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 2015 back issue
by Craig Semetko
For most of my adult life I was a professional comedy writer and performer. In 2001,
I had a gig that took me around the world so I bought a camera and took it along.
As I looked at the photos from that trip, I got the idea that I could use photography
as another means to tell stories. For the next ten years I became obsessed with
documenting the characters and scenes I saw and carried a camera with me
wherever I went. Through a great deal of walking around looking, a long series of
coincidences, and a few serendipitous events, a book, UNPOSED, was published
in 2010. It has a foreword by Elliott Erwitt.
As the title suggests, none of the pictures in
UNPOSED were staged. They were all taken
spontaneously - some with the subjects’
knowledge, most without. I try to provide the
elements of an interesting story in a single well-
composed frame, but of course I’m not
consciously thinking of that when I take the
picture. In fact, I try not to think at all. Thinking
constipates things.
Amsterdam, 2003.
Hollywood, 2001.
Amsterdam, 2001.
Amsterdam, 2005.
Bangkok, 2007.
Berlin, 2001.
Edinburgh, 2005.
Edinburgh, 2005.
Edinburgh, 2005.
Paris, 2006.
Paris, 2003.
Paris, 2005.
San Francisco, 2005.
Frankfort, Illinois, 2004.
Hanoi, 2010.
Ireland, 2004.
Los Angeles, 2000.
Los Angeles, 2008.
Los Angeles, 2009.
Luang Prabang, 2007.
