The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
Dec 2014 back issue
Damian Bird
To commission him or to request prints of his work: www.damianbirdphotography.com
Damian Bird, is a photographer and photojournalist with many years of experience,
working in war zones and trouble spots around the globe. He was educated in
Photography at the Surrey College of Art and Design and at the London College of
Printing where he studied for a post graduate degree in Photojournalism.
In 2011 he founded Life Force magazine with his business partner and wife of ten years,
Alice. As well as Editing Life Force magazine, he is currently engaged in photographing
a series of photo-essays on English culture and has recently returned to Afghanistan
(Aug 2013).
He continues to have his work published in national and international newspapers and
magazines including The Times, the Telegraph, the Express, the Observer, GQ, Esquire,
Dazed & Confused,The Face, Country Life and Geographical magazine.
Marc Shoul
To commission Marc to request prints of his work: www.marcshoul.com
Marc Shoul was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1975. He now lives and works in
Johannesburg. He works largely in portraiture/documentary photography that observes the
complex social issues in his country.
Shoul graduated from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University with a B Tec in
Photography in 1999.
He has had solo exhibitions at Extraspaszio Gallery, Rome, Italy (2013), Quai 1, Vevey,
Switzerland (2010), Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria, South Africa (2012), Atelier de Visu,
Marseille, France (2013), where he also completed an artists’ residency. His work has also
been featured at the screenings of Visa Pour L’Image, Perpignan, France and Ankor
Photographic Festival, Siem Reap, Cambodia.
His work has been published in Camera Austria and OjodePez magazines, as well as
online on Burn Magazine and Leica-Camera websites. He also won WinePhoto
photographic competion with Brakpan” and received honourable mention for “Flatlands” in
2011.
Daniele Zeri
To commission Daniele or to request prints of his work: daniel.zeri@ied.edu
Daniel Zeri (Ivrea, 1989), is an Italian freelance photographer and visual artist.
Graduate in visual communication and photography at European Design Institute in 2011
with a thesis on the Bollywood film industry, after which the photographic book "Bollywood,
on and off the set” is published.
Comfortable with both commercial and artistic projects; after shooting motorsport racing
and personal experimental works in minimal arts, he joins ADA Visual Group collective
where he turns to filmmaking.
Author of the award winning videoclip “A Social Fabric” (2014), he writes and directs the
short film “Lux” (2014), currently in competition in major international film festivals.
Annalisa Natali Murri
To commission Annalisa or to request prints of her work: www.annalisanatalimurri.com
Annalisa Natali Murri (1982), freelance photograher, began photography at the age of 27,
at the Architectural and Urban Photography School in Valencia (Spain).
After completing her studies in engineering, she soon began to alternate her work to
photography, focusing on personal research works and documentary projects, mainly
inspired by social issues and their psychological consequences. Her works have been
awarded in several international contests, including 70th and 71st POYi. In 2014 she was
selected as an attendee for the LOOKbetween mentorship program. She's currently based
in Bologna, Italy.
2014. Finalist at Burn Emerging Photographer Fund
2014. Attendee at LOOKbetween 2014, Charlottesville (USA)
2014. Contributor for BURNdiary Instagram feed featured by Burn Magazine
2014. 71st POYi - Community Awareness award
2014. 71st POYi - Feature Picture Story | 3rd Prize
2014. Sony World Photography Award - Contemporary issues | Shortlisted
2013. 70th POYi - Feature Picture Story | 1st Prize
2013. FoianoFotografia, XV edition 'Memories', Foiano Della Chiana (Italy)
2013. Obbiettivo Donna, VIII edition. Officine Fotografiche, Roma (Italy)
2012. Italian Pavillon, Yeosu WorldExpo 2012 (South Korea)
Andrea Star Reese
To commission Andrea or to request prints of her work: www.andreastarreese.com
Andrea Star Reese is a photojournalist/documentary photographer based in New York
currently photographing an ongoing project in areas of South East Asia and The United
States.
In 2013, Disorder, a documentary reportage on conditions faced by Indonesians suffering
from mental illness and undiagnosed mental disorders was exhibited and screened at Visa
Pour L’Image Perpignan, and Angkor Photo Festival. Initially published in 2013 on
Lightbox.time.com and featured earlier as a work in progress on New York Times Lens
Blog, the essay documented Psychosocially disabled men and women living in homes,
shelters, schools and hospitals. Disorder was a 2014 finalist for the Manual Rivera-Ortiz
Grant and included in American Photography 28: Best pictures from 2011.
The Urban Cave, a multi-year project on long term unsheltered men and women living in
makeshift housing in New York City was first exhibited at Visa Pour L’Image 2010 where it
Gordon Parks
High Museum of Art, Atlanta: www.high.org
Gordon Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas. He grew up poor and faced racial
discrimination. Parks was initially drawn to photography as a young man after seeing
images of migrant workers published in a magazine, which made him realize photography’s
potential to alter perspective. Parks became a self-taught photographer after purchasing
his first camera at a pawnshop, and he honed his skills during a stint as a society and
fashion photographer in Chicago. After earning a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship for his
gritty photographs of that city’s South Side, the Farm Security Administration hired Parks
in the early 1940s to document the current social conditions of the nation. By 1944, Parks
was the only black photographer working for Vogue, and he joined Life magazine in 1948
as the first African-American staff photographer. In 1970, Parks co-founded Essence
magazine and served as the editorial director for the first three years of its publication.
Parks later became Hollywood’s first major black director when he released the film
adaptation of his autobiographical novel “The Learning Tree,” for which he also composed
the musical score, however he is best known as the director of the 1971 hit movie “Shaft.”
Michael Christopher Brown
To commission Michael or to request prints of his work: www.mcbphotos.com
Michael was raised in the Skagit Valley, a farming community in Washington State. Often
using a camera phone as a primary recording device, his current work documents conflict
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Sakhalin (2008), he captured the remote Russian
island, while Broadway (2009) focused on New Yorkers amidst the financial crisis. He also
put together a series of works from road and train trips throughout China (2009/2010) and,
as a contributing photographer at National Geographic Magazine, published several
adventure stories with the publication. In 2011, he documented the Libyan revolution using
a camera phone, exploring ethical distance and the iconography of warfare. The subject of
the 2012 HBO documentary Witness: Libya, his photographs from Libya were shown at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Instituto Cervantes (New York), The Museum of
Eugenio Grosso
To commission Eugenio or to request prints of his work: www.eugeniogrosso.com
Sicilian born Eugenio Grosso moved to Milan at 18 to study BA Scenography at the
Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, graduating in 2007 with honours. From 2007, he worked
as a part-time commercial photographer and then as full-time photojournalist since 2009.
He is a regular contributor to Italian publications such as Corriere della Sera, la
Repubblica and la Stampa. He has recently finished a MA in Documentary Photography
and Photojournalism at Westminster University in London. He works and lives in London.
Fabio Moscatelli
To commission Fabio or to request prints of his work: www.fabiomoscatelli.com
Born in Rome, he lives in his hometown. He started taking photographs at age 25, as a
studio & ceremony assistant, and then approached social and ethnological reportage
photography. He obtained his first certificate in Reportage at Graffiti in Rome. In 2012 he
won the second prize of the scholarship named Rolando Fava and, in the same year,
Scuola Romana di Fotografia, after he submitted them the project “Fronte del Porto“,
assign him a scholarship for a Master of Reportage. In 2013, he was finalist in the Leica
Award and winner of National Geographic competition in Portraits category. In 2014 took
part in the realization of the CEI‘s photographic campaign “Chiedilo a Loro“. He has
published on Lens Culture, Phnom Magazine, Magazine Shoot and Private International
Review Of Photography. In 2014 he won Moscow International Foto Awards’14 in Book:
Documentary category. He is contributor for Echo Agency.
Jerome Lorieau
To commission Jerome to request prints of his work: www.jeromelorieau.com
Born in Nantes in 1971, Jerome is a French photographer who lives in Paris. With a
graphic designer background, he expresses himself between documentary and street
photography. His work mostly focuses on long term projects because of the human aspect,
but also to give him a better insight and understanding of a situation over time.
“Photography is a medium that allows me to explore the cultural and sociological aspects
of life in order to understand the relationship between the people, their traditions/habits/
cultures and their environment.”
His photographs have been published internationally in various magazines and publications.
In 2013, he co-founded www.streetphoto.fr in order to promote a contemporary approach to
street photography in France.
Mario Cruz
To commission Mario or to request prints of his work: www.mario-cruz.com
Born in 1987, in Lisbon, Portugal, Mario Cruz was 18 years old when he studied at Cenjor -
Professional School of Journalism.
Since 2008 he has worked alongside LUSA – Portuguese News Agency that cooperates
with EPA – European Pressphoto Agency which allowed him to travel around the globe
receiving different kinds of assignments.
In 2012 he started focusing on the development of his personal projects, this year his
essay “Recent Blindness” was published in the International New York Times, won the 2014
Estacao Imagem Mora Photojournalism Award and was also choosen as 2014 OjoDePez
Award for Human Values finalist.
Since 2013 he has documented the lives of the people who survive in abandoned places in
Lisbon, for his project Roof, which was also published in NYT and INYT.
Zohreh Soleimani
To commission Zohreh or to request prints of her work: www.zsoleimani.com
I’m a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker from Tehran, Iran. After receiving my
Bachelor of Arts in photography from Azad University in Tehran, I worked for a number of
Iranian newspapers and magazines, among them Akhbar, Hamshahri, Zan, and Azad.
Since 2002, I have been a freelance photographer and documentary filmmaker, with my
work published in well-known international publications such as Le Figaro, Süddeutsche
Zeitung magazine, Stern, Boston Globe, Fortune, L’Humanité, Elle, Welt am Sonntag,
Cicero, and Jane’s magazine. My work on Zoroastrians in Iran was published as a book,
in collaboration with two other photographers.
My interest has always centered on the human aspects of life, in war and peace. I’ve
documented the enthusiasm of female football players in Iran with just as much passion
as I’ve been following the fate ofyoung women in Afghanistan who end up in prison for no
other crime than resisting age-old tribal traditions by falling in love with the wrong man.
Close collaboration with Unicef and the UNHCR has taken me to the abyss of human
existence more than once. If you look around my website, you will see victims of chemical
attacks, refugees of war, poor and seemingly without chance for a better tomorrow.
He lives with his wife and three children in Devon, England.
And yet, I’ve always found the spark of life in the people I photograph, a laugh, a glimmer of hope, even in the most unlikely
of places. Perhaps that’s what inspired my personal motto, “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours!”
was a Visa d’Or, Feature nominee. The project received the 2014 David Pike Award for Excellence in Journalism_Photography,
and Best Social Documentary from The 2009 New York Photo Festival. The Urban Cave was awarded 2nd place from 2014
Kontinent Awards and in 2011a second place Fotovisura Award. Urban Cave was a finalist for the 2013 FotoEvidence book
award and the 2011 POYI: World Understanding Award among other recognitions. Most recently Urban Cave was included in
traveling exhibitions for FotoEvidence and ReGeneration 2 and exhibited at Theory of the Clouds Gallery, Kobe, Japan, and
the 2013 Athens Photo Festival.
Disorder and The Urban Cave have been published internationally.
Formerly a free-lance videographer, Reese began her transition to still photography while directing a feature documentary film
made up of short stories collected during the 2003-2004 run up to the country’s first direct democratic presidential election.
The film covered issues pertinent to the time. As a freelancer and witness to 9/11 her Ground Zero/ Lower Manhattan video
hires include CNN, ABC , ABC News Magazine and RAI TV among others. She was featured in BNN TV’s production
Witness 9/11 for National Geographic and Lou Reda Production’s award winning The Day the Towers fell for The History
Channel. For Voices of 9/11, a part of here is new york: a democracy of photographs, Reese was an off site project director
for Stoney Creek (often referred to as Shanksville), Pennsylvania and Staten Island and edited the witness video shorts for a
Corcoran Gallery exhibition.
Andrea Star Reese began her film career contributing film elements to numerous multi media stage productions including
Donald Byrd Dance Foundation’s Speak Easy and Surveillance. In 1990 Reese received a grant from Dance Theater
Workshop, part of a First Light Grant from the Jerome Foundation for the film elements of ‘Surveillance’. Unsettled Dreams a
35mm feature collaboration with Donald Byrd captured Best of Festival and Best Feature Film at Philafilm 96 among other
festival screenings and recognitions.
On staff at the International Center of Photography School, and a tutor at the 2013 Angkor Photo Festival Workshop, Andrea
Star Reese is a 2010 fellow in Photography from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a reGeneration2 photographer.
Nick Oza
To commission Nick or to request prints of his work: www.nickoza.com
Photojournalism is a documentation of life. In life, there is no such word as "wrong." It
depends on who is judging. The issues we deal with in everyday life affect us heavily. I
absorb this feeling and want to focus on becoming a better human first, then on spreading
the knowledge. God has given wisdom and knowledge to every soul; it depends on how a
person sees it. My quest in life is to explore this world and to understand the differences
between reality and how we function. Muktanada (a philosopher) said, "You have to
understand your own self and it will come to you." That's how I see myself as a journalist. I
want to document people, life and social structure. Many journalists think they are here to
change society. In my personal opinion, people will change if they want to. So many of us
are caught up in changing other people's lives, but we have our own problems. How can
you preach when you see the fault within you?
Everybody has a story to tell. In my profession, the camera allows me to get close to
people. They share their views, fear and joy, and I share mine. For me, understanding comes first and only then, does my
camera.
Visual diary is so important in life. Even when a person travels to another part of the globe, the native people will understand
the visual. Everybody has vision. The effort is in developing it. I strive to put forth that effort for my community. Surveys say
that people glance at a newspaper page for an average of three seconds. If the visual is powerful enough to fixate their
attention, they might dig for more.
Parks received the National Medal of Arts in 1988 and received more than 50 honorary doctorates over the course of his
career.
He died in 2006.
Fine Arts (Houston), the Annenberg Space for Photography and the Brooklyn Museum. These images will also appear in his
forthcoming book Libyan Sugar, to be published in 2014 by Twin Palms Publishers. He is represented by Magnum Photos.
Zed Nelson
To commission Zed or to request prints of his work: www.zednelson.com
Zed Nelson lives in London. His work has been published and exhibited worldwide.
Having gained recognition and major awards as a documentary photographer working in some of the most troubled areas of
the world, Nelson has increasingly turned his focus on Western society, adopting an increasingly conceptual approach to
reflect on contemporary social issues.
Gun Nation - a disturbing reflection on America’s deadly love affair with the gun - was Nelson’s seminal first book. The project
has been awarded five major international photography prizes and is regarded by many as the definitive body of work on the
subject.
Love Me - Nelson’s recently published second book - reflects on the cultural and commercial forces that drive a global
obsession with youth and beauty. The project explores how a new form of globalization is taking place, where an increasingly
narrow Western beauty ideal is being exported around the world like a crude universal brand. The project spans five years,
and involved photography in 18 countries across five continents. Love Me was recently nominated for the 2011 Deutsche
Borse Photography Prize, short-listed for theLeica European Publishers Award for Photography, and received First Prize in
the 2010 Pictures of the Year International awards.
Previous awards include the Visa d’Or, France; First Prize in World Press Photo Competition; and the Alfred Eisenstaedt
Award, USA.
Nelson’s work has been exhibited at Tate Britain, the ICA and the National Portrait Gallery, and is in the permanent collection
of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Nelson has had solo shows in London, Stockholm and New York.
“Brakpan” will show next year at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, USA.
He is currently working on a few bodies of work, one being a portrait series on domestic workers who walk their owner’s dogs.
It looks at the complex mix of guilt, entitlement, laziness and different freedoms people have in South Africa.
His work can be found in the collections of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa as well as
The Memmo Foundation, Rome, Italy.
He is represented by Extraspazio Gallery in Rome, Italy and Panos Pictures in London, UK.
Andrew Wong
To commission Andrew or to request prints of his work: www.andrewwongpictures.com
Andrew S.T. Wong, a British Chinese independent photographer, is now living in Beijing and
working with a focus in the China region.
Andrew started his photojournalist career as he joined United Press International (UPI) in
1983.
From 1995 to 2004, he worked for Reuters as sub-editor, photographer, chief photographer
and deputy news pictures editor at its headquarters and different news bureaux including
London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing.
Andrew was responsible for the coverage of the greater China region when he was chief
photographer at Reuters Beijing bureau from 1998 to 2004.
Upon joining Getty Images in 2004, Andrew set up Getty's first editorial bureau in China and
was in charge of the operation until the end of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Andrew’s coverage in the past three decades includes the Olympics, major natural disasters,
regional conflicts and politics. He is currently travelling extensively in China, working on a personal project to document the
changes of the nation.
Andrew is a member of the selection committee for World Press Photo Master Class, and he also served as jury member for
World Press Photo Contest in 1998 and 2003.