Photographer #390: Ken Kitano

Ken Kitano, 1968, Japan, is a conceptual photographer who uses long exposures and piles images on top of each other to create a new photograph. He has been working on the series Our Face since 1999. He shoots portraits of various social groups as young girls in Harajuku, office workers, farm village women in Bangladesh and supporters of the English national soccer team. Each time he shoots various dozens of evenly taken portraits which he piles on top of each other. The more faces that are printed, the more the contours of an individual become blurred and the expressions and ages become more ambigious in the final portrait. The project started in Asia, but should cover the American continent, Europe and Africa in the future. In 2005 he released the book Our Face. In his series One Day Kitano captures specifically chosen locations using an exposure time that stretches from sunrise to sunset. The following images come from the series Our Face, One Day and City Flow and Fusion.

Website: www.ourface.com

Photographer #389: Lin Zhipeng

Lin Zhipeng aka NO.223, 1979, China, is a photographer based in Beijing who works in a very intuitive fashion. His photography shows the Chinese youth of today with sex and chaotic love as recurring themes. The photographs that are made using a very direct and hard flash, showing a youth culture the way he does, are relatively new to come from a country as China. The "snap-shot" images reveal a new Chinese generation, allowing us viewers to see them while they party, shower, hang-out, kiss and smoke. His work has been published in several books as New Photography in China and in numerous magazines as Vice, S Magazine and Dazed and Confused. He has been exhibited mainly in China, but also in Europe and the USA. The following images come from the portfolios Portfolio 09, Portfolio 07 and Polaroid.

Website: www.linzhipeng223.com

Photographer #388: Kim Boske

Kim Boske, 1978, The Netherlands, is an experimental photographer based in Amsterdam. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Her photography deals with time, perspectives and space. It is a research in which time and space run together. She focuses on the mutability of things. In her series Mapping she merged different moments in time, investigating how physical movement in time and space change our perspectives. She photographed trees from different angles and when all the images are combined we actually see the tree in its entirety. She created images of flowers that combine several shots of the same object. The changing of light during the day was an important factor. Kim's photographs reveal phenomena that are impossible to see or witness with the naked eye. Her work has been exhibited at several venues in the world and a large number of Dutch exhibition spaces. The following images come from the series Mapping, Collection of Sleepings and Awakanings and I Go Walking In Your Landscape.

Website: www.kimboske.com

Photographer #387: Sarah Elliott

Sarah Elliott, 1984, USA, is a young, engaged and very productive photojournalist. She received a BFA in Photography at the Parson's School of Design. She also followed courses at the Rhode Island School of Design and the ICP. She is interested in documenting social issues in Africa and focuses especially on women. Within her large archive are stories that deal with reproductive rights in Kenya, maternal mortality in Ethiopia and fistula repair in Central African Republic. Her series Renewed Fighting DRC shows the tense situation in 2008 in North Kivu, Congo which has led thousands of Congolese civilians to flee the intense fighting. Dandora Dump tells the story of the immense Nairobi waste dump that affects the people surrounding it, but also works as a source of income for people sifting through the waste mountains that include medical waste and poisonous chemicals. She has received several awards for her photography which has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines as The New York Times, Stern and The Guardian. In 2010 she was selected to participate in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. The following images come from the stories Renewed Fighting DRC, Women of the Omo Valley and Dandora Dump.

Website: www.sarahelliottphotography.com

Photographer #386: Richard Learoyd

Richard Learoyd, 1966, UK, graduated in Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art. He has a very unique way of working which creates absolutely unique photographs. He build a giant camera that can best be described as a huge camera obscura. The camera is comprised of two rooms. In one room is the model or the object in a light source. In the other room, behind a large lens, is a huge piece of photographic paper. Once exposed, a unique, life-size direct-positive print is created. Unlike the pinhole camera images, Richard's photographs are clear of distortion, sharp and very detailed. Apart from the technical aspects, he manages to create poetically stunning imagery. He places people, clothed and nude, as well as objects in front of his lens. The exposure takes 8 hours, so the models have to sit still while being under hot lights for the same amount of time. The final and approved images, he destroys the one's that are imperfect, have a painter-like quality to them with soft tones and melancholic poses. He considers the method to be a natural step in search of the ultimate image.

Website: www.richardlearoyd.com
For more work visit: www.fraenkelgallery.com & www.mckeegallery.com

Photographer #385: Chris McCaw

Chris McCaw, 1971, USA, received a BFA in photography at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He works on his photography using a large-format camera and the platinum/palladium process. His current project is called Sunburn. He was making all-night exposures of the stars while on a camping trip in 2003. He woke up late and therefore the shutter was not closed in time. What he found out by mistake was the start of a new project. The rising sun was so focused and powerful that it physically changed the film. The sun burns its path onto the negative creating an effect called solarization, a natural reversal of tonality due to over-exposure. The negative literally has a burnt hole in it with the surrounding landscape in complete reversal. He then started experimenting and perfecting his technique using the sun as an active participant in his images. In 2006 he chose to use vintage fiber based gelatin b&w paper. The gelatin in the paper gets cooked and leaves orange and red colors. In this way he created one of a kind paper negatives. His series The Family Farm and Travelogue were shot using a 7x17" view camera. In this way he was capable to create 7x17" direct contact prints  by hand. Since 1996 he also uses this technique for clients with digital negatives using Dan Burkholder's method. The following images come from Sunburn, The Family Farm, and Travelogue.

Website: www.chrismccaw.com

Photographer #384: Juul Hondius

Juul Hondius, 1970, The Netherlands, studied at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. At first glance his photographs look like documentary or photojournalistic images. The images of Hondius however are carefully constructed and staged. Images we believe to be of Bosnian immigrants can be shot in a Dutch field. As viewers we might believe we are looking at images depicting immigration, civil war, refugees, smuggling and other situations. He plays with the language of photography that we know from the media and takes all these details combining them into an image that is all about the eye of the beholder. For his image Bus showing three people sitting in a bus, he took a perspective that is impossible to create in real life. The bus is sawn in two, making it possible for Juul to create the narrative image yet making the image more convincing. His work is suggestive and leaves enough space for the viewer to create his or her own stories. His work has been exhibited extensively and has appeared in numerous books, catalogues and magazines. The following photographs come from his portfolio.

Website: www.juulhondius.com

Photographer #383: Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield, 1966, USA, is a documentary photographer and film-maker. She is widely known for her work involving youth culture. She released three monographs, all dealing with the subject matter of youth, entitled Fast Forward (1997), Girl Culture (2002) and Thin (2006). Thin is an in-depth documentation about the treatment of eating disorders. She photographed the lives of nineteen patients at the Renfrew Center in Florida. Adjacent to the images she also followed the patients with a film camera. The project shows the complicated and difficult process of treatment, rehabilitation and the experience of struggling with an eating disorder. Girl Culture is about girl's and their relationship to their bodies, their inner lives, emotional development and the material world with it's popular culture. Fast Forward shows the ways children in Los Angeles are influenced by the values of Hollywood. It deals with the quest for "fame" and the preoccupation with trends and materialism. Lauren has a vast archive of editorial stories and advertising campaigns, all produced in a recognizable and colorful style that has created her signature in photography. The following images come from the series Thin, Girl Culture and Fast Forward.

Website: www.laurengreenfield.com

Photographer #382: Cédric Gerbehaye

Cédric Gerbehaye, 1977, Belgium, was trained as a journalist who chose photography as his medium to tell his stories. In 2002 he started to follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a long-term project. He created several bodies of work in the conflict area about Hebron, Gaza and on the economic crisis in Israel, showing that a large number of Israelis today live below the poverty line due to war and the fact that the occupation of Palestinian territories costs a lot of money to the Israeli government who are therefore spending much less on social programs. Since 2007 he has been focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is where he created the images for his book Congo in Limbo, telling the story of the armed conflict that killed nearly four million people. In the eastern regions of Congo, filled with mineral resources, the situation is still very tense. One of his latest series is Land of Cush. He went to the Nuba Mounts, to the north of the demarcation line that now separates the South Sudan state and Sudan. The inhabitants, who used to fight with the southern separatists soldiers for 20 years, are now victims of aerial bombardments from the Khartoum regime as retaliation. The following images come from the stories Land of Cush - South Sudan, Congo in Limbo and Gaza: Summer Rains.

Direct link to Cedric's work: www.agencevu.com

Photographer #381: Almagul Menlibayeva

Almagul Menlibayeva, 1969, Kazakhstan, is a fine-art photographer and video artist who works and lives in Berlin and Kazakhstan. She studied at the Academy of Art and Theatre in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her photography is a mixture of nomadic aesthetic of post-Soviet and contemporary Kazakhstan. In her portfolio we find portraits staged in the vast steppes and mountains between the Caspian Sea, Baikonur and Altai in her home country. The romantic and melancholic images deal with the heritage of the soviet era and the transformation of their country. She states; "I use specific ways of expression... to investigate my personal archaic atavism as a certain mystical anthropomorphism. I explore the nature of a specific... shared cultural psychic experience, which manifests itself as a specific thought-form among the people(s) of the ancient, arid and dusty steppes." Her photography is about memory and reality, "raising metaphysical questions such as Who am I? and Where shall I go?" Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the world. The following images come from various series within her portfolio.

Website: www.almagulmenlibayeva.com

Photographer #380: Marcel van der Vlugt

Marcel van der Vlugt, 1957, The Netherlands, is a fine-art, fashion and commercial photographer based in Amsterdam. Once he was finished with his studies at the School for Photography in The Hague he went to Düsseldorf, Germany to assist an advertising photographer. Although his school was largely focused on the technical aspects of photography, Marcel managed to create bodies of work that, although technically perfectly executed, are multi-layered in context. He works on a large-format camera, shooting polaroids to keep control on his final image and to engage the models in the process. The images, autonomous or commercial, are often sensual, poetic and carefully composed. Between 2007 and 2010 he released four monographs. The book A New Day, released in 2008, simulates an imaginary cosmetic clinic where instead of liposuction and nosejobs, the patients get implants of flowers. The blossom is a metaphor for youth, new life and fertility. His work has been exhibited mostly in the Netherlands, but also in other European cities and in the USA. The following images come from the series A New Day, I Like... and Der Kommisar.

Website: www.marcelvandervlugt.com

Photographer #379: Zhang Xiao

Zhang Xiao, 1981, China, studied Architecture at Yantai University. Between 2005 and 2009 he worked for the Chongqing Morning Post and has since been active as a freelance photographer. His project Coastline focuses, as the title describes, on the Chinese coastline which is 18000 kilometres long. For Xiao the sea is a place of strong emotions and rich imagery. He states that "the sea is the beginning of lives and dreams." The project also clearly shows how China is changing and has been changing in the last 30 years since it began opening up. This change is also visible in his project They. The project documents the Chinese culture while undergoing a societal change. It shows culture and tradition, but also the youth and their newly acquired culture. Amongst his other projects we find a series called Three Gorges. The Three Gorges Dam was completed in 2006 and presents many economic benifits, however, as the images of Zhang show us, it has also led to a vast amount of deconstruction and demolition. Zhang has exhibited his work in China, Japan, Germany, England and France. The following images come from the series Coastline, They and Three Gorges.

Website: www.zhangxiaophoto.com

Photographer #378: Marcus Bleasdale

Marcus Bleasdale, 1968, UK, is an engaged photojournalist and documentary photographer who uses his work to influence decision makers and policy makers around the world. He has concentrated on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo for many years, highlighting the reasons behind and the devastating effects of the conflict. The first book covering Congo entitled One Hundred Years of Darkness was released in 2002. In 2009 he released his second book about the conflict called The Rape of a Nation. Other projects have taken him to countries as Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, Darfur and China. Marcus has exhibited his work extensively and at important spaces as the US senate, The US House of Representatives and The United Nations amongst others. He has been awarded numerous awards for his photography which has also been featured in numerous magazines as Stern, The New Yorker and Time. Marcus is a full member of the VII Photo Agency. The following images come from the series Congo - The Rape of a Nation, China - Internet Revolution? and Darfur - Never Ending War.

Website: www.marcusbleasdale.com

Photographer #377: Hein-Kuhn Oh

Hein-Kuhn Oh, 1963, South-Korea, received a B.A. from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. His career started as a documentary photographer capturing the social landscapes on the streets. However in the last decade he concentrated on documenting specific groups of people that present a certain type of convention created by the Korean society. His series Ajumma contains a large selection of portraits that show middle-aged Korean women. In 2001 he started the Girl's Act series which consists of images of high school girls photographed between 2001 and 2004 and a series called Cosmetic Girls that he worked on between 2005 and 2009. For Cosmetic Girls he portrayed girls wearing make-up that he met on the streets, intrigued by the duality in the Korean society of the 'subject and object of desire'. The project deals with the common notions and stereotypes that are influenced by the entertainment media in Korean society. Hein-Kuhn has released four monographs and exhibited his work at a large number of venues around the globe. The following images come from the series Cosmetic Girls, Girl's Act: Highschool Girls and Ajumma.

Website: www.heinkuhnoh.com

Photographer #376: Jodi Bieber

Jodi Bieber, 1967, is a documentary photographer from South Africa. She studied photography at the Market Theatre photographic workshop and attended the World Press Masterclass in 1996. Between 1994 and 2004 she worked on a project that focused on youth living on the fringes of South African society. These images were assembled in the book entitled Dogs and Wolves - Growing up with South Africa. In 2010 she released her second monograph; Soweto. When thinking of Soweto one often refers to crime, poverty and problems with aids, however,  the color photographs of Jodi are a celebration and portrait of life in Soweto today. She represents the place how the inhabitants experience it, where they have their homes, do their shopping and live their lives. Jodi is this year's winner of the World Press Photo Award with the portrait of Aisha, an Afghan girl whose face was mutilated as retribution for fleeing her husband's house. She received several other World Press Awards in preceding years. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the world. The following images come from the series Soweto, Las Canas and A Weapon of War.

Website: www.jodibieber.com

Photographer #375: Gerco de Ruijter

Gerco de Ruijter, 1961, The Netherlands, is a landscape photographer with a unique perspective. His aerial photographs are taken on a analogue camera hanging from a kite or sometimes on a long fishing rod. He studied painting and the first images were supposed to be used as studies for his artwork. He soon found the photographic images much more intriguing. One of his latest series is Baumschule and focuses on tree nurseries. The images are composed geomatrically. The distance from the subject helps to create the impression of an abstract painting. Gerco considers his best images to be those where recognizable reality meets abstraction. He has a lot of control on what will be on his photographs by making clear choices. The small part he doesn't control is fixed by framing in a way to achieve the best result. He has traveled to Iceland, Dubai, USA and various places in Holland for his photography. The following images come from the series Baumschule, 2008-2011 and Transfer.

Website: www.gercoderuijter.com

Photographer #374: Hellen van Meene

Hellen van Meene, 1972, The Netherlands, is a portrait photographer who studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Most of her portrait images are of young teenage girls. She is widely known for her exceptional use of light and the sometimes awkward yet fragile poses. She works with girls that have no experience being a model and guides them in how they need to pose. She only uses natural light in order to keep fully concentrated on her models. She has traveled to Japan, England, Latvia and Russia amongst other countries for her portraits. In contrast with her earlier work, where she would ask girls in her surrounding and have time to create a strong image, she asked complete strangers in the streets to be photographed while she was traveling in search of the right teenagers. The portrait sessions were often finished within ten minutes. Hellen has been exhibited extensively throughout the world, been in numerous publications and released several photography books. The following images come from her portfolio.

Website: www.hellenvanmeene.com
(Video starts in Dutch but includes an interview in English towards the end and shows a large collection of her works)