He shot the picture.

Via Peta Pixel

Copyright (C) Jens Lasthein - All rights reserved

His web site is very rich and you will certainly spend a lot of time both checking the technique and diving into subjects coming from all corners of the world. His eyes watch it with a wide look, too.

I photographed in Abkhazia in August/September 2009. I’ve traveled a lot photographing in the former Soviet Union during the past years, and like Transnistria, Abkhazia is another one of these small pieces of land that broke themselves loose in the aftermath of the breakdown of the empire. It is very isolated as just a few countries have recognized it, the most important being Russia of course. Very little investments have been made since the civil war with Georgia in 1993, and going there was like returning to Bosnia just after the Dayton Agreement. Destroyed houses and cities all over, and a tense atmosphere because of the hostile situation with Georgia proper. Strange and scary. And still people try to live their ordinary daily life in spite of it all.

Question: What would be the first thing to teach a young new photographers?
Answer from Jens Olof Lasthein: Time is important, but presence is crucial.

Copyright (C) Juergen Specht - All rights reserved

The picture was taken in Chiba, Japan in October 2006, where Juergen came across this kid sliding down this plastic grass construction.

Question: Why and how did you start photography?
Juergen Specht’s answer: hm, it was more accidental. Somebody lend me a Nikon F3, because he never used it and I got hooked on photography. I had my first darkroom in my bathroom and shot B&W exclusively for many years, then changed to digital in 1999 and never looked back.

If you look closely, my pictures – especially the studio or planned ones – have often not more than 3 primary colors. So I never went that far from my b/w beginnings

Documentary photography is a genre that has its difficulties (even when it’s not about war photography), but it also has the huge advantage of putting the spectator (and the photograph) in front of real people in their own lives, creating a window between two worlds.

Simone Lueck made a two-week trip in Cuba and immediately noticed that, at night, the only light seemed to be coming from the ubiquitous TV sets in the homes. She spent days entering strangers home to ask if she could photograph the working TV set. This led to a very interesting series named Cuba TV and a book extracted from this.

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

Terje Sorgjerd web site.

Copyright (C) Alan Douglas - All rights reserved

This series only started last year and it will certainly evolve a lot in the near future. As he says:

I live on the west coast of Canada North Vancouver Island in Port Hardy, an area where the rain forest meets the sea, I only have to walk along the shoreline to see how nature creates wonderful shapes and textures, colours from the materials washed up on this shoreline. [...] These images look so good in print and I am very excited about the potential of this project.

To the question of “What do you consider your worst weakness in photography and how do you try and correct it?”, he answers:

I think I would have to say that sometimes I get too focused on a particular aim of a photo trip, ie (I am out in the forest and want to make an image of a bear) that I miss other things around me! So I now try to go on a photo hike with an open mind and celebrate what is good in our world!

Which explains that Alan can cover so different subjects.

Coming from another world (agencies and new documentary), Franco Limosani also has used his technical knowledge to explore first astrophotography, then wildlife photography. Today, Franco follows the tracks of the Fox and bring us some very pleasant pictures like the following one:

Copyright (C) Franco Limosani - All rights reserved

Copyright (C) Peter Kayafas - All rights reserved

The world of Peter Kayafas is mainly in black and white, but it’s our common world: A little out of our cities and their comemrcial malls, empty spaces are still there and contain the marks of our man’s activity. These abandoned marks in the wide empty spaces of North America are seen by Peter Kayafas as some mythical and religious experience (something not far from the Easter Island stone statues).

A portfolio which must be visited slowly like you would taste a great wine: Plains totems.

Question: Is there something that could make you stop shooting photographs?
Peter Kayafas’ answer: Short of being physically incapable of making photographs, there is nothing that would stop me from continuing to explore the world with a camera. The subject matter that I am interested in is ubiquitous and always changing, which, of course, means that it warrants ongoing study.