Photographer #401: iO Tillett Wright

iO Tillett Wright, 1985, USA, is a young photographer based in New York City. She is currently working on the project entitled Self Evident Truths. The project started as part of an exhibition called Manifest Equality. She shot 300 portraits of people who felt that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning (LGBTQ) desciption applied to them. These portraits were laid in stacks for visitors to take home for free. Currently she is working on another 4000-5000 portraits that will be shot in 25 different cities throughout US. For the portraits in New York she was supported by the Human Rights Campaign. "This is the civil rights fight of my generation, and this project won't be complete until queer people have the same rights as every other human being in this country." All of her projects and images contain something pure, genuine, intimate and in close contact with the reality of life. In 2010 she released the book Lose My Number in a limited edition and recently KISSER came out. iO has been published in numerous magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Vice and The Huffington Post. The following images come from the project Self Evident Truths and the books Lose My Number and KISSER.

Website: www.darlingdays.com & www.selfevidentproject.com

Photographer #294: Dorothée Smith

Dorothée Smith, 1985, France, is a young conceptual photographer who studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de la Photographie in Arles. Her series Löyly is a sequence of portraits and landscapes. Löyly, Finnish for Steam, is a word that describes the raising of healthy smoke resulting from the transformation of matter; water to steam. This and her reference to Gender Trouble written by Judith Butler have resulted in a series of melancholic images. She photographs people she knows or has some connection with, showing a generation of young men and women who try to have or find an identity that surpasses the standard. They go outside of the borders in who they are as people, but also in their sexual identity. The results are stunning portraits of undetermined or dissolved identities. Dorothée has released three books with blurb. The following images come from the series Löyly, Loon and Spree.

Website: www.dorotheesmith.net

Photographer #266: Bet Orten

Bet Orten, 1985, Czech Republic, is a young fashion and portrait photographer. She graduated in fashion photography at the London College of Fashion. She assisted photographer Steven Klein while she spend six months in New York City. Bet has moved around a lot, having lived in Prague, London, Barcelona and NYC. She works with narratives and her sensitive female imagination through which she knows how to bring a certain poetic aspect to her imagery. Her work is often playful, experimental, but most of all it is full of youth. She has done commercial shoots for clients as Volcom and Tribo. Bet also works with video (see video below). The following images come from various portfolio's on her website.

Website: www.betside.com

Photographer #146: Mark Peckmezian

Mark Peckmezian, 1985, Canada, recently completed his BFA at the Ryerson University in Toronto. His book Photographs & Pictures was released in June of this year by Pogobooks. Mark focuses on portraits and most of his photography is black & white. He has been featured in several magazines and was selected for the traveling Flash Forward exhibition. The first two rows of images come from his portfolio Photographs and the last row from his portfolio Pictures.

Website: www.markpeckmezian.com

Special #001: Mike Brodie

Mike Brodie a.k.a 'the Polaroid Kid', 1985, USA, is in the first place a freight train hopper. He left home at the age of 18 to ride the trains and travel across the USA. He started taking pictures of his friends and the people that surrounded him with a polaroid sx-70 camera. He has never had any education in photography. Later he also started taking pictures with a 35mm camera. In 2008 he won the Baum award for emerging American photographer. Today Mike Brodie doesn't take pictures anymore, instead he is going to school to become a diesel mechanic for the Pacific Railroad. Read this interesting article about Mike: press here.

Once we hear that Mike Brodie has taken up photography again, he will be straight on the 500photographers main list.

Website: www.needles-pens.com & http://mikebrodie.net

Photographer #032: Levi van Veluw

Dutch photographer Levi van Veluw, 1985, finished the Artez institute of the arts in Arnhem, NL in 2007. Since then he has had numerous publications and exhibitions around the world. He often photographs his own head, but not as a normal self-portrait. He uses different materials to experiment. These experiments result in amazing images as seen below. The following images come from the series Landscapes, Light and Natural Transfers.

Website: www.levivanveluw.nl