Masters of photography
Zownir creates a mysterious sense of timelessness that takes the viewer to the realm of hyper-reality. It is impossible not to feel an intense emotional response when exposed to Zownir’s work. He is one of those rare artists whose empathy burns through his images, championing misfits and dreamers who live out their lives a long way beneath the radar of “acceptable” society – just in between the blank spaces of the newspaper obituaries, and the dark shadows of the tenement housing blocks.
Pep Bonet is a co-founder of NOOR images and a Nikon Europe ambassador.
Pep is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer who has traveled extensively capturing profound moments that represent the unbalanced world in which we live. His longer-term projects focus on African issues, with his most well-known project being “Faith in Chaos”, a photo essay on the aftermath of the war in Sierra Leone. Pep’s ongoing work around the globe on HIV/Aids and identity has led to several photography books and many exhibitions worldwide.
He is also known for a long-term reportage on the rock ‘n roll band Motörhead. Pep spent many years (2008-2015) on the road with Lemmy Kilmister, the legendary singer of the band, and created an exceptional visual document of the many hours spent on the road with Motörhead.
Pep crafted himself into shooting documentaries. This resulted in several short and long documentary films, amongst which the award-winning ‘Into the Shadows’, a pursuit into the lives of hundreds of thousands of Africans living in the inner city of Johannesburg. Pep’s work has been recognized with many industry awards. It started in 2002 when he was selected for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass with his work “Faith in Chaos”. That same year he was nominated “one of the top 30 to watch” by Photo District News. Pep won the Kodak Young Photographer of the Year in 2003 at the festival Visa pour L`image, and the Luchetta Foundation in Trieste awarded him the best press photographer of the year in 2004. He was a recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Humanistic Grant in Photography in 2005 and in 2007 won the second prize in the World Press Photo contest in the Sports category for his work on the amputees’ football league in Sierra Leone. In 2009 Pep won a second World Press Photo Award for his work “Forced Identity”, portraying the lives of transsexuals in Honduras. In 2013, Pep won his third World Press Photo Award-winning in the category Multimedia for Into the Shadows. In 2015 Pep has been the recipient of the Horbach Award. His list of publications includes “Generacion Perdida” (2010), “Remarkable South Africans”(2009), “Photobolsillo”, a new Photobolsillo from La Fabrica with a collection of Spanish photographers, “One Goal” (2007) and “Somalia: The Invisible Trace” (2007), “Quadern de Bitacola”, a text book written by Carles Domenec and POSITHIV+ (2005), Watching in Silence (2011), 17 milagroso (2009), 217A; a NOOR book (2008), We the people of Wacken (2014) UDR, Röadkill, Motörhead (2013)…
Pep is a photographer, a filmmaker, and a DOP, he works on personal projects, mostly directing documentary films, and on assignments for clients and NGO’s. He frequently lectures on photography/multimedia/film and conducts workshops.
Matt Black lives in California’s Central Valley, a rural, agricultural area in the heart of the state. He started photography at his hometown newspaper. His work has focused on themes of geography, inequality, and the environment in his native region and in related places.
Since 2015, he has travelled over 100,000 miles across 46 states for his project American Geography. Other works include The Dry Land, about the impact of drought on California’s agricultural communities, and The Monster in the Mountains, about the disappearance of 43 students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. Both these projects, accompanied by short films, were published by The New Yorker.
He is a member of Magnum Photos. His work has appeared regularly in TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, The California Sunday Magazine, and other publications. He has been honored three times by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Prize, including their top honor for journalism. In 2015, he received the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award for Humanistic Photography, and was named a senior fellow at the Emerson Collective.
Fernando Moleres es un fotógrafo vasco, nacido en 1963 en Bilbao, que vive en Barcelona y realiza fotografía documental socialmente comprometida. Enfermero de formación, en 1991 publico sus primeras fotografías en un medio de comunicación. Viajó en 1987 por trabajo a Nicaragua, durante el período sandinista, y allí comenzó a apreciar el valor de la fotografía y aprendió por sí mismo cómo hacerla. Hasta 1994 combino sus reportajes gráficos con la enfermería para dedicarse posteriormente de lleno a la fotografía documental. Cambio su residencia de Orduña por la de Barcelona y desde entonces sus viajes y premios profesionales se han sucedido. Desde hace más de 20 años ha fotografiado temas de actualidad relacionados con los derechos humanos. Algunas de estas historias, como la explotación del trabajo infantil o de menores de edad en la cárcel, muestran la incuestionable evidencia de situaciones que deben ser eliminadas o, al menos, perseguidas. La fotografía documental es, para él, una actitud que le afirma en la vida, una herramienta que le permite abordar las situaciones que le cautivan, le preocupan y que le dan ganas de participar. Por otra parte, como fotógrafo, trabaja y profundiza en temas que trascienden el tiempo presente, y que le intrigan por su experiencia y que le permiten exponerse a otros tipos de vida. Ser un fotógrafo freelance le permite trabajar en proyectos personales durante un largo período de tiempo. Sus historias, imágenes, informes y proyectos son distribuidos por las agencias de fotografía Panos, Laif, Luz Photos y aparecen regularmente en periódicos y revistas nacionales e internacionales, como Stern, Le Figaro Magazine, Le Monde 2, La República, Io Donna, The Independent y The Sunday Times Magazine. Fernando Moleres ha ganado el XIV Premio Internacional de Fotografía Humanitaria Luis Valtueña organizado por Médicos del Mundo por su serie fotográfica “Niños prisioneros en cárceles africanas. Menores encarcelados en las prisiones de Sierra Leona”. Ha viajado en numerosas ocasiones a varios países de África, Oriente Medio y Asia cubriendo historias sobre la desigualdad de género, diversas formas de religión, rituales tradicionales de baño y menores en prisión. Sus proyectos son a largo plazo y normalmente se integra bastante en las sociedades y grupos que documenta. Durante varios años, visitó una veintena de monasterios en todo el mundo, el monte Athos en Grecia, Mont Saint-Michel en Francia, Santa Caterina en el Sinaí, Decani en Kosovo, Kopan en Nepal, Seta en el Tíbet, la Cartuja de Serra San Bruno en Calabria y, antes de empezar a tomar con su cámara rostros y sentimientos, vivió en aquellos lugares y compartió los ritos y los ritmos de vida de los monjes de las diferentes confesiones. Ha obtenido los siguientes premios y becas, Moving Walls 2012, World Press Photo 2011, POY, Picture of the Year 2011, 8th Festival Images, Leica Prize 2011, finalista del W. Eugene Smith Grant 2011, Luis Valtueña 2010, World Press Photo 2002, 2° premio W. Eugene Smith Grant 1999, World Press Photo 1998, Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation Grant 1996, Premio Internacional Juan Carlos Rey de España 1995, Mother Jones Grant 1994.
Correspondent for the prestigious international cooperative Magnum Photos since the 1990s, Lu Nan (born in 1962 in Beijing) is an independent photographer who has been documenting marginalized people in China. His pivotal series started in 1989 with The Forgotten People: The Condition of China’s Psychiatric Patients. Pursing his intentions to document Chinese people from the margins of society, his subsequent series captured members of the Catholic Faith (On The Road: The Catholic Faith in China, 1992-1996), peasants’ life in Tibet (Four Seasons: Everyday Life of Tibetan Peasants, 1996-2004), and prisoner’s conditions (Prisons of North Burma, 2006).
These unconventional images allowed the photographer to place himself in the international spotlight. But perhaps more importantly he became one of the first to shed light on another side of Chinese society, on people often considered outcasts. “I just respect them and care about them… They are the same as us,” said Lu as a reminder that all human beings are equal and deserve dignity. His black and white photographs depict people within their own environment by using a rather straight glance, which is yet associated with delicate contrasts and elegant compositions.
Mi nombre es Leslie, el de mi familia Searles. Soy peruana. Estudié Ciencias de la Comunicación en la Universidad de Lima, con especialidad en Cine. Luego Fotografía en The London College of Communication. Esa es la base de mi formación, pero ha sido mi trabajo en Ojo Público y con organizaciones como ONU, Save the Children, BID (Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo) o USAID (Agencia de Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional), entre otras, la que ha terminado por configurar mi profesión. En este tiempo he publicado en varios medios internacionales, expuesto en ferias y festivales, ganado algún premio y distinción y copublicado un fotolibro. Hoy sigo haciendo fotos y desarrollando proyectos propios y ajenos. Esto que ves es una pequeña parte editada de mi mundo.
Massimo Berruti was born in Rome in 1979 and became interested in documentary photography for the first time in 2003, while he was at university. He left university in 2004 and took part in a collective project on the cultural and industrial crisis in Italy. This led to the book Made in Italy, published in 2006. In 2007 he was one of the 20 photographers worldwide selected by the Italian Ministry of Artistic/Cultural Heritage and Activities for a reportage on the status of the Italian heritage and landscapes. Since 2008, he has worked in central Asia, focusing on the changing society in Pakistan. His work has appeared in major Italian and international publications, such as l’Espresso, Vanity Fair, Internazionale, Paris Match, Le Monde2, The Independent, Time, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal. Berruti was a member of the 2008 Joop Swart Masterclass, and won a World Press Photo award in 2007. Other honors include two POYi prizes, a Visa D’Or Young Reporter Award in 2009 and two IPA (International Photography Awards). His work has appeared in exhibitions at Lumix, Visa Pour l’Image and Noorderlicht, among others. From 2005 to 2009, Berruti was represented by the Grazia Neri Photo Agency and in 2008 joined Agence Vu as a member photographer.
Matt Black lives in California’s Central Valley, a rural, agricultural area in the heart of the state. He started photography at his hometown newspaper. His work has focused on themes of geography, inequality, and the environment in his native region and in related places.
Since 2015, he has travelled over 100,000 miles across 46 states for his project American Geography. Other works include The Dry Land, about the impact of drought on California’s agricultural communities, and The Monster in the Mountains, about the disappearance of 43 students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. Both these projects, accompanied by short films, were published by The New Yorker.
He is a member of Magnum Photos. His work has appeared regularly in TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, The California Sunday Magazine, and other publications. He has been honored three times by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Prize, including their top honor for journalism. In 2015, he received the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Award for Humanistic Photography, and was named a senior fellow at the Emerson Collective.
Enrico Natali was born in Utica, New York and raised in the town of Carthage at the edge of the Adirondack Mountains. In 1951 he entered the United States Coast Guard Academy, where he developed an interest in photography. Leaving the academy in 1954 he moved to New York and began working as an apprentice to photographer Anton Bruehl. In 1960, Natali began photographing in New York’s subways, taking black and white candid shots of people on the trains and waiting in the underground stations. Echoing the photographs of Walker Evans, who covertly photographed New York subway riders in the late 1930s, and anticipating the work of artists like Bruce Davidson, who made his first lengthy color series in the New York subway in the early 1980s, Natali’s photographs contribute to a growing body of photographs that look closely at the subway as a crucial site of modern urban life.
The Subway photographs were Natali’s first major series, and according to the artist they prompted him to adopt photography as a vocation and to take America, broadly considered, as the central subject of his work. In the following years Natali lived in different parts of the United States, working either as a freelance or a commercial studio photographer. in 1971, Natali had also started a new series, American Landscapes, supported by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. The following year he published the book New American People, which collects selections of the photographs he had taken in these various locations. In the mid-1970s Natali stopped making photographs entirely and in 1980 he purchased land in Los Padres National Forest in California, relocating there with his wife and children. In 1990 he and his wife founded a Zen meditation center, which is still in operation today. Natali began to take photographs again in 2001, working in color and using a digital camera.
Tomás Munita is an independent documentary photographer with a main interest on social and environmental issues.
He is based in his hometown, Santiago, Chile.
Jindřich Štreit is a Czech photographer and pedagogue known for his documentary photography. He concentrates on documenting the rural life and people of Czech villages. He is considered one of the most important exponents of Czech documentary photography.
Born to Italian opera singer parents, Floria Sigismondi has led an existence forged equally in the theatre, where stories are retold, and in the avant-garde, where futures are envisioned. Even her name bears the stamp of these roots. It is fitting then that in her work she has created a film language, which goes against the grain and challenges convention, while never failing to capture the raw emotional truths of her subjects and of the stories she tells. Her immense influence is felt the world over, in the arenas of music video, photography, film and advertising–in each field she has brought her signature spin and never left a project without leaving a lasting impression in her wake.
Floria deftly conquers the narrative space of filmmaking, as well. Last year, Floria directed The Turning, the supernatural horror feature starring Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard and Brooklynn Prince, and produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin. Previously, she wrote and directed the critically-acclaimed feature The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. Her television work includes directing episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale for Hulu and American Gods for Starz.
In her still photography work, Floria pushes her trademark marriage of the poetic and the macabre to its limit, while managing to encompass the same emotional punch as her work in the moving image. Her images have been displayed in museums across the world and she recently published her third book of photographs, Eat the Sun, which features many of Hollywood and music’s most celebrated luminaries, such as Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton, Daniel Kaluuya and Saoirse Ronan.
Lu Nan is a contemporary photographer who was born in Beijing, China in 1962. After working for National Pictorial for 5 years, he decided to become an independent photographer. From 1989 to 1990, he shot a series of images of the living conditions of patients in Chinese mental hospitals. From 1992 to 1996, he shot a series of images about Catholicism in China. From 1996 to 2004, he shot a series images of the daily life of Tibetan farmers. Lu Nan is known as “the most legendary photographer in China”. He is also the only Chinese contemporary photographer chosen by Aperture magazine as a topic colon.
Lu is constantly invited to participate in numerous exhibitions; however, he is extremely selective about the exhibitions he is involved with. Lu also refused to have his portrait taken by others, so it’s very rare to see any photo documentations of him. For fifteen years, Lu has been leading a life that is almost like a monk, spending his time working and studying, as he believes that “good stuff comes out of reticenc.
Whilst looking at Instagram Stories one day, I saw a number of clips of my friends out cycling, rock climbing, showing off their Strava time, and holding that big fish that they just caught, when it hit me – I don’t do any of this. My hobby, my only hobby, is photography. It’s what I think about constantly. It’s what excites and motivates me.
A decade ago I was working as an acting agent in Central London when I realised I really didn’t want to live off other people’s creativity; I wanted to be creative myself. So I bought my first camera, spent my time trying out all different kinds of photography, and came to the conclusion that what I enjoyed the most was taking pictures of people. Just real, spontaneous, emotive, interesting photographs that capture the human condition.
It was an amazing feeling. For the first time in my life I was truly excited and passionate about my work, as my camera allowed me to express myself in ways I never could before. It’s fair to say that (apart from my other half and Arsenal) photography is all I ever think about. I spend my evenings consuming it, I plan my free time around quirky events I can photograph, my holidays centred on countries I can visit and capture, and I feel fortunate to have had some of my street photography images exhibited at street photography festivals around the world.
Because I love photography. I get a tremendous buzz from creating distinctly unique imagery, and I’m always looking to push myself to create work that is artistic, timeless, and honest. Thankfully couples who book me to be their wedding photographer share this ideology, and tell me how excited they are to see what I see on their wedding day. Afterwards, I receive messages like the one below, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.
Emmanuel Smague is more “old school” than “high tech”. The tools of his trade : a Leica MP, one lens, and loads of film. “I’m always seeking a closeness and proximity to my subjects, which is why I only use a 35mm lens”. His camera gives him an excuse to go up to anybody to meet them, and he will choose his destinations with a photography project in mind : the Transsiberian train, the nomadic people in Mongolia, the ragpickers of Cairo, the inhabitants of Chernobyl, prostitutes in Bangladesh…
Las imágenes de Adriana Loureiro Fernández muestran los claroscuros de las protestas y enfrentamientos en las calles de Venezuela: figuras enmascaradas que surgen de las sombras, iluminadas por las llamas o envueltas en remolinos de gases lacrimógenos. Los manifestantes portan armas, cuchillos o piedras que suelen arrojarle a la policía. Ella se acerca, lo cual es temerario considerando que alguna vez tuvo miedo a las multitudes. A pesar de ello, se ha habituado a dar más de sí misma, física y emocionalmente, mientras atestigua el caos político que continúa estremeciendo a su tierra natal.
Su estilo y los temas que trata se han desarrollado desde sus primeros días en la fotografía, que se remontan a 2010, cuando en su época de estudiante universitaria solía acompañar a sus amigos que realizaban grafitis en Caracas. Tomaba fotografías por la noche solo con la escasa luz disponible —un flash delataría a sus amigos— moviéndose por las calles desiertas.
“La ciudad era peligrosa y estaba vacía, solo salían las personas pobres, los borrachos y nosotros”, comentó. “Pero era un atisbo de eso en lo que Venezuela se ha convertido. Vimos muchas cosas: nos robaron, la policía dijo que nos iban a arrestar si no entregábamos lo que teníamos, vimos violencia, vimos un poco de todo en las noches”.
Camilo José Vergara, nacido en 1944 en Santiago, Chile, es un escritor, fotógrafo y documentalista nacido en Chile y radicado en Nueva York. Vergara ha sido comparado con Jacob Riis por su documentación fotográfica de los barrios marginales estadounidenses y los entornos urbanos decadentes. A partir de la década de 1980, Vergara aplicó la técnica de la retroprografía a una serie de ciudades estadounidenses, fotografiando los mismos edificios y vecindarios desde el punto de vista exacto a intervalos regulares durante muchos años para capturar los cambios a lo largo del tiempo. Formado como sociólogo con especialidad en urbanismo, Vergara recurrió a su documentación sistemática en un momento de decadencia urbana, y eligió lugares donde el estrés parecía más alto: los proyectos de vivienda de Chicago; el sur del Bronx de la ciudad de Nueva York; Camden, Nueva Jersey; y Detroit, Michigan, entre otros. Vergara recibió una B.A. (1968) en Sociología de la Universidad de Notre Dame y un M.A. (1977) en Sociología de la Universidad de Columbia, donde también completó el trabajo del curso para su Ph.D.
Sergio Larraín Echeñique fue un fotógrafo chileno. Su padre fue el arquitecto Sergio Larraín García-Moreno, quien gozó de gran prestigio como autor modernista y fue fundador del Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. A los dieciocho años viajó a Estados Unidos con el fin de estudiar ingeniería forestal, pero no le gustó y decidió estudiar fotografía por lo que se trasladó a la Universidad de Míchigan. Regresó a Chile en 1951 y realizó su primera exposición en Santiago en 1953. Gracias a Henri Cartier-Bresson, entró como miembro asociado en 1959 de la agencia Magnum y con pleno derecho a partir de 1961. Su primer libro publicado fue El rectángulo en la mano en 1963, que acompañaba a una exposición que realizó en Santiago. En 1966 colaboró con sus fotos en el libro de Pablo Neruda titulado Una casa en la arena. En 1968, con motivo de otra exposición en Lausana, publicó otro libro titulado Chile; sin embargo, su libro más importante fue Valparaíso, aparecido en 1991, mientras que su último libro, London, se publicó en 1998. En 1999 realizó una exposición en el Centro Julio González del Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM) y se editó un catálogo retrospectivo de su obra. La obra de Larraín se encuentra en diversos museos y colecciones, como el MOMA de Nueva York o el Castillo de agua Laganne en Toulouse. A finales de los años sesenta se trasladó a Ovalle, donde fue abandonando poco a poco la fotografía y profundizando en el estudio de la cultura y mística orientales.Sergio Larraín falleció en Ovalle el 7 de febrero de 2012.
