Photographer #394: Jan Banning

Jan Banning, 1954, The Netherlands, was born from Dutch-East-Indies immigrant parents. He studied Social and Economic History at the University of Nijmegen. His work is a mixture of photojournalism, documentary and fine-art photography. He has released an impressive amount of photography books. His most recent monograph is Comfort Women, a series of portraits of Indonesian women who were victims of forced sexual labor during the second World War. During the war the Japanese military set up a system for sex slavery, forcing women into prostitution in military brothels. Most of the women suffered physical and emotional consequences ever since. In 2008 he introduced the book Bureaucratics, showing offices of members of the executive in various services and levels. The offices have been photographed in eight different countries on five different continents. The project was done with a writer; Will Tinnemans. As they would come by unannounced, Will would interview the employees, keeping them from tidying up the office. For the book Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways he portrayed Dutch and Indonesian men who all worked as forced labor for the Japanese during World War II. They had to build the Burma or Sumatra railroads in miserable conditions leading to the death of many of them. The following images come from the series Comfort Women, Bureaucratics and Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways.

Website: www.janbanning.com

Photographer #202: Karen Knorr

Karen Knorr, 1954, Germany, was raised in Puerto Rico. Her series India Song consists of two elements. The locations have been shot with a large format analogue camera, the live animals with a digital camera. The two images are combined to create one image that blurs our perception of reality and fiction. In her series Fables she draws our attention to animal behaviour and it's relationship to human behaviour and shortcomings. In most of the recent series by Karen, she uses museums, palaces or other cultural places as settings for her photography. The following images come from India Song, Muses and Majas and Fables (Château Chambord).

Website: www.karenknorr.com
(Video in French)

 

Photographer #191: Irene Andessner

Irene Andessner, 1954, Austria, has been focusing on the self-portrait since 1988. In the beginning she realised her portraits through paintings, but from the mid-90's in tableaux vivants, photography and video stagings. She gets into the roles of various women such as the Black Madonna, Rachael from the movie Bladerunner or Marlene Dietrich. Not only women are being portrayed, in 2006 she interpreted the traditional but questionably authentic portrait of Mozart. She released the Book I Am Irene Andessner which shows her works between 1995 and 2003. I Am (present tense) because she herself gives absolutely contemporary expression to historical figures. The following images come from the series Citylights [Vienna], Ida/Artemis/Merian and Donne Illustri.

Website: www.andessner.com
(Video in German)

Photographer #067: Cole Thompson

Cole Thompson, USA, 1954, is a photographer who, since 2004, only shoots digitally. He collects various images to become one coherent portfolio. Examples are a series of photographs called Harbinger in which every picture consists of one single cloud in the sky. Another example is the project Ceiling Lamps. Cole photographed a large number of ceiling lamps from beneath, images of strange and abstract forms. The following photographs come from the series Ceiling Lamps, Harbinger and The Lone Man.

Website: www.colethompsonphotography.com

Photographer #053: Tony Fouhse

Tony Fouhse, Canada, 1954, might be an editorial and commercial photographer, it's his personal work that is getting international attention. Since 2007 Fouhse has focused on drug addicts in his hometown Ottawa. In 2007 he made the series USER night, in 2008 USER Women and in 2009 USER Men. Even though the portrayed are evidently addicts, the portraits show people with strength and a drive for survival. Below are shot from User Men and USER Night.

On various trips Fouhse photographs what he sees. This results in series such as Christmas in the Delta.

Website: www.tonyfoto.com

Photographer #017: Michael Wolf

German photographer Michael Wolf, 1954 has a long list of projects behind his name. Currently he is working on a project using google streetview as his camera. The photographs of architecture in projects like Architecture in Density in Hongkong (2006) and Transparent City in Chicago (2008) are most known.

In 2009 he did a project called Tokyo Subway Dreams. As in his architectural photography, the horizon is nowhere to be found in his pictures.

Website: www.photomichaelwolf.com