the worlds of fine art, fashion, portraiture, still life and landscape photography. Born in Brooklyn, she attended Pratt Institute, where she majored in Visual Communications, and was then hired by Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency as its first female art director. She took pictures all the while, amassing them slowly over the next thirteen years, while raising five children. One of these photographs was included in a famous and controversial exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art - Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960 - and became the dark horse hit of the exhibition. Gallery shows and commercial clients soon followed. Her first commercial client was Valentino, followed by Elizabeth Arden, Perry Ellis, Shiseido, Fendi, Saks Fifth Avenue, Paloma Picasso, Victoria's Secret, Revlon, and in recent years Levi's, Ralph Lauren, Club Monaco, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. Sheila's fine art photographs are featured in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum, The International Center of Photography, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Chrysler Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, Agfa and Polaroid Corporations, Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as many personal collections. She has published five monographs: Objects of Desire, which won the American Society of Magazine Photographers Ansel Adams Award for Book Photography; Sheila Metzner's Color; Inherit the Earth, a collection of landscapes shot during her travels, Form and Fashion, a collection of images culled from twenty years of her work in fine-art and fashion, and Sheila Metzner: From Life in 2017.Source: sheilametzner.com
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All About Photo Awards 2026
Win a Solo Exhibition in February
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Exclusive Interview with Marijn Fidder
Marijn Fidder is a Dutch documentary photographer whose work powerfully engages with current affairs and contemporary social issues. Driven by a deep sense of social justice, she uses photography to speak on behalf of the voiceless and to advocate for the rights of those who are most vulnerable. Her images have been widely published in major international outlets including National Geographic, CNN Style, NRC Handelsblad, Volkskrant, GUP New Talent, and ZEIT Magazin. Her long-term commitment to disability rights—particularly through years of work in Uganda—culminated in her acclaimed project Inclusive Nation, which earned her the title of Photographer of the Year 2025 at the All About Photo Awards. She is also the recipient of multiple prestigious honors, including awards from World Press Photo and the Global Peace Photo Award. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Josh S. Rose
Josh S. Rose is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, film, and writing. His practice bridges visual and performing arts, with a strong focus on movement, emotion, and the expressive potential of the image. Known for his long-standing collaborations with leading dance companies and performers, Rose brings together authenticity and precise composition—a balance he describes as “technical romanticism.” His work has been commissioned and exhibited internationally, appearing in outlets such as Vogue, at the Super Bowl, in film festivals, and most recently as a large-scale installation for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. A sought-after collaborator, he has worked with major artists, cultural institutions, and brands, following a previous career as Chief Creative Officer at Interpublic Group and the founder of Humans Are Social. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Interview with Maureen Ruddy Burkhart
Photographer Maureen Ruddy Burkhart brings a quietly attentive and deeply human sensibility to her exploration of the world through images. Shaped by a life immersed in photography, film, and visual storytelling, her work is guided by intuition, observation, and an enduring interest in the emotional undercurrents of everyday life. With a practice rooted in both fine art traditions and documentary awareness, she approaches her subjects with sensitivity, allowing subtle moments to emerge naturally rather than be imposed. Her series Til Death, selected as the Solo Exhibition for February 2025, reflects this long-standing commitment to photography as a space for reflection rather than spectacle. Drawn to moments that exist just outside the expected frame, Burkhart’s images suggest narratives without resolving them, leaving room for ambiguity, humor, and quiet connection. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Peter Ydeen
Winner of AAP Magazine #45 Travels, his series reflects this unique vision—capturing the spirit of place through subtle layers of light, color, and emotion. Whether traveling abroad or observing the rhythms of his own surroundings, Ydeen creates images that feel both grounded and enchanted, inviting viewers into a world where reality and reverie meet.
Exclusive Interview with Julie Wang
Chinese-born photographer Julie Wang brings a poetic, contemplative sensitivity to her visual exploration of the world. Having lived for nearly equal parts of her life in China, Europe, and the United States, she approaches her subjects with the nuanced perspective of someone shaped by many cultures. This blend of distance, curiosity, and emotional resonance infuses her work with a quiet depth, allowing her to reveal the fragile beauty and subtle tensions that often pass unnoticed.
Exclusive Interview with Ghawam Kouchaki
American photographer Ghawam Kouchaki brings a sharply observant and introspective gaze to the streets of Japan’s capital. Based in Los Angeles, he approaches Tokyo with the distance — and curiosity — of an outsider, allowing him to uncover the city’s subtle contradictions, quiet tensions, and fleeting gestures that often go unnoticed. His series Tokyo no no, selected as the Solo Exhibition for December 2024, explores the hidden undercurrents of urban life: the unspoken rules, the small ruptures in routine, the poetic strangeness found in everyday moments. Through muted tones, instinctive timing, and meticulous framing, Kouchaki reveals a Tokyo that exists somewhere between reality and imagination — both intimate and enigmatic. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Tommi Viitala
Tommi Viitala, winner of AAP Magazine #44: Street, is a Finnish photographer celebrated for his striking and cinematic street photography. With a keen eye for atmosphere and composition, he captures fleeting urban moments that reveal the poetry of everyday life. His work often explores the tension between solitude and connection within contemporary cityscapes, blending documentary realism with artistic sensibility. Viitala’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and recognized for their strong visual storytelling and emotional depth. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Exclusive Interview with Robert Mack
Robert Mack is a California-based visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker. His fine art photography and films have been exhibited widely in the United States and Europe, with major shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Reiss-Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany. Both institutions hold his work in their permanent collections. Working across different media, Mack has built a career exploring the complexities of human presence and representation. In 1981, while living in Baltimore, he produced The Perkins Project: Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, a rare photographic and film study inside Maryland’s hospital for the criminally insane. These stark yet compassionate black-and-white portraits remain one of his most powerful and controversial bodies of work.
Exclusive Interview with Alan Schaller About Irys
Alan Schaller is a London-based photographer best known for his striking black-and-white street photography and as co-founder of Street Photography International, one of the largest online communities dedicated to the genre. With years of experience both behind the camera and in building platforms that give visibility to photographers, Schaller has now turned his focus to creating a new digital space for photography itself. His latest venture, Irys, is a photography app designed by photographers, for photographers, with the aim of offering a dedicated platform where images are respected as works of art rather than treated as disposable content.
Call for Entries
All About Photo Awards 2026
$5,000 Cash Prizes! Juror: Steve McCurry