Copenhagen Photographer Casper Sejersen’s One, Two, Three, Four.

Copenhagen Photographer Casper Sejersen’s One, Two, Three, Four.

Casper Sejersen Debut Exhibition.

Set to the beat of a drum, Copenhagen-based photographer Casper Sejersen takes us on an unsettling visual journey in his debut exhibition.

 

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Alluring Yet Uncomfortable.

Copenhagen-based Danish photographer Casper Sejersen’s work is at once alluring and uncomfortable. One image captures a spindly, yellow drumstick disconcertingly like a finger whilst another depicts glistening, globular pearls. It’s a work where objects of emblematic beauty intersect with those of pain – otherwise muted tones are interrupted by marbled bruising and sharp gashes of blood.

 

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Beauty And Pain.

Sejersen’s body of personal work had its debut exhibition in June at Cob Gallery in London where this dichotomy of beauty and pain were at the fore of “One, Two, Three, Four.” Whether it is Sejersen’s interactions with his mother and grandmother or a view of the sunrise in his place of birth many of the exhibited images drew on early childhood memories. Aural sensations are depicted by the other images. The beat of a drum informs the suggestive and rhythmic title of the body of work.

 

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Texture.

Drums appear to feature heavily; for example, skin is scratched as thought it has been dashed by a drumstick, or a candle flame quivers to a drum beat. A pint glass teaming with pearls, flowers in bloom, and ash covered foam also show that elsewhere objects and textures are central to the body of work. With subjectivity and emotion at the fore the work draws on the central elements of Romanticism. Yet, there is a unique visual language that Sejersen deploys. This distinctive approach runs throughout the Copenhagen-based photographer’s portfolio which he has developed through working across fashion and art.

 

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Words by Elijah (Content Marketer) via British Journal of Photography.

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600 Years of Architecture in Mexico.

A History of Architecture.

German photographer Candida Höfer presents an image set which documents Mexico’s architectural history from shadowy nooks to decorative Baroque churches and is to be exhibited in Sean Kelly’s New York gallery.

On a trip across Mexico four years ago, Höfer shot photographs of architectural interiors which will be brought together to form an exhibition called “In Mexico,” set to open up in February.

 

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Sharing Culture.

As part of the Mexico-Germany Dual Year exchange programme the Cologne-based photographer toured Mexico with her camera; throughout 2016 & 2017 the partner countries aimed to share educational, musical, scientific, and cultural projects as part of the initiative.

Höfer captured a series of buildings dating back to the 1500s as she travelled across cities including Mexico City, Oaxaca, and Puebla.

 

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A Precise Perspective.

“Capturing over 600 years of architectural history from her precise perspective, Höfer’s photographs document not only the physical details of these interiors but also capture the spirit and essence of each space,” said Sean Kelly Gallery in a statement.

Built by the Jesuits in the 1500s the National Museum of the Viceroyalty of New Spain is among the earliest projects in the In Mexico set to be exhibited. Chunky, golden structures are seen beside pink-toned columns in Höfer’s image.

 

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Baroque Style.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the Baroque style flourished and their ornately detailed structures are captured by the interior shots.

With statues protruding from the walls, Puebla’s Catholic church San Andres Cholula shows a decorative side whereas the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, a monastery completed in Oaxaca in 1731, features floral patterns which cover its weathered walls.

 

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A Focus On Design.

Typical of her photography style Höfer’s images are devoid of people instead drawing focus to the design of the spaces.

“I realised that what people do in those places – and what the spaces do to them – is more obvious when nobody is present, just as an absent guest can often become the topic of conversation,” said Höfer.

 

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World Heritage.

Höfer has captured The Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara which dates to the more recent time of the 19th century. Designed by Manuel Tolsá in the neo-classical architectural style the centre was built to provide care and shelter for disadvantaged people. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site it is now celebrated for its architectural heritage.

As part of a series of interventions by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren a feature added to the building is a rounded vault coloured in bold paint. Other more contemporary works in the series include the art-deco Basurto Building, shown in an image of a brightly lit curving passageway.

 

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Hidden Nooks.

Captured by the artist’s hand-held camera are also a handful of detailed images which show hidden nooks spotted in the country.

These include a courtyard covered in triangular tiles that create patterned shadow effects and an opening with blocky pink walls.

 

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“From the subtle light breaking through a doorway entrance to the harsh shadows cast by the sun on an exterior wall, these quiet yet emotional images enhance the dialogue between the micro and the macro and bring to our attention the details in spaces that are often overlooked or inaccessible,” the New York gallery said.

 

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Words by Elijah (Content Marketer).

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The Story of the Desert as Told by the Dubai Photography Exhibition: Inhabited Deserts.

Dramatic Landscapes.

Some of the most dramatic landscapes across the world have been captured by UAE-based explorer Max Calderan and Italian photographer John R Pepper through their much renowned collaboration.

It was never going to be the usual desert landscapes when John R Pepper decided to embark upon his Inhabited Deserts collection. With a determination to create a new perception of some of the world’s most arid terrains was how the Italian photographer was determined to begin the project; merely with the aid of his eyes, film and a vintage camera – strictly no photoshop or post-production editing tools.

Inhabited Deserts is an array of imagery taken across the world in some of its most dramatic landscapes and is now located at the Empty Quarter gallery in DIFC. The exhibition shows the desert in its most raw and beautiful form, from Israel to the US, and Russia to Mauritania.

Pepper has always been fascinated with the desert. “Often a photographer enters deserts to capture the beauty of the landscape with a setting sun or a beautiful cloud formation and that is the final result. As beautiful as that might be, it was not what I was seeking. I wanted to go further,” he says.

“My goal has been to use the desert as a painter uses a white canvas; and while travelling through different deserts of the world from Russia to Egypt, Mauritania, Oman to the US, I sought to discover what imagery was revealed to my eye – sometimes it was figurative, sometimes abstract.”

image

Running wild in the desert.

The desert gave Pepper time to let his own imagination and creativity run wild. Speaking of his project in Mauritania, he says: “I would look across the plains and see what seemed like nothing: dead trees or a grouping of cactus plants. After walking through and around them, allowing my eye to wander freely, keeping my mind empty, without pre-conception, these inanimate objects would suddenly become a human being crying to the sky, a couple arguing, a dancer suspended in air. In the dunes of Oman the lights and shadows transformed a seemingly neutral valley into the body of a young woman trying to emerge from the sands.”

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The Wilfred Thesiger of Our Time.

The exhibition will soon go to the US, Europe, and even Russia having already been in Paris and Tehran. A man who has broken several world records during his expeditions across uncharted terrains is the Italian desert explorer Max Calderan, a man referred to as the Wilfred Thesiger of our time, also features in the exhibition not only focused on the wonder of nature but also the explorer.

Using friends around the region to help them get even more deeply connected to the desert and its people Calderan, who lives in the UAE, and Pepper covered 4,000 kilometres of distance in the space of five days across deserts in the UAE and Oman.

“I opened the doors for different locations directly with Bedouins and local people living in the desert far from Dubai, such as in Mauritania, or the Sinai desert in Egypt or in the Lut Desert in Iran,” Calderan says. “Being an extreme desert explorer, when John contacted me explaining this unique project in photographing deserts around the world with his old analogue camera, I understood that it was something like the right way to “talk’’ about the sands in a different way.

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“There is a perfect symbiosis between my extreme free solo explorations and John Pepper’s pictures. He works with no digital or Photoshop and what he sees through the camera is often what I see and is not only sand but the hidden life and the hidden people that live in the desert, their souls that are filling the desert, creating an imaginary world. John has been able to show something that the eyes cannot catch but that a different eye, his old vintage camera, can.”

image

Story of the Desert.

Calderan has embarked on 13 solo expeditions by foot, including crossing the Tropic of Cancer in Oman; 437km in 90 hours non-stop, and his “crazy” fasting exploration during Ramadan 2014 in the Sinai desert in Egypt, 250km in summer, coast to coast following the rules of Ramadan, in 72 hours, opening new tracks that are now used as shortcuts by some local Bedouins.

Sebastian Ebbinghaus of the Empty Quarter gallery says the exhibition “is art photography, telling another story of the desert” and leaving much to the imagination of the naked eye, not even curating the exhibition with titles of the photos.

“John Pepper shows how the desert should or could be seen, and what he learnt from Max. John’s pictures show the desert differently – it is rather abstract, still mentally taking you, the spectator, into this unknown world. “It’s abstract, black and white, and no picture has a title, on purpose. The spectator sees and feels.”

Words by Elijah (Content Marketer).

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Psychedelic Images of Tokyo by Jean-Vincent Simonet.

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Psychedelic Experience.

Tokyo at night can be a near-psychedelic experience in itself, and this is echoed in the warped images created by Swiss photographer Jean-Vincent Simonet who prints onto plastic paper then washes the photograph with chemicals, all part of his latest body of work entitled In Bloom.

After visiting Tokyo, Japan for the first time in 2016, Jean-Vincent Simonet quickly decided he would shoot at night. He says, “I love how the city is in perpetual metamorphosis. It’s always moving and glowing. Giving a liquid feeling to the photographs made sense to me. It reinforced the psychedelic experience of being in the city.” 

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 A Living Entity in Constant Flux.

Because Tokyo is a city in constant flux, especially with the typhoons and earthquakes that regularly stir the capital, people in Japan describe Tokyo as a “living entity.” Stacked 10 stories high with shops, restaurants, and karaoke bars, the huge neon streets sprawl out like tributaries into pedestrianised roads, down which streams of cars and people are rushing at all hours of the night and day. Most other capital cities are dwarfed by the elaborate train networks, colossal highways which connect to darker inner-city suburban street out of which emerges the vibrant city centres.

“There is something about the lighting in the city at night that is quite psychedelic,” says the 27 year-old image-maker. “It’s like you’re in a boat, always rocking and moving.” Using a medium format camera, shooting on a tripod, Simonet was able to capture detailed images of the city that were sharp and clear, along with photographs of people at night which were more distorted and blurred; these were the results from his first trip to Japan in 2016.

“I wanted to chronicle my own intimate journey in Japan,” he says – a project that would be shown to be experiential, a feature that was the most important reasons for Simonet to be photographing the city. He began to experiment with the images when he found that the landscapes and portraits didn’t gel, an aspect he noticed when he started to sequence the images.

Famous Japanese photographer Daisuke Yokota similarly uses unorthodox methods to destroy physical photographs and Simoney cites him as a main influence. “He uses it in a sensitive, dark, and poetic way,” Simonet explains. “The idea of using photography as a primary but not finished material is something I try to push in my own work.”

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 The Desired Effect.

His process is entirely physical. Making sure the ink never quite dries, Simonet prints the photographs onto plastic paper first of all. Certain colours are either enhanced or dissolved as the paper is immersed into a mixture of chemicals and water, some images left in the mixture for up to a week depending on the desired effect.

“It’s exciting for me that it’s different every time. Each time I can improve the technique, which makes me want to do it more. If you work enough, at some point the right results will come,” he says. As an offer to purchase one-off prints Simonet will be demonstrating this unique process on smaller images at the opening of his exhibition at the Webber Gallery in London.

Alongside commissioned photography and editorials Simonet juggles these personal projects due to the experimental process of the work in which it is necessary to make mistakes and as a technique requires the dedication of a large proportion of his time. Simonet has since gained more freedom as his work has become more recognised as initially he merely tended to follow client’s briefs. “I always try to add something special in the shooting or in post production,” he says, “but when you shoot for a magazine and they want it a week after, it’s hard to go deep into the experiments. You need time to make mistakes, to think about the technique.”

 

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Unique Method.

With a clearer idea of what he wanted to photograph, Simonet returned to Japan in 2017 since his discovery of this method of printing. The title for the project, In Bloom, emerged out of this idea of Tokyo as a growing, blooming city, but it also references the striking floral arrangements that Simonet found and photographed around the country. To be displayed on the premises, clients and friends will send huge bouquets of flowers whenever a new shop or business is launched in Japan.

Lurking in the back of Simonet’s mind when trying to think of a title was that Japan is a culture where nature is respected at a godly status, and the arrival of cherry blossoms are a source of great national pride. However, funnily enough, on a night out in a karaoke booth during a rendition of Nirvana’s 1991 track, In Bloom, the very words themselves came as inspiration.

This is the first time that the photographs will be exhibited in an exhibition and the images have also been already published in book form. Simonet is pleased to be able to show his process at the opening too, because the dissolving colours in liquid are just as visually interesting as the final image. He hopes to make a video out of it later this year.

All images © Jean-Vincent Simonet.

Words by Elijah (Content Marketer). 

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Vanishing From The Museums.

Confronting the absent.

Largely absent from Parissien museums are works and faces of photographic pioneers who have become invisible; so, curator Fannie Escoulen is inviting visitors to walk across the city and confront it.

 

“The history of photography has been written, in general, by men,” said Fannie Escoulen.

 

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A provocation, not an exhibition.

On November 8, the French capital will host an exhibition dedicated to photography as part of what will be the largest international art fair, which is an annual event known as a parcours organized by its curator. These pictures, taken by women photographers, have been left out by many galleries, according to the curator Escoulen, they likely number as many as men, these women who have picked up a camera to document their discoveries will have their work shown to visitors of Escoulen’s project entitled Elles x Paris Photo.

“It’s not an exhibition, it’s a provocation,” says Escoulen. “I don’t know exactly why women, little by little, disappeared.” She went on to describe the exhibition as a journey of discovery, rather than a lecture, and will take the form of a walk around the city.

The tour will take visitors through a cross-section of the city’s art institutions, including the Champs-Élysées central hub of Parissien photography, the glass vaulted halls of the Grand Palais. The exhibition will also feature other locations housing an imposing collection at the fashion house Fondation Cartier, as well as Jeu de Paume and Photo Saint Germain, which will feature the work of photographic specialists, and also the Petit Palais, the historic sister gallery of the Grand Palais, as visitors make their stops along the route. The aim of the event is to make the works by the women photographers better known by the public in order that they should be rediscovered, which is something the curators have said they are keen to promote.

Lucia Moholy, the Czech wife of Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy Nagy, whos husband’s fame often casts a shadow over her remarkable personal and architectural photography, as well as one of the first women commercial photographers, Scottish-Canadian Margaret Watkins, who are examples of photographic pioneers from the early 20th century, will be the feature of the project as it showcases such works that follow a chronological path. The exhibition will also feature work from contemporary artists who are under-recognized, as well as the still life shots of Jan Groover, which are said to have influenced a generation including Wolfgang Tillmans, and work from Japanese experimental photographer Kunie Sugiura, as the exhibition aims to chart the work of radical feminists from the 1960s to the 1980s.

 

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The Female Pioneers of Photography.

Escoulen explains the origin of the particular movement towards recognising female photographers as beginning in 1839, when the first commercially viable photographic process was created in Paris by Louis Daguerre, a male counterpart who worked side-by-side with female photographers who built their practice largely through being self-motivated.

“Photography was a medium that was very simple and very accessible to anyone who wanted to explore it,” she says. “Women photographers were probably many when the medium was created – then they had to deal with being a professional photographer.”

At a time when chemical and optical expertise were required to handle volatile film stocks and cameras were clunky, most female photographers during the medium’s early days were prevented from maintaining their careers due to their requirement to raise families; and so, such practical complexities paled in comparison to these hurdles of social expectation.

Whether it was documenting the early Soviet Union as a travel photographer or pioneering advertising images of domestic scenes for Macy’s department stores, the 1920s photography of Margaret Watkins came out of persistence to the work despite these social barriers.

 

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Working From Isolation.

Isolation was often the modus operandi of those early female pioneers of the early 20th century, a trend that Escoulen identifies as a global phenomenon, since men occupied most roles as documentary or war photographers. A generation of 21st century photographic artists would later begin to be characterized by themes of self-representation, tenderness, domesticity, and intimacy, themes that were surprisingly contemporary as these interests are depicted in countless photographs in the exhibition by these little known women of their day.

Men would validate their work through exhibitions and other men would find support from museums and magazines as they rose to prominent positions; photography’s early days, male acclaim was self-reinforcing, says Escoulen.

For these reasons, and a myriad more, many women simply gave up on the camera as they were not heralded by institutions leading much of the female talent to fall by the wayside. Caring for her elderly aunts in Edinburgh, Watkins spent much of her life skirting the limelight despite earning early exhibitions in the US. Museums only began to celebrate her work when her negatives were rediscovered but this would come decades later, still virtually unknown at the time of her death in 1969.

However, masculine norms were beginning to become explicitly challenged as feminist movements swept across the arts in the 1960s and 1970s. The idea that photos should be objective or universal was a prevailing belief that American photographer Joan Lyons fought back against as she detailed her own experiences through the production of introspective images. Inseparable from her experience, Lyons aimed to create personal images, using alternative methods such as Xerox machines or Polaroid instead.

Even today, however, women succeeding in photography is met by institutional resistance that remains worldwide, even despite self-publishing platforms like Instagram providing the tools for everyone to participate. “I would say most of them suffer a lack of visibility,” she says.

 

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Institutionalized bias.

Escoulen goes on to say that platforms for female photographers at the institutional level are met by a gallery’s bias and says that some countries have been slower to tackle this issue, making it a global problem that has contributed to the erasure of female photographers.

Exhibition programming in some areas does attempt to consciously maintain gender parity such as Jeu de Paume in Paris. But the exception is greater than the rule. For example, Escoulen describes the situation of one of her friends, the photographer Lise Sarfati,who left the French capital for the US, because she felt that there “the question of being either a woman or a man simply is not there.”

“I think the problem is not only in Paris,” Escoulen says. “It is in France but also in Spain and probably in Italy. They are also south (European) countries, so maybe still more misogene (sexist) maybe more machiste (chauvinist).”

Elles x Paris Photo is part of Paris Photo, at the Grand Palais, from Nov. 8 until Nov. 11, 2018.

Words by Elijah (Content Marketer).

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    Way Before Instagram A Revolution in the Use of Filters was Taking Place. Deep scientific roots underlie the art form we know of as photography today. Early pinhole cameras were both described by Euclid and Aristotle in ancient Greece. In order to...

Making a Living in Photography in 2019.

    How Viable is it Being a Professional Photographer? Whilst being both stuck in its ways and simultaneously forever changing, photography is indeed a strange profession. The majority of the profession work in a very different way to the old guard who...

The Hidden Colours of the Moon Revealed by Photographer.

A Mineral Impact. Different minerals impact the Moon’s surface leaving different splashes of colour as shown by the enhanced photo of the Moon created by extracting colour data from 150,000 photos of the Moon composed by Sacramento-based astrophotography enthusiast...

Piccadilly Circus’ Neon Lights Reflected By Shiny Cars: the Photography of Nick Turpin.

    Advertising Reflecting. In London’s Piccadilly Circus vehicles are caught reflecting advertising to show how modern life embraces consumerism as shown by photographer Nick Turpin in his latest series, “Autos.” “Shiny new vehicles passing through the city...

Nobody Talks About The Problem With Camera Phones.

The camera itself was the biggest problem with camera phones once upon a time.   Released in 2000, the J-SH04 was one of the world’s first camera phones. Things have come a long way since then. Tiny 0.11 megapixel images was all it could shoot. To give their...

What Is The Focus of Your Photography?

Does your photography have a point? And how can your images engage with more viewers?   You can help define your photography by implementing these few very helpful following techniques, especially if you have reached that stage where it may be a struggle to...

Capturing Cancer: Tumour Cells in Action.

Every year, researchers submit extraordinary images to the Science and Medical Imaging competition which tells the story of pioneering work and its benefits for patients. Replicating cancer cells invade the blood vessels.     Each year, The Institute of...

Selfie Harm.

Selfie Harm. Witness the scary results of Photoshopped portraits done by teens at the behest of professional photographer Rankin as part of his project called “Selfie Harm.”     Unnaturally Perfect. Unnaturally perfect social media photos are being made...

Young Marketing Guru Who Helped Photo of Egg Go Viral on Instagram.

Going Viral Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks you should be fully aware of the photo of an egg that went viral and claimed the top spot for having the most liked photo on Instagram. The simple photo of an ordinary, brown egg has garnered...

600 Years of Architecture in Mexico.

A History of Architecture. German photographer Candida Höfer presents an image set which documents Mexico’s architectural history from shadowy nooks to decorative Baroque churches and is to be exhibited in Sean Kelly’s New York gallery. On a trip across Mexico four...

The Story of the Desert as Told by the Dubai Photography Exhibition: Inhabited Deserts.

Dramatic Landscapes. Some of the most dramatic landscapes across the world have been captured by UAE-based explorer Max Calderan and Italian photographer John R Pepper through their much renowned collaboration. It was never going to be the usual desert landscapes when...

What Is The Best Aperture and Focal Length For Portraits?

Get The Basics of Portrait Photography Right. You’ve probably asked yourself what is the best aperture and focal length to use if you’re just getting started in portrait photography. You can produce very different effects with your subjects by changing the aperture...

Aura Photography’s Clairvoyant and Colourful History.

Aura of the Object in Art. From an artwork’s unique presence in space and time stems a mystical force that comprises its “aura” - the loss of which by 1936 cultural critics like Walter Benjamin were lamenting. In his essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical...

Psychedelic Images of Tokyo by Jean-Vincent Simonet.

Psychedelic Experience. Tokyo at night can be a near-psychedelic experience in itself, and this is echoed in the warped images created by Swiss photographer Jean-Vincent Simonet who prints onto plastic paper then washes the photograph with chemicals, all part of his...

The $90.3 Million Painting That Reveals Unique Photography Methods.

A Masterful Piece of Art. The 1972 painting entitled “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” by legendary British painter David Hockney fetched the highest auction price ever for a living artist as it sold for a jaw-dropping $90.3 million last month. A man in...

X-Ray Apparatus & Concrete Pyramids: Guy Hollaway’s Photography Studio.

The Process Gallery. Distinctive works are created using X-Ray equipment, housed in a concrete pyramid chamber, by British photographer Nick Veasey, who has had a studio built and completed by Guy Hollaway Architects.     Inquisitive. Designed to be an...

Comedy Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards Reveal Hilarious Winning Images.

World’s Funniest Animal! And the world’s funniest animal photograph of the year goes to a squirrel who thinks he’s Tommy Cooper, writes The Express. The world’s funniest animal photograph of the year has been judged to be what appears to be a cheeky squirrel pictured...

Comedy Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards Reveal Hilarious Winning Images.

World’s Funniest Animal! And the world’s funniest animal photograph of the year goes to a squirrel who thinks he’s Tommy Cooper, writes The Express. The world’s funniest animal photograph of the year has been judged to be what appears to be a cheeky squirrel pictured...

Vanishing From The Museums.

Confronting the absent. Largely absent from Parissien museums are works and faces of photographic pioneers who have become invisible; so, curator Fannie Escoulen is inviting visitors to walk across the city and confront it.   “The history of photography has been...

Analogue Limelight

In an increasingly digitalised world, why is there still a special place for the physical? After connecting on Instagram around two years ago, James Moreton and Raph Hurwitz conceived AllFormat - a global photography collective. After developing a loyal community of...

A Career Shaped By The Photograph

Starting Out For more than three decades the biggest names in show business have been photographed by Derek Ridgers, but it all began by chance, one night in Finsbury Park, north London. With a Miranda SLR slung over his shoulder, Ridgers walked into the Rainbow...

Facebook Bans a Photographer Who Innocently Posted About ‘Shooting a Few Christians.’

Double Entendre When it comes to the word “shooting,” photographers can be subject to endless jokes. So when you post about “shooting a bunch of Christians,” the double entendre is there; this is what happened to one London photographer who found himself faced with a...

Further To The NorthSide

From one island to a peninsula From one island of Denmark to a half island of Denmark (otherwise known as a peninsula); a total of 116 miles, on a train that goes under the sea in a tunnel as well as above the sea on a bridge, we travelled from Copenhagen to Aarhus...

Jacob Cockle: in Life & in Death.

A life lived in the sea was a favourite past-time of one Jacob Cockle. Whilst learning to walk at a tender young age he also began to learn to swim and his natural element became water. Any opportunity to film surfing was the best of all options because he loved it so...

How a Shot Went Viral is Revealed by The Royal Wedding Photographer.

Viral popularity and huge amounts of praise were received for one particular photo during this past weekend as the world's attention was captured by the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The details of how the picture in question came to be have now...

Behind The Scenes: Royal Run.

Keep the diary open Whether it was wishful thinking or simply experience, when I first heard about the Royal Run back in 2017 I decided to keep the 21st May available in my calendar. “We won’t be needing you for that particular race,” I was told, but a voice in my...