All posts tagged: Photography

Eugenio Recuenco, the painter of modern times

Eugenio Recuenco was born in Madrid in 1968 and graduated with a degree in painting from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. Pursuing photography, he began collaborating with fashion magazines such as Vogue Espana, GQ, View, Madame Figaro, Vogue UK, Vanity Fair and Kult in Spain and Paris in the context of campaigns for brands like Diesel, Wilkinson or Nina Ricci. Eugenio Recuenco produced his first advertising piece in Paris for Boucheron, and since has become one of the most highly sought after young artists in the advertising and luxury fashion industry. Eugenio Recuenco’s fresh take on high fashion is rich in cinematic drama and emotive impulse. With other-worldly narratives, his complex signature style uses elaborate handmade scenery and contains multiple references to art history and film. With a sensibility towards light and dark, concept and drama, his work is reminiscent and yet transcends the grand masters of Spanish classical painting like Goya, El Greco and Zurbarán. As a director, his elaborate, detailed and cinematic style have brought him much praise and won him many awards and …

Beyond the visible with Luis Beltràn

Hailing from Valencia in Spain, contemporary photographer Luis Beltràn may be regarded as a storyteller who uses photography to set his mind free from everyday life. Through his pictures, Luis Beltrán talks about loneliness and mystery, suspended between reality and imagination and dedicates his work « to those who daydream, who live in fantasy worlds and don’t want to wake up ». Although not entirely fantastical, his images have been retouched to make each setting slightly unreal, giving it a sense of the impossible while firmly keeping one foot in reality. Luis Beltran is represented by Agora Gallery in New York, Blanca Berlin in Madrid, Artloveyou in Barcelona, Mediadvanced in Gijón and Galería O+O in Valencia. His work has been published in such magazines as Ex Magazine and Art Notes. 1. Do you consider yourself as a figure of contemporary photography ? Luis Beltràn : As long as I can remember, the pursuit of creativity and talent always fascinated me. One day, I discovered that I could express myself through photography. It allows me to …

Capturing the humanity of the moment with Albarrán Cabrera

Albarrán Cabrera are the photographers Anna Cabrera (b. 1969, Sevilla) and Angel Albarrán (b. 1969, Barcelona) who work together as a collaborative duo based in Barcelona. The work of Albarrán Cabrera has been shown in galleries and photo fairs in Spain, Japan, Switzerland, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Lebanon, Italy and the United States. Anna and Angel both have studied under photographers such as Humberto Rivas and Toni Catany, among others. Some of their prints have become part of private collectors and institutions such as Hermes, Goetz Collection, Banco de Santander, Fundación de Ferrocarriles Españoles among others. They have also produced printing work for several institutions like Fundació La Pedrera in Barcelona, Fundació Toni Catany in Mallorca, Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid or Barcelona Photographic Archive.     1. Do you consider your tandem as a figure of contemporary photography ? Anna P. Cabrera & Angel Albarrán : We are sons of this time and era and we embrace the new possibilities, while at the same time we keep using ancient techniques. Our attitude is to …

Christopher Wilson, itinerary of a gifted man

Christopher Wilson is a highly talented, multifaceted photographer who shoots a variety of subjects. His strong visual style unifies many disparate genres. After 15 years in the advertising world as a writer and art director, Christopher Wilson jumped off a cliff to start Photography. As an advertising creative, Christopher Wilson created a vast portfolio of powerful campaigns for some of the most recognized luxury brands there are, including Audi, Infiniti, Jaguar, Nikon and Ritz-Carlton to mention only a few. During his career as Audi’s creative director, Wilson was responsible for some of the most beautiful and compelling pieces. Pursuing an atypical path, he has been a ballet dancer in a previous life. He danced 8 hours a day, made no money, survived on bread and coffee, lost 20 pounds he didn’t have, looked like hell and broke his ankle twice…. And prior to that time, he was at Dartmouth College where he studied Ancient Greek and Latin Literature. Good stuff to know, he says, if you ever want to work in the Vatican. Why did a man well …

Mikko Lagerstedt, the Emerging into Light

Contemporary artist Mikko Lagerstedt is an award winning fine art photographer from Finland whose enchanting photo series highlight some of Finland’s extraordinary landscapes. Mikko Lagerstedt is a 31-year-old self-taught photographer, who began taking his craft in 2008. He lives in Kerava just 18 miles from Helsinki. Capturing simplistic Finnish landscapes and fleeting moments, he strives to use his atmospheric vision to inspire people. His surreal and unique work manages to bring an absolutely breathtaking aesthetic that depicts the mystical and sweeping splendor of the Finnish countryside while capturing the emotion of the moment. His photography has been featured around the world in book covers, magazines and in advertisements. 1. Do you consider yourself as a figure of contemporary photography ? Mikko Lagerstedt : Not really, I feel that I’m just a photographer creating work that inspires me. 2. How would you describe your style ? Mikko Lagerstedt : Atmospheric landscape photography. A surreal look at how the World looks through my eyes. 3. What led you to photography ? Mikko Lagerstedt : My first inspiration towards photography came …

Dean West, photography grounded in reality

A wide range of environments and character types are explored in the works of New York City-based Dean West. The Australian-born (1983) artist who studied at the Queensland College of Art, is best known for his intricate and highly staged photographs that take everyday occurrences beyond the realm of natural reality. Extraordinary in their tonal range, digital clarity, and artistic vision, Dean West’s meticulously choreographed scenes, character studies, and atmospheric landscapes powerfully yet synthetically link needs to desires and documentation to invention. Passionately dedicated to the vast possibilities of digital photography as both a medium and a cultural epoch, Dean West’s narratives draw inspiration from the total diversity offered by the visual arts. While the tableau photography of Stan Douglas and Jeff Wall inform Dean West’s understanding of photography as a form of contemporary communication, the paintings of David Hockney and Edward Hopper provide evident aesthetic direction. The fictional world of cinema and the functional language of advertising have also clearly left their mark and taught lessons of their own. International brands have embraced Dean …

Angela Sairaf, photography across borders

Angela Sairaf is a Spain based photographer born in Porto Alegre, South Brazil. She has a PhD in Techniques and Processes in Imaging (Complutense University of Madrid) and a Master of Contemporary Photography (EFTI), plus three fellowship trainings at the International University Menéndez Pelayo where she studied Visual Poetry, Creative Processes of a Reporter and The Nature of Photography. Angela Sairaf has also worked for over 15 years as a writer and photographer for important Brazilian magazines. In the 90’s, she worked for a renowned modelling agency in Tokyo. Angela Sairaf received awards and participated in solo and group exhibitions in different countries. She usually gives lectures in prestigious schools of art and photography such as EASDA, TAI, EFTI, APERTURA and MACA (Contemporary Art Museum of Alicante) in Spain. Her work is part of the collection of MACRS (Contemporary Art Museum of Rio Grande do Sul) in Brazil. 1. Do you see yourself as a figure in photography ? No, I see myself as a photographer and all the rest are just labels. 2. How would …

Cade Martin in Wonderland

Both poet and messenger, Cade Martin is endowed with a visionary look on human beings which prettify the world and make it more colorful, joyful and hopeful. Like an impressionist who manipulates color palette to perfection, Cade Martin manages to make protagonists come to life through a perfect image, a studied direction, a graceful movement and a light bringing a fantasy and a magical dimension to the subject. Recognizable anywhere, Cade Martin’s label often mixes fairy tales and famous paintings, to create a stunning set of images that are as whimsical, dreamy and odd as romantic and enchanting. All his talent resides in this thin discrepancy between reality and fiction, fantasy and beauty. Not far away from Rodney Smith or Tim Walker’s photography pieces of work, Cade Martin has created his own style which achieves to capture the soul. Also drowing inspiration from cinema, Cade Martin uses its camera as a film camera to create sequences like freeze-frames and to tell a tale. Impossible not to refer to the great literature classics as Lewis Caroll’s « Alice in Wonderland », and the Grimm’s, Perrault’s and …

In Masao Yamamoto’s shadow

Masao Yamamoto born 1957 in Gamagori City in Aichi Prefecture, in Japan, is a photographer known for his small photographs, which seek to individualize the photographic prints as objects. Masao Yamamoto began his art studies as a painter, studying oil painting under Goro Saito in his native city. He presently uses photography to capture images evoking memories. He blurs the border between painting and photography by experimenting with his printing surfaces. With his subjects including still-lives, nudes, and landscapes, Masao Yamamoto’s minimalist photography takes a poetic dimension that transcends nature with a subtle game of light and shadows.

Secret Versailles by Robert Polidori

Born in Montreal in 1951, Robert Polidori is one of the world’s most acclaimed photographers of human habitats and environment. Robert Polidori moved to the United States as a child and began his career in avant-garde film, assisting Jonas Mekas at the Anthology Film Archives in New York, an experience that shaped his approach to photography. While living in Paris in the early 1980s, he began exploring the restoration of the interiors of Versailles, and has continued over a 30 year period to photograph the ongoing changes. He then returned to New York in 1997 with a show of twelve photographs from the Versailles series at Robert Miller Gallery. These series of photographs surveys the concept of historical revisionism as seen through the practice of restoration of historical landmarks. Creating large-format color film photographs, Robert Polidori’s images record a visual citation of both past history and the present times within the confines of a single frame. He captures the vestiges that evoke the essence of each setting and its particular meaning. The Versailles series introduce …