Photographer #455: Neil Krug

Neil Krug, 1983, USA, is a photographer and director based in Los Angeles. Together with his girlfriend, now wife, Joni Harbeck, he founded Pulp Art Book, a collection of photography and commercial work in limited edition prints, books and films. In 2011 he released the LP-sized Pulp Art Book: Volume One with images of Joni shot with polaroid film years past its sell-by date. The narrative photographs remind us of spaghetti westerns and the artistic expressions of the 60s and 70s in B-movies and on LP covers. Pulp Art Book: Volume Two is expected to be released in June of 2012. This time the Poliziotteschi films were a major influence. Neil has created a vast amount of CD / LP covers for bands as My Chemical Romance, Scissor Sisters, Ladytron and The Pierces. Among his commercial clients are Warner Bros. Records, Warp Records and Burton Snowboards. The following images come from the portfolios Ladytron - Gravity the Seducer, Pulp Art Book: Volume One and My Chemical Romance.

Website: www.neilkrug.com

Photographer #453: Deborah Luster

Deborah Luster, 1951, USA, is a photographer based in New Orleans, USA and Galway, Ireland. In 1988 her mother was murdered by a hired killer. In 1998 it led her to start the project entitled One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana in which she photographed inmates of three Louisiana prisons. The photographs were published in a monograph in 2003 together with texts from poet C.D. Wright. She photographed each person as they presented their very own selves. The entire archive consisted of tens of thousands of portraits and she has given +/- 25.000 wallet-sized prints back to the portrayed. Her recent body of work, Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish, was released as a monograph in 2011. It consists of images that function as an archive of historical and contemporary homicide sites in New Orleans. She researched city police homicide reports and photographed the exact locations of the murders. "By approaching cityscapes through the disorienting context of homicide, the work disturbs the deep crust of stereotypical visual interpretations of New Orleans." Her work has been exhibited on numerous occasions, mainly in the USA. The following images come from the series Tooth for an Eye, One Big Self and Rosesucker Retablos.

Website: www.deborahluster.com

Photographer #448: Rania Matar

Rania Matar, 1964, Lebanon/USA, is a documentary photographer who was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the USA in 1984. Her career started as an architect before studying photography at the New England School of Photography. She concentrates mainly on women and women's issues as identity and religion both in the US as in the Middle East. In 2009 she released the book Ordinary Lives and this spring her second monograph, A Girl and her Room, will be coming out. This series, inspired by her eldest daughter, focuses on teenage girls within their own private spaces. Both the forthcoming book and her younger daughter were the inspirations for her latest body of work entitled L'Enfant-Femme (the Child-Women). She portrays young teens and pre-teens without giving them instructions apart from not smiling. Due to the freedom the girls have to pose in their own way; they portray an array of emotions and clues to their true self. The angst, confidence and/or body language reveal their sense of selfhood and the developing sense of womanhood. As the teenagers still fluctuate between being a child and a women, Rania asks herself whether "they are meant to see themselves as little girls, teenagers or as young women?" Since 2002 she has also been taking photographs of her four children showing the various stages of their lives. The following images come from the series L'Enfant-Femme, Christian Arabs and Family Moments.

Website: www.raniamatar.com

Photographer #436: Corey Arnold

Corey Arnold, 1976, USA, is an Alaskan commercial fisherman as well as a documentary photographer. He received a BFA in photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. In 2011 he released the book Fish-Work: The Bering Sea which includes images that were made between 2003 and 2010 while he was working as a deckhand on the Bering Sea crabber f/v Rollo. The series Fish-Work doesn't stop there, it is a life long project and has also taken him to various European countries capturing the lifestyle of fishermen. One of his latest series is Wolf Tide which includes a mixture of experiences as a fisherman, rural encounters with unsuspecting wildlife and dramatic landscapes. Nowadays he captains a wild salmon gillnetting operation in Bristol Bay while working on photo assignments and gallery exhibitions in the off season. His work has appeared in numerous magazines as The New Yorker, Esquire and Juxtapoz. In 2009 he was named one of the PDN's top 30 emerging photographers. The following images come from the series Wolf Tide, Fish-Work Bering Sea and Graveyard Point.

Website: www.coreyfishes.com

Photographer #431: Darcy Padilla

Darcy Padilla, 1965, USA, is a photojournalist and documentary photographer. Her career as a freelance photographer started after completing 12 internships at daily newspapers as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Since then she covered stories in Cuba and Haiti, on Aids in Prison and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, just to name a few. Her most acclaimed body of work is The Julie Project. This long-term project is the story of a woman called Julie Baird. Eighteen years Darcy followed and photographed the story of AIDS, drug abuse, abusive relationships, poverty and death. Julie died on September 27th, 2010 at the age of 36, after having lived a turbulant life in which she gave birth to six children of whom the first five were taken away from her. It is an impressive, heartbreaking project with a dramatic, yet expected ending. The series rightfully received the W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography in 2010. Amongst other awards for her work is the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for the work she did photographing residents of transient hotels in one of the poorest neighborhoods in San Francisco. All of the following images are from The Julie Project.

Website: www.darcypadilla.com

Photographer #428: Eric T. White

Eric T. White, 1982, USA, is a photographer based in New York City. When he started art school he did not have a clear idea what he should study. When Eric's uncle died he inherited all of his cameras. This lead him to professionally persue a career in photography. He spent four years learning from photographer Christopher Griffith's technical expertise as his first assistant. His primary focus lies on portraiture and landscape photography. He describes his work as being "about capturing fleeting moments... specific moods and feelings." For his series National Defense, which consists of two chapters, he documented a fake arabic town in California and the border between the US and Mexico. Currently he is simultaneously working on a portrait series based on the Lower East Side, a black and white landscape series and his first book. The following images come from the series Least Likely To, Lake Harmony and National Defense.

Website: www.erictwhite.com 

Photographer #419: Regina DeLuise

Regina DeLuise, 1959, USA, is a fine art photographer based in Baltimore. She received a BFA at State University of New York and an MA at the Rosary College Graduate School of Fine Arts in Italy. Her poetic images contain a large range of tones and a lot of texture. To achieve this she makes platinum / palladium contact prints from 8x10" film negatives. 100% rag paper is coated with a light-sensitive chemical and the metals onto which the negative is placed. The large contact prints are soft, dreamy yet strong in expression. Regina has been teaching at Maryland Institute College of Art since 1998. Her work is in various public collections as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Houston Museum of Fine Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. The Photographs have also been shown in numerous exhibitions, mainly in the USA. The following images come from the series Cortona, The Phenomenal World and Guggenheim.

Website: www.reginadeluise.com

Photographer #418: Jamie Nelson

Jamie Nelson, 1983, USA, is a fashion and beauty photographer based in New York. She studied Advertising Photography at the Brooks Institute of Photography. She graduated in 2005 and has since been productive while specializing in editorial and advertising photography. In 2011 she photographed Dinara Chetyrova for the July issue of Elle Vietnam. The series is colorful, strong and empowering. Her work has been published in numerous publications as Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Vogue and the Cosmopolitan. Amongst her advertising clients are companies as Olay, Sunban Eyewear and Carlos Campos. The following images come from the series for Elle Vietnam and from various other beauty and fashion shoots.

Website: www.jamienelson.com

Photographer #415: Thomas Locke Hobbs

Thomas Locke Hobbs, 1976, USA, is a photographer who has been based in Buenos Aires since 2008. Although his background is in economics and finance he decided to dedicate himself full-time to photography in 2008. He started following numerous workshops in order to further his technical skills as well as to define what photography is to him. Thomas works in a very exploratory manner, investigating the city he lives in from various different perspectives. His conceptual series are the work of an organized photographer who looks at the city as an outsider. His series Ochava Solstice is a collection of large format photographs showing the corners of numerous buildings. In the early 20th century the government mandated that buildings on corners in Buenos Aires have diagonal edges to improve visibility for cars. However, from the 1960's onwards, the economic imperatives of real estate development demanded maximum square footage. The ground floors are diagonal edge, the floors above have square edges. This way of building leaves a triangular shadow which tracks the sun as a sun dial would. The following images come from the series Ochava Solstice, Riverbank and Chalet Porteño.

Website: www.thomaslockehobbs.com

Photographer #411: Adam Amengual

Adam Amengual, 1981, USA, is a portrait photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. He studied at Massachusetts College of Art and Parsons School of Design. After graduating he started assisting commercial photographers as Ruven Afanador and Art Streiber. Even though he was photographing for himself and commercially he felt the urge to create his own series. While researching gangs, cults and hardcore religious factions he came accross Homeboy Industries, a non-profit organization assisting former gang members to become positive and contributing members of society. He portrayed the former gang members at Homeboy Industries which resulted in a series named Homies. The images are stylized and aesthetically composed mug shots. He hopes that the viewer connects to the portrayed on a more human level. It is important to Adam that his subjects are always shown in a respectful manner. The following images come from the series Homies: Portraits of Former LA Gang Members, Day Laborers and People, Places, and Things...

Website: www.adamamengual.com

Photographer #410: Christopher Anderson

Christopher Anderson, 1970, Canada/USA, is an all rounded photographer who is well-known for his documentary / photo-journalistic work. He has traveled extensively to conflict zones throughout the world as Israel, Afghanistan and Haiti. He photographed these conflicts from a personal point of view. In 2009 he released the book Capitolio, a cinematic journey into Caracas, Venezuela. "He notates the country's current incongruities, where the violent and the sensual intermingle chaotically." (Magnum Photos) A recent body of work is called Son. He photographed his wife, his son and his father who was ill with cancer. Due to the birth of his son and several other happenings Christopher has decided to step away from war photography. Son is a very intimate and emotional project, touching themes as the cycle of life. It is a project that defines the real reasons for our existence and our drive as human beings. Christopher joined Magnum Photos in 2005 and became a full member in 2010. He has worked on commercial fashion shoots and had portrait sessions with people as Lady Gaga, Lance Armstrong and Al Pacino. The following images come from his book projects Son and Capitolio and from his story on Bethlehem.

Website: www.christopherandersonphoto.com

 (Video 2008)

Photographer #405: Daniel Gordon

Daniel Gordon, 1980, USA, is a conceptual photographer who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a BA at Bard College in 2003 and an MFA at Yale University in 2006. He works in a sculptural way. He searches on the internet for images that he can use. The images he finds are printed and cut in order to make large three dimensional collages. These collages are life-size, using his own body as a reference. Once the collages are finished he photographs them with a large format camera. After the photograph has been made he disassembles the sculptures in order to use several body parts for new works. In his series Thin Skin II he depicts the human body in extreme situations as giving birth, accidents and operations. Both of his parents were doctors and he feels that seeing the images of operations when he was young have influenced him in his work today. His photographs have been exhibited extensively in the US and several times in Switzerland and France. The following works come from the series Still Lifes, Portraits & Parts, Portrait Studio and Thin Skin II.

Website: www.danielgordonstudio.com

Photographer #403: Chadwick Tyler

Chadwick Tyler, 1975, USA, is a fashion / fine-art photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. His work career started in art direction and corporate advertising. In 2005 he began focusing on photography, learning the basic technical competence under the guidance of still-life photographer Larry Wittek. In 2009 he had his first solo exhibition entilted Tiberius. The large exhibition was filled with beautiful female characters in black and white photographs. He played with the themes of ecstasy, hysteria, confusion, lethargy, exhaustion and more expressive emotions. He used 52 models to realise all the images for the show, often in strange positions and showing expressive faces. The result was a strong, refreshing, raw yet classy and brain triggering set of images that challenges contemporary notions of beauty. His photography has been featured in numerous magazines as Dazed and Confused, Grey and AnOther. The first two rows of images come from the portfolio VIII and the last row is Mercedes: Quantum Present.

Website: www.chadwicktyler.com

Photographer #401: iO Tillett Wright

iO Tillett Wright, 1985, USA, is a young photographer based in New York City. She is currently working on the project entitled Self Evident Truths. The project started as part of an exhibition called Manifest Equality. She shot 300 portraits of people who felt that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning (LGBTQ) desciption applied to them. These portraits were laid in stacks for visitors to take home for free. Currently she is working on another 4000-5000 portraits that will be shot in 25 different cities throughout US. For the portraits in New York she was supported by the Human Rights Campaign. "This is the civil rights fight of my generation, and this project won't be complete until queer people have the same rights as every other human being in this country." All of her projects and images contain something pure, genuine, intimate and in close contact with the reality of life. In 2010 she released the book Lose My Number in a limited edition and recently KISSER came out. iO has been published in numerous magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Vice and The Huffington Post. The following images come from the project Self Evident Truths and the books Lose My Number and KISSER.

Website: www.darlingdays.com & www.selfevidentproject.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 #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 #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