Surfing is as much a passion as it is an obsession. It is one of the most romanticised pursuits one can engage in: mythical beings plunge into epic confrontations with the full force of nature,...
View articleThe W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, an annual award that gives a $35,000 grant to complete a current or future documentary project, is now open for submissions. Named for renowned...
View articleAmerican photographer David LaChapelle (b. 1963) is known for bridging the gap between pop culture and conceptual art: he’s portrayed celebrities and shot commercial work as well as exhibited his photos in galleries as autonomous artworks. Yet, no matter his subject or client, there has been a...
View articleEven though Ellen von Unwerth’s (b. 1954) images feature mainly super models, often scantily clad, the women are very much in control: men are the ones who are objectified, as they are only there to serve, fear, or gawk at the fabulous women. Here, women are the strongest, sexiest, and have the...
View article“OH! This is what it’s like to feel normal,” Robert realises after starting his gender transition. Ever since puberty, Robert explains in the written collection Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South Africa, he'd had the sense that something was wrong. He wanted to feel like a man and be seen...
View articleWhile most of his European contemporaries in the 1960s and 1970s were working in black and white, and colour photography was considered suitable merely for advertising, not serious art photography, Harry Gruyaert’s (b. 1941) work exploded with colour. For him, the world was Kodachrome, right up...
View article“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it,” Mahatma Gandhi said. While woe-filled women and men have wondered since time immemorial whether true peace is possible, conflict has nevertheless played an important role in making us who we are today. It’s a tool to express...
View articleAudrey Tautou (b. 1976, France) hardly needs introduction – she achieved international recognition as an actress for her starring role in the 2001 movie Amélie, and has since become a prominent figure in movies and in our collective celebrity culture. She recently revealed her ongoing...
View articleBelgian photographer Dirk Braeckman (b. 1958) invites viewers to take more time in front of his work than they’re used to: his layered, obscure, intensely grey photographs don’t reveal their secrets easily. Suggesting rather than explaining, these are no longer photographs of things. Braeckman...
View articleDutch photographer Eddo Hartmann (b. 1973) visited North Korea four times between 2014 and 2017 to produce the images for the exhibition Setting the Stage: Pyongyang, North Korea—a series for which he recently won first place in the 2018 LensCulture Exposure Awards. The series and exhibition,...
View articleLet’s not get too curled up and cosy with the status quo. Things change. And while it may be comfortable to romanticise the past, or live in the now, or look forward to the future, each of these perspectives takes for granted that points in time are fixed. A photo likewise gives us this...
View articleThe exhibition Randy, hosted by the Bonnefantenmuseum in the Netherlands, showcases a special encounter between Dutch photographer Robin de Puy (b. 1986) and a country boy named Randy. De Puy encountered Randy on a road trip across America and was immediately intrigued by the boy’s presence. Over...
View articleRotterdam Photo, an annual photography event celebrating the wide spectrum of the medium, opens February 8th in The Netherlands. This year’s theme is FAKE | TRUTH, inspired by photography’s role as an allegedly objective medium, in the wake of recent worldwide discussions on the essence of...
View articleSingaporean photographer SIM Chi Yin, now based in China, spent two months travelling along the border of North Korea and across six states of America to report on nuclear sites and nuclear weapons, as well as their impacts. As this year's Nobel Peace Prize Photographer, her resulting series,...
View articleHaute Photographie, a photography fair with a concept unlike any other, returns for the third year with an engaging and diverse presentation of galleries. Organised with the atmosphere of a museum exhibition, but including works hosted by galleries that are available for sale, Haute Photographie...
View articleIn the last decade or so, we have witnessed the rise of a strong generation of Polish photographers. Rafal Milach (1978) is probably one of the best known among them. He is co-founder of the collective Sputnik, and has been working on long-term projects concerning former Soviet and European...
View articleBritish photographer Alexandra Lethbridge (b. 1987) has magician’s tricks up her sleeve. In her first book The Meteorite Hunter (2014), she combined her photos of mundane rocks from gift stores with NASA images of actual meteorites, creating a visual confusion as to what’s what. She continued...
View articleBrazil is often portrayed as an exotic and beautiful holiday destination. However, after relocating to Rio de Janeiro, French photographer Elsa Leydier (b. 1988) came to realise this image is a little misleading. Upending the deception of postcard clichés, she playfully manipulates photographs to...
View articleHow is it, exactly, that you and I know what the Earth looks like? Excluding any astronauts in the room, we ourselves have never seen it.The first view of the Earth from the moon, a noisy black and white photograph, was taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 in 1966. Then, on December 24, 1968, a mere...
View articleIn his series Platforms, New York based photographer Natan Dvir (b. 1972, Israel) reveals the city’s subway culture through an almost painterly study of underground architecture and body language. Set within the frames of subway columns, each image is composed to give a larger narrative to a...
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