Photographer #412: Paulina Otylie Surys

Paulina Otylie Surys, 1979, Poland, is a fine art and fashion photographer based in London, UK. Only recently she has launched herself as a fashion photographer. She studied fine art in Poland and photography in the UK. She uses a variety of camera's, mostly vintage one's working with 35mm, medium format and large format film. Currently she is interested in working on other alternative techniques as tintypes and the wet collodion proces. Her analogue images are hand-painted using a mixture of toners, chemicals, inks and dry dyes. The photographs are often described as outerworldly and have a strong relationship with classic photography and painting. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines. The following images come from the series The Deadly Chair of Moros, Sever and Une Belle Sauvage.

Website: www.paulinasurys.co.uk

Photographer #407: Francisco Reina

Francisco Reina, 1979, Spain, is a politically and socially-engaged conceptual photographer based in The Netherlands. In his project The Art of Power he meticulously manipulated architectural elements that depict political institutions, making them into impenetrable structures. We see the  ruling institutions of today as rational enterprises who's interest should be to further the interest of their societies as a whole. Francisco strongly believes that this notion is not always rooted in reality and that the leaders of our world are gradually becoming an elite class primarily concerned with defending its own interests. The series called Strauss' Legacy focuses on "the so-called neoconservatives and the way in which their presence in the American presidential administration on September 11, 2001 shaped events."  He created images that through a conceptual way takes a close look at "the role of multinational corporations in a conflict which began under the name "Operation Enduring Freedom" and turned into a perfect market niche for multi-million dollar earnings." His work has been exhibited mainly in Spain, but also in The Netherlands and New York. The following images come from the series The Art of Power, Strauss' Legacy and The Silent Enigma.

Website: www.franciscoreina.com

Photographer #398: Jason Larkin

Jason Larkin, United Kingdom, 1979, is a documentary photographer who was originally trained as a photojournalist. He concentrates on developing larger bodies of work that engage and reflect on current affairs. He focuses on the less reported aspects of the Middle East and Africa, trying to achieve a "more comprehensive viewpoint of an often misunderstood and ignored reality". In his series Cairo Divided he photographed the construction sites in the deserts outside of Cairo. The city has grown at a fast pase, and even though it's growth was bounded by the narrow strip of fertile land, irrigated by the Nile, the elite class of the city is starting to move to new urban centers in the desert in an attempt to escape the chaos and growing amount of slums. Mistake of Nature is a series photographed in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic of Uzbekistan. While being a region that has suffered one of the worst environmental disasters, the disapearance of the Aral Sea, which in turn has caused a collapse of its industry and economy, the people are slowly demanding their independance. The people that wish not to have an independent state are largely leaving the region. In recent years Jason has exhibited his work in several European cities as well as Boston, Toronto, Dubai and Cairo. The following images come from the series Cairo Divided, Mistake of Nature and In the Footsteps of the King.

Website: www.jasonlarkin.co.uk

Photographer #389: Lin Zhipeng

Lin Zhipeng aka NO.223, 1979, China, is a photographer based in Beijing who works in a very intuitive fashion. His photography shows the Chinese youth of today with sex and chaotic love as recurring themes. The photographs that are made using a very direct and hard flash, showing a youth culture the way he does, are relatively new to come from a country as China. The "snap-shot" images reveal a new Chinese generation, allowing us viewers to see them while they party, shower, hang-out, kiss and smoke. His work has been published in several books as New Photography in China and in numerous magazines as Vice, S Magazine and Dazed and Confused. He has been exhibited mainly in China, but also in Europe and the USA. The following images come from the portfolios Portfolio 09, Portfolio 07 and Polaroid.

Website: www.linzhipeng223.com

Photographer #336: Nicola Lo Calzo

Nicola Lo Calzo, 1979, Italy, is a documentary and portrait photographer based is Paris. His photographic work focuses on minorities and human rights issues, often in African countries. In his series Inside Niger he portrayed the population that live and work on the borders of the Niger river. The river functions as the center of Nigeria's economy, but pollution and desertification have become obstacles to economic development. One of his latest series is Morgante, telling the story of several individuals. Dwarfism, a person of short stature resulting from a particular medical condition, is the common demoninator between the portrayed. Nicola's work has been published extensively and exhibited throughout Europe. The following images come from the series Morgante, Inside Niger and The Other Family.

Website: www.nicolalocalzo.com
(video in French)

Photographer #308: Jake Verzosa

Jake Verzosa, 1979, Republic of the Philippines, is a successful commercial and editorial photographer based in Manila. Amongst his clients are McDonalds and Nike. Due to these commisions he has been able to travel around Southeast Asia and work on his personal, documentary photography. Recently he has photographed elderly women in the Cordillera mountain range of the Philippines. They are the last women that have the traditional tattoos that hold values of women's strength and fortitude. Due to the influence of western interpretations of aesthetics the perception of beauty has changed amongst the younger generation. Earlier, during his travels, he was already photographing various indigenous peoples throughout Southeast Asia, resulting in the project Communal Identity. The following images come from the series The Last Tattooed Women of Kalinga, Communal Identity and Manila's Railside.

Website: www.matanglawin.ph

Photographer #302: Viktoria Sorochinski

Viktoria Sorochinski, 1979, Ukraine, is a photographer who mixes documentary photography with fiction. She works and lives in New York City and received a BFA at Concordia University in Canada and an MFA at the New York University. Since 2005 she has been photographing a mother and daughter for the series Anna & Eve. The project consists of various substories, changing while the girl and mother are getting older. Even though all the scenes are staged, we see the real relationship between the young mother and daughter evolve. Her images are dreamy, poetic and contain a strong narrative. Viktoria's work has been exhibited and published extensively in recent years. The following images come from the series Anna & Eve, Moments of Revelation and Daddy.

Website: www.viktoriart.com

Photographer #280: Sylwana Zybura

Sylwana Zybura, 1979, Poland, is better known in the photographic community as Madame Peripetie. She works and lives in Germany. She received a B.A. in photography and an M.A. in applied linguistics. She was recently published in the book Geschossen+Gedruckt due to winning the Druckerei Seltmann Werbefotopreis. She won the prestigious advertisement photography prize in the category People / Emotion with images of her Dream Sequence series. Sylwana's images are surreal, fantastical and often bizarre and imaginative. Her fairy tale photographs are sometimes dark and moody, but others are bright in color and humerous. It is a mix of fashion photography and sculpture, using various fabrics and objects to achieve her end results. She is influenced by surrealism, dadaism, the new wave era of the 80's, the British post punk scene and the avantgarde theater of Robert Wilson. The following images come from the series Dream Sequence, Pugh-Atory and Warriors in the Dark.

Website: www.madameperipetie.com

Photographer #277: Daniel Sannwald

Daniel Sannwald, 1979, Germany, is a surreal and experimental fashion photographer. He studied at the Royal Academy in Antwerp. Daniel does not limit himself when making images, nor does he abide to the rules of photography. He might shoot digital or analogue, change his end results with photoshop or just plain scissors and glue, make a collage or add bizarre objects on the set. He might go over the top with an image and keep it simple and clean with the next. Daniel keeps all options open and decided to use all the options available. The images he produces are fantastical, often surreal and innovative. His cinematographic photographs have been published in magazines as Dazed & Confused, i-D and Vogue Homme. Recently his book Pluton & Charon was released covering fashion work from the last five years. The following images come from his portfolio.

Website: www.danielsannwald.com

Photographer #269: Carrie Levy

Carrie Levy, 1979, USA, studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and later received an MFA from the Royal College of Art in London. At a young age she released her book 51 Months. 51 months was the length of the prison sentence her father received when Carrie was sixteen, during this period she started photographing her life and the effects of her fathers incarceration. Her photography evolved and became more and more conceptual, however the experience of her father's incarceration keeps coming back in her projects. Her series Untitled was still based upon the stories of her father. In her latest series she has photographed men in submissive, vulnerable and passive role. She shows us that females can as well objectify the male body. Carrie has exhibited her work extensively troughout the world. The following images come from the series You Before All, Impaired and Untitled.

Website: www.carrielevy.com

Photographer #254: Pieter Henket

Pieter Henket, 1979, The Netherlands, works and lives in New York. He is a self-taught portrait photographer who in recent years has photographed various celebrities. In 1999 he left for New York to study at the Film Academy but soon fell in love with the photographic medium. At a young age he managed to get an internship with the film director Joel Schumacher. The influence of cinema is easily noticed in his images. The Interrogation Project is a series in which he asked directors, actors and musicians how they would react to a police interrogation. He might be most known for the cover of Lady Gaga's first album The Fame. The following images come from the Interrogation Project and his portfolios Images and Portraits.

Website: www.pieterhenket.com

Photographer #236: Álvaro Ybarra Zavala

Álvaro Ybarra Zavala, 1979, Spain, is a photojournalist. In India he photographed HIV/Aids patients, as there are currently 2.27 million people that are HIV+. Despite being the fourth largest economy of the world, India only spends 1% of it's GDP in healthcare. Álvaro has concentrated on difficult stories around the globe, from the Haiti earthquake to the drama of the Burmese people and from armed groups in Venezuela to the war in Darfur. The list of countries he has been to is enormous and most of them are conflict zones. He has released five books, has been published in numerous magazines and has exhibited internationally. The following images come from the stories India, Congo and Afghanistan.

Website: www.alvaroybarra.com & www.reportage-bygettyimages.com

Photographer #193: Ross McDonnell

Ross McDonnell, 1979, Ireland, is a photographer and filmmaker. In his series Joyrider he documented the youngsters in Ballymun, a suburb of Dublin where the infra-structure is lacking, showing the transition of anti-social behaviour to criminality amongst the young people living in the shadows of these Ballymun towers. In the series Turkana, Ross focused on the impact of climate change on the people living in the Northwestern part of Kenya. In Turkana food-aid has become more reliable than farming. The following images come from the series Joyrider, The Afghans and Turkana.

Website: www.rossmcdonnell.com

Photographer #176: Marc Da Cunha Lopes

Marc Da Cunha Lopes, 1979, France, is a Paris based photographer. He graduated in 2005 from the Gobelins l'Ecole de l'Image (School of Image). Marc works on personal, editorial and advertisement projects. In his series Vertebrata we see large skeletons of creatures being alone in urban and human spaces. He has done advertisement work for clients as Nike, Playstation and Fiat. His, often digitally manipulated, photography is illustrative, dark yet humorous. The following images come from the series Vertebrata, HPL and Lulu.

Website: www.marcdacunhalopes.com

Photographer #140: Song Chao

Song Chao, 1979, China, is a photographer with an interesting story. He started working in 1997 at a coal mine. While working there he started taking pictures of his fellow workers in 2001. He was uneducated and an amateur. His series Miners has been compared to the photographs of Richard Avedon, but Song was unaware of these images or any western photography at the time when he started taking the portraits. His photography focuses not only on the miners, but also the community that surrounds the miners, their families and the landscapes. His photographs have been exibited around the globe. The following images come from the series Miners I, Miners II and Coal-Mine Community.

Website: www.songchao.cn

Photographer #123: Sarah Small

Photographer Sarah Small, 1979, USA, is working on a long-term project called The Delirium Constructions. One of the keywords in this project must be 'disassociation'. She brings different subjects, objects or other things together in one image that at first seem to have nothing in common. "I bring models into improbable, close interactions to examine the social and graphic contrasts." Sarah also uses Tableaux Vivants to achieve her photography. She assembles models into a series of suspended interactions as a living and breathing image. In 2011 she will do so with 120 models with distinctive visual personalities. The following images come from her portfolio.

Website: www.sarahsmall.com & www.livingpictureprojects.com

Photographer #121: Sonia Sieff

Sonia Sieff, 1979, is a French photographer. Her work mainly focuses on fashion, beauty and portrait photography. She has been published in various magazines and worked with several celebrities such as Natalie Portman on photography shoots. Her photographs are stylish, aesthetic and sensual. Sonia has also been a still photographer for various French movies. The following images come from her Fashion, Beauty, Portrait and Nude portfolio's.

Website: www.soniasieff.com