Portfolios

In some African countries, life can be quite hard because of the difficult economic conditions. For some African people, it can be even worse. That’s the case of the albino people (whose skin lacks most of its pigments and who are often suffering from acute sun sensitivity and eye sicknesses). In several countries of central Africa, their limbs and organs are even considered as possible cures for illnesses and their life is threatened by these beliefs.

Johan Bävman has recorded an enthralling documentary of the life of some of these people in Tanzania. Go to his web site, and check his “Reportage” titled “Albino”.

Copyright (C) Johan Bävman

These two girls come from Tanzania. One of them is blind and the other one (Selina, the albino girl) has severe eye troubles.

I stopped by the web site of Ransom Riggs because of a picture series coming from the Mojave Desert Airplane Graveyard (probably throwback from the engineer in me, who is sensitive both to the esthetism of time degradation and to the complexity of technology even when it is slightly outdated) where I extracted the following one:

Copyright (C) Ransom Riggs

But you should also visit the rest of his portfolio and of his web site because this is the man of many crafts. I heartily recommend you start with his photo essays.

Who said that panoramas can only come from landscape photography? Who said that a panoramic format should be limited to a continuous picture?

Rémi Garcia is seeing things differently and his gallery of panorama photos is definitely worth visiting because it is eye-opening to the possibilities available to the photographer merely wishing to fill such a frame with an image that it not exactly the same as so many others.

Equus Burchelli, Copyright (C) Rémi Garcia

Initially, I wanted to show a wave photo from Brian Bielmann. He is spending a lot of time in the water shooting big waves, surfers, underwater wonders, etc. I still recommend you visit his web site for these, but I stopped at a very small wave:

Copyright (C) Brian Bielmann

Copyright (C) Ana Cuba

Sometimes, I recommend photographers to ensure that there photos are telling a story. Ana Cuba does not need this. Each of her photos is the story, but they are also brought into scenarized sets.

The one I propose you to visit is her Once I had love series. Then, you will browse around her wbe site.

Have love.

Animal wildlife photography has strong constraints which do not always place it at the center of your comfort zone. Sometimes, you have to hide in order not to frighten the more timid animals. Sometimes, you need to crawl on your stomach in order to reach eye level and get the right picture.

Tracey Kidston is not afraid of these obstacles and she travels the world looking for these photos which will capture nature in its most attractive form. On the Española island in the Galapagos, she succeeded in catching the intensity of the eye of this blue-footed Booby and to oppose it to the colored plumage (not the most common approach for this most recognizable bird).

Copyright (C) Tracey Kidston - All rights reserved

Tracey Kidston gallery is full of animal pictures from all over the world.

Black and white is no longer used by most nature landscape photographers. This is a pity. Oleg Kasko is maintaining this tradition with pictures that magnify the mystery and the beauty of the places where he brings his camera.

And it is quite some equipment: This photo was taken on a sunny winter day with a Hasselblad 503cx camera, using 15 stop grey filter, gradual filter ND8, lens Sonnar 150mm, f/16 and an exposure time of 90 seconds. He stays faithful to film (here, Kodak TMY400, pushed to ISO 1600, developed with Kodak TMX).

Copyright (C) Oleg Kasko - All rights reserved

I strongly recommend a visit to his gallery.

Digital images obtained using a scanner Nikon 8000.

Copyright (C) Jak Wonderly

Jak Wonderly is a photographer able to apply his art to many a subject, but what attracted my attention is his work about horses at a friend’s ranch where he will find these great animals rescued from slaughter or neglect.

“The most important decision I make in my work is how to approach a subject. It is a privilege to light-map an animal, a sacred act.  I try to bring a quiet mind and a great deal of patience to the encounter.  Waiting until the subject acknowledges me, perhaps even senses my purpose, I let the animal compose the shot.  I focus on what I am being offered, rather than what I can take. The language of photography is unfortunately and inaccurately predatory, particularly when it comes to animals. [...]

My photographs are not staged and I only use ambient light. Nothing is added; nothing is taken away. The images are collaborative: the photographs are mine, but the art belongs to the animal, the sky, the land, the water, the light.”

This behavior, this approach to photography is reflected in the resulting pictures. What else would ask from a photograph?

Jak Wonderly’s web site.

Copyright (C) Ryan Scherb

Ryan Scherb is a photographer who has an obvious sensitivity to graphic design, as you can see in the caterpillar photo above. But he is so diverse in his interests that I can only recommend you to go and visit his web site. At this point, you will see what a Landscape can be, and this does not merely mean placing an horizon at 1/3 of an horizontal picture (think “composition”).

Some may think that black and white photography is a lost art or an ancient technique (it’s true that film and paper manufacturer are distancing themselves more and more from this out-of-date technology), but it is also a mean for some of the greatest photography geniuses to express their inner selves. Today again, the contemporary artist can use these technical limitations as a way to transcend their emotion into a form which will dig deep into the souls of the readers of pictures that we all are.

Lori Vrba is one of these photographers who, without submitting to digital technology, keep using the most traditional tools (a Hasselblad camera, an Ilford HP5 film, selenium print from a home dark room). Limited light, a flair of mystery, here come soft images as sensitive as this self-portrait.

Copyright (C) Lori Vrba

Underwater photography is a difficult art. You have to manage all of the technical elements of photography under more stringent conditions, but you must not forget to bring the sensations back to the observer of the final picture. Wayne Levin chose to do it in black and white and, far from being a limitation, this becomes a way to make his photos more striking.

I loved those images where the animals seem to be suspended in the middle of nowhere, like the whale below or some of his sharks.

Diving humpback whale - Copyright (C) Wayne Levin

Be sure to visit his web site.

Copyright (C) Christopher Valites - All rights reserved

Go and look for Chris nice work of portraiture, you’ll like it. But I immediately stopped by the water series.

Christopher Valites.

French artist who went through London in 1999-2003, Richard Pak, travelled a lot and sharpened an eye for forms and warm colours. Like in this street in the London City night.

Copyright (C) Richard Pak

Richard’s web site.

Julia’s work is definitely rich. She is exploring a lot of fields, faithful to the documentary style of photography. Her black and white photographs are telling the story of many a human being. She travels in countries but you could also visit her gallery of graphic art pictures.

Copyright (C) Julia Komissaroff

Palestinian who works on the restoration of the monastery Corontal near the town of Jericho.

Julia Komissaroff’s web site.

LeicaShots is a new web site sponsored by Leica and showcasing one Leica photographer every day.

If you love our portfolios, I’m sure that you will spend a lot of time at LeicaShots, too.

Phil Bebbington is a photographer I like because of his mastering of light and his way to render materials. What is specially pleasant is the way he finds a ghost of Man in Nature, like the remnants of Man’s activity in this Missouri field.

Copyright (C) Phil Bebbington - All rights reserved

http://philbebbington.com
http://terrorkitten.com/iblog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/terrorkitten/

Jared Moossy is a documentary photographer. I was stopped by his series about Afghanistan (Jared spent a large part of 2009 in Kabul) because of the dynamics in his pictures. Far from the standardized war witness with its so-usual documentary view, and far from the normative needs of international press, he puts your mind in fast mode with his vision of a strange world, not the common exotic picture but so eye-catching in its pictures of a faraway war and of a shaken humanity.

Copyright (C) Jared Moosy