Biographies
KEVIN SCHAFER To commission Kevin or to request prints of his work: www.kevinschafer.com 
JIM RICHARDSON To commission Jim or to request prints of his work: www.jimrichardsonphotography.com
APRIL 2013 BACK ISSUE LANA SLEZIC   To commission Lana or to request prints of her work: www.lanaslezic.com PAULINE BEUGNIES To commission Pauline or to request prints of her work: www.paulinebeugnies.com DENIS TARASOV To commission Denis or to request prints of his work: www.denistarasov.com Kevin Schafer is an award-winning natural history photographer, whose photographs appear in all of the major science and nature publications in the US, including National Geographic, Smithsonian, Natural History and National Wildlife. He also works regularly with conservation organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, and is a founding Fellow of the Int'l League of Conservation Photographers. Jim Richardson is a photographer of global issues and landscapes for National Geographic Magazine as well as a documentarian recognized for his explorations of life in remote places.  His first story for National Geographic was published in 1985, and every year since, Richardson has been shooting for the magazine.  He has 25 stories to his credit and his next stories are slated for 2013 and 2014. Digital Photo Pro Magazine recently called Richardson "perhaps the most prolific photographer for one of the world's most prestigious magazines.  "The real key to [Richardson's] success," wrote David Sawalich, "is a combination of photographic skill and an amazing work ethic -- just the thing that gets you noticed at National Geographic." Most of Richardson's work focuses on landscapes and environmental issues, and he is on the road at least half of the average year.  He has gained special understanding of issues involving food production, native grasslands, vanishing night skies and clean water.  He also has extensively photographed the British and Irish Isles, especially Scotland and its host of small islands and skerries. In addition to photography for the magazine, Richardson represents the National Geographic Society in keynote presentations, media appearances, cultural enrichment lectures for travel groups, and in workshops.  He also is a contributing editor for National Geographic TRAVELER Magazine. In Kansas, Richardson is perhaps best known for proposing and photographing a story in Kansas' tallgrass prairie for the magazine's April 2007 issue.  He also is the 2010 Governor's Artist of the Year and 2009 Kansan of the Year by the Native Sons and Daughters of Kansas. Other of Richardson's Kansas-oriented projects have gained international acclaim.  He has a 30-plus-year photographic relationship with the people of Cuba, Kansas, population 220.  This unusual body of work has been excerpted in National Geographic, LIFE, and many other publications worldwide.  Richardson and Cuba have been profiled twice by CBS News Sunday Morning, first in 1983 and again in 2004.  The audio-visual production "Reflections from a Wide Spot in the Road" is about his photography in Cuba and other rural Kansas communities, and it toured internationally and won an International Crystal AMI Award. Richardson began documenting rural Kansas life as a photographer for the Topeka Capital-Journal in 1970.  His first project was published in 1979 as a book, High School USA.  A three-year photographic examination of adolescence in Rossville, Kansas, the book is considered a photo documentary classic. Richardson is a spokesman for the power of well-researched photography as well as for life and lessons in remote places.  His work has been profiled by ABC News Nightline in a behind-the-scenes production about the National Geographic editorial process in the field and at magazine headquarters in Washington, D.C. He came to photography as a boyhood hobby.  He began using a camera on his parents' wheat and dairy farm north of Belleville in north-central kansas.  His father, a weekday trucker and weekend farmer, purchased cameras at pawn shops.  His mother, a nurses' aide and manager of the family dairy, allowed her kitchen to be used after supper as a darkroom. While at the Capital-Journal and later at The Denver Post, Richardson's freelance work was published in publications ranging from Time and Sports Illustrated to the New York Times.  He began work on his first National Geographic assignment while on leave for The Post. Richardson and his wife Kathy returned to their native state in 1997 after almost 20 years in Denver.  They live in Lindsborg, where they operate Small World Gallery on the town's Main Street. Lana Slezic (Toronto, Canada) born to Croatian parents in 1973, has received worldwide recognition for her documentary and portrait work. In 2005 Šlezic was a participant at the World Press Joop Swart Masterclass in Amsterdam. In 2007 she won the Luis Valtuena Special Prize for Humanitarian Photography for her body of work on Afghan women.  Later that year she published "Forsaken" which in 2008 was chosen as one of the Top Ten Photo Books of the Year by American Photo Magazine. In 2007 Šlezic was also given a World Press Photo Award for a separate portrait series on Afghan women entitled "A Window Inside". Šlezic has exhibited and published her work all over the world. She currently resides in New Delhi with her husband and two children. Pauline was born in 1982 in Charleroi, Belgium.  For three years she has been based in Cairo, where she has been learning Arabic and is working as a photojournalist for various media outlets, while carrying her own photographic projects. She graduated from a master in journalism in Brussels in 2005 (IHECS), during which she attended year long a photojournalism program in the Danish School of Journalism in Arhus.  That's where she took her first step in documentary photography, working on a story on street kids in Kinshasa for her master's final project. Ever since this great experience, she has been working on different projects in Congo, Bangladesh, Albania and Belgium.       She was awarded several grants and prizes, including a grant from the Belgian Foundation "La Vocation" in 2007 and the Open National Photography Prize in 2010, which is followed by an exhibition at the Photography Museum of Charleroi, Belgium. In 2011, Pauline was awarded a grant from the Belgian journalism Fund to continue her photo essay on the Egyptian youth. Her first solo exhibition occurred April 2012 at the Brakke Ground, Amsterdam. Her pictures and essays have been published in several media including Le Monde Magazine, Telerama, Liberation, L'Express, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Soir, La Libre Belgique, De Morgen, Colors. Today, Pauline wants to focus on the Arab and the Islamic world, trying to build bridges between cultures and depicts a society in the midst of crucial changes, beyond stereotypes. Tarasov was born in 1971 in the Sverdlovsk, Russia.He finished at the Ural State Law Academy (Russia) in 1997. He has been active as a photographer since 2007 and between 2007-2011 he has participated in more than 15 exhibitions in Russia, Italy, USA and the Philippines.  In 2007 he was in the top 10 for Young photographers of Russia.  He held a personal exhibition "From supervision" in the Photographic museum of Metenkov's House (Yekaterinburg, Russia, 2008), and was the winner of "the Volga biennial 2010" (Nizhni Novgorod, Russia). In 2012 he was one of 22 young photographers to represent Russian photography at "Fotofest" - 2012 in Houston, USA in an exhibition "The Young Generation". Denis Tarasov lives in the Yekaterinburg, Russia. MARC SHOUL To commission Marc or to request prints of his work: www.marcshoul.com Capturing reality in motion - By Marc Shoul. The way I see life, often is like looking through a kaleidoscope - viewing the multi faced plateaus of reality that are shifting, moving and in constant flux.  I'm very lucky to be able to press a button and capture this movement - a frozen expression of reality-  timeless. I was born in 1975 in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa and graduated (with honours in photography) from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2009.  When it comes to what feeds my soul, photographic images wins the gold prize.   When it comes to love, people are my greatest passion, as I'm compelled to learn from them and in doing so; I seem to find a common ground - a shared language.  I'm so grateful to be a photographer now - in a young democracy, packed with so much potential and excitement, and I feel privileged to be able to document South Africa during this incredible time.  My one big driving force is photographing the Johannesburg CBD, filled with its intense colours, intricacies and its mesmerising cultural "potjie-kos".  This love of all things exciting, interesting, and even sad, led me to creating a project called 'Flatlands', which is a picture-telling journey of Johannesburg's inner city with all its multi-layered complexities and inspiring points of view.  Not too far from the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg's CBD is Brakpan - on the East Rand of Gauteng - another great passion of mine, with its raw untainted beauty, scarred from its past, trying to find a place in the future - expressing itself in the now, makes me feel grounded and perplexed simultaneously. In terms of how I choose to express what I see, texture and mood are very important to me.  I primarily work in black and white, using a medium format film camera and natural light, hand printed on fibre-based photographic paper. Its tones highlight information that is often lost in full colour. It's these interesting and often subtle details that compel me and propel me, forward. Growing up in an environment where many of my friends and colleagues have immigrated, has forced me to look at South Africa with an objective eye.  This land is not a truck-stop on the way to something better.  South Africa is my home, my muse, and my canvass. I'm proud and privileged to live and work in this land of Gold, Black, Blue, Red, Pink, Yellow, Orange, Green, Purple… ARMANDO SANCHEZ To commission Armando or to request prints of his work: www.mandophoto.com Hello, My name is Armando Sanchez, but most people call me Mando. I was born and raised in the great state of Texas. Currently, I'm a freelance photographer based out of Chicago, Ill. I'm a recent graduate of Western Kentucky University. During my time as a as student, I interned as a staff photographer at The Chicago Tribune, The Tennessean, The State Journal-Regsier, and The Saginaw News. I have also been published in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, the Associated Press and numerous publications throughout the country. In 2012, I was awarded third place in the Hearst Journalism Championship and given the honor of Best Single Photograph in the Hearst Journalism Competition. In 2011, I was named Kentucky Student Photographer of the year by the Kentucky News Photographers Association. The movement for tribal peoples. Survival is the only organization working for tribal peoples’ rights worldwide. Survival works with hundreds of tribal communities and organizations. It is funded almost entirely by concerned members of the public and some foundations. It will not take national government money, because governments are the main violators of tribal peoples’ rights, nor will they take money from companies which might be abusing tribal peoples. About 250,000 supporters from nearly 100 countries have helped Survival financially; millions now routinely seek Survival’s information, published in seven languages. Survival never restrict their information or materials only to those who can pay. They want everyone to know about tribal peoples. To learn more about Survival International, click here ADITYA WAIKUL To commission Aditya or to request prints of his work: aditya.waikul.photography Aditya believes that good photos are everywhere, even in the most humble and usual things in our lives.  He focuses on simple subjects and likes to convey stories through his photos. He says “I would prefer a simple storytelling picture over a grand landscape. My main aim is to capture pictures that will have a long lasting impact on the minds of the audience.“ He travels to unknown and unusual places for his photo-essays, mostly remote villages, and makes a point of residing there for a couple of days to get to fully understand the lives of those that live there.  An instinctive and self taught photographer, he will definitely leave an impression on your mind with his candid photography.  Aditya is from Mumbai, India. GRAEME WILLIAMS To commission Graeme or to request prints of his work: www.graemewilliams.co.za Graeme Williams qualified as a geologist but decided his photography hobby was his vocation. He worked as a freelance photographer in South Africa and London. From 1989, he covered the end of apartheid and transition to democracy for Reuters. From 1991, he was a member of Afrapix, a progressive photographers' collective that played a crucial role in covering the truth of events in this contested period. With other Afrapix photographers, he later founded South Photographs Agency. Graeme Williams has staged solo exhibitions in Johannesburg, New York and Paris and has contributed to more than thirty joint exhibitions. In 2011, his work was included in the major South African Contemporary photography exhibition, Figures and Fictions, at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. He continues to work on both commissioned and personal projects in South Africa and internationally. Assignments have taken him to fifty countries. His work is widely published in such leading magazines as The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, Stern, Die Zeit Magazine, and Photography (UK), and in many books on photography. Recently, he was included in Then and Now, a 2008 book, film and exhibition, which saluted eight South African photographers who contributed to South Africa's photographic heritage, both before and after the 1994 transition to democracy. His work is held in collections in the USA, Europe, and South Africa. Graeme Williams was born in Cape Town and now lives in Johannesburg. Back to current issue