PIETER WISSE

Neil Krug, 1983, USA, is a photographer and director based in Los Angeles. Together with his girlfriend, now wife, Joni Harbeck, he founded Pulp Art Book, a collection of photography and commercial work in limited edition prints, books and films. In 2011 he released the LP-sized Pulp Art Book: Volume One with images of Joni shot with polaroid film years past its sell-by date. The narrative photographs remind us of spaghetti westerns and the artistic expressions of the 60s and 70s in B-movies and on LP covers. Pulp Art Book: Volume Two is expected to be released in June of 2012. This time the Poliziotteschi films were a major influence. Neil has created a vast amount of CD / LP covers for bands as My Chemical Romance, Scissor Sisters, Ladytron and The Pierces. Among his commercial clients are Warner Bros. Records, Warp Records and Burton Snowboards. The following images come from the portfolios Ladytron - Gravity the Seducer, Pulp Art Book: Volume One and My Chemical Romance.

Manabu Yamanaka, 1959, Japan, is a photographer who focuses mainly on societal outcasts. In 2009 he released a monograph entitled Gyahtei which shows the six major series he has created during a period of 25 years, all with titles that originate from Buddhism. One of those series is Jyoudo; a collection of photographs portraying physically deformed human beings, including some of the worst kind of deformation imaginable. Manabu noticed that even in this state "I saw how truly natural each one of their lives really were." Amongst his other subjects are elderly photographed in the nude, street children and homeless people. His images are strong, powerful, (un)comforting and might sometimes be hard to digest. His latest body of work is a series of images that show unborn and deformed embryos. His work has been exhibited extensively throughout the world and has appeared in numerous publications. The following images come from the series Jyoudo, Gyahtei and Fujohkan.

Deborah Luster, 1951, USA, is a photographer based in New Orleans, USA and Galway, Ireland. In 1988 her mother was murdered by a hired killer. In 1998 it led her to start the project entitled One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana in which she photographed inmates of three Louisiana prisons. The photographs were published in a monograph in 2003 together with texts from poet C.D. Wright. She photographed each person as they presented their very own selves. The entire archive consisted of tens of thousands of portraits and she has given +/- 25.000 wallet-sized prints back to the portrayed. Her recent body of work, Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish, was released as a monograph in 2011. It consists of images that function as an archive of historical and contemporary homicide sites in New Orleans. She researched city police homicide reports and photographed the exact locations of the murders. "By approaching cityscapes through the disorienting context of homicide, the work disturbs the deep crust of stereotypical visual interpretations of New Orleans." Her work has been exhibited on numerous occasions, mainly in the USA. The following images come from the series Tooth for an Eye, One Big Self and Rosesucker Retablos.

Julio Bittencourt, 1980, Brazil, started his photographic career in 2000 as a photographer and assistant photo editor for the newspaper Valor Economico in Sao Paulo. Since 2006 he has been working as an independant photographer. In his series In a Window of Prestes Maia 911 Building he documented the residents of possibly the largest squat in the world. The building had been vacant for over a decade. In 2003 the 'Movement of the Homeless' had moved in hundreds of homeless families. They created a new community who drove out the vermin and drug dealers and created workshops and a library. In 2006 the new residents were told that they would be evicted. The project was released as a book in 2008. For his project Citizen X he focused on the housing problem in Brazil again. He shows abandoned spaces that represent "both a testament to the magnitude of the problemas well as a source of potential hope for change."  His personal project Ramos focuses on an artificial salt water lake surrounded by 15 favelas run by drug-trafficking gangs. Even though violence plagues the favelas, the park has been mostly free of problems. It is a crowded and polluted place where people enjoy the beach, sun and Brazilian rum. His work has been exhibited on numerous occasions worldwide and published in prestigious magazines as Time, Stern and GEO. The following images come from the series Ramos, Citizen X and In a Window of Prestes Maia 911 Building.

Bela Borsodi, 1966, Austria, studied graphic design and fine art before moving to New York in 1992. His work often incorporated photography but it wasn't until 1999 that he started to fully focus on still life photography, which is still the main direction of his work. He concentrates on editorial and advertising photography and is strongly influenced by his graphic background. He combines ordinary objects and puts them in an unusual context. In his much acclaimed series Foot Fetish for V Magazine he put images of naked bodies of women in awkward positions inside women shoes. For Yalook he created a series of photographs and videos in which clothing was folded to resemble a face that spoke. Amongst his advertising clients are Galeries Lafayette, Hermes, Nike and Puma. He has also created images for editorial clients and magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Another Magazine and Stern. The following images come from the editorial series Livraison #2: Hidden Objects, Tatler #19: Seperation and Stern #36: Aus dem Schatten Getreten.

450 of 500 Photographers have been featured on this website. 9/10th completed and 1/10th still to come.
To celebrate this milestone I would like to make you an offer you can't refuse. During the period of the next 50 photographers up until the completion of this website I'm offering my personal and signed photography book 'I believe in 88' at a 38% discount; it's an opportunity to support this website. Update 27-04: The package includes some cool 500 Photographers stickers.

Short project statement: "After a violent encounter with a group of neo-nazis at the age of 14 where Pieter Wisse was stabbed in the stomach, he decided to take a closer look at the daily life of the people who call themselves neo-nazis in former East Germany, a group of people at the edge of our society."

Lauren E. Simonutti, 1968, USA, passed away last week due to complications from her illness. On March 28th, 2006 she started hearing voices and was diagnosed with "rapid cycling, mixed state bipolar with schizoaffective disorder". She felt she was going mad and spent her last years almost in isolation. She turned the camera on herself and the space she was living in. She has left us with an impressive, honest and strong body of work. With her photographs she gave a voice to those that suffer in isolation.
"Over (five) years I have spent alone amidst these 8 rooms, 7 mirrors, 6 clocks, 2 minds and 199 panes of glass. And this is what I saw here. This is what I learned. I figure it could go one of two ways - I will either capture my ascension from madness to as much a level of sanity for which one of my composition could hope, or I will leave a document of it all, in the case that I should lose." - Lauren E. Simonutti
The following images come from the series The Devil's Alphabet and 8 Rooms, 7 Mirrors, 6 Clocks, 2 Minds & 199 Panes of Glass.

Sølve Sundsbø, 1970, Norway, is a fashion photographer and director based in London since 1995 where he studied at the London College of Printing. While studying he assisted world renowned photographer Nick Knight, who became an important mentor to him. Today Sølve is one of the leading photographers in his genre. Among his clients are big names as Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Gucci. He created editorials for the Italian Vogue, i-D and Interview. His series 14 Actors Acting, made for The New York Times, received an Emmy Award in 2011 for New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle and Culture. Solve has an experimental approach to his photography, using a vast amount of techniques and styles, creating larger-than-life, sophisticated and innovative images. He is not afraid to tread uncommon paths. For an YSL fragrance campaign he convinced them to create and use an image of a full-frontal male nude, causing some controversy. The following images come from Interview Magazine: Scarlett Johansson, Vogue Japan: The Virgin Spring and W Magazine: The Everchanging Face of Beauty.

Miti Ruangkritya, 1981, Thailand, studied Photojournalism at the University of Westminster. His work is mainly documentary based yet he tries not to restrict himself in any way. He is currently working on an ongoing project that consists of a polaroid installation placed on the beach of Nongkhai in Thailand. A dining table displays the polaroids without placeholders, inviting the viewers to pick up the images and be involved. By adding mattresses and swimming rings he wants to create a relaxed atmosphere for the audience to enjoy the work outside of a typical gallery exhibition. In his series On the Edge he took a closer look at Siem Reap, a city he had visited in 1991 when there was only one hotel and one bar. Today the city has massively exploded in size consisting of 5 star hotels, restaurants and bars. Miti viewed the city from a distance "from the vantage point of someone approaching (or perhaps momentarily escaping) the city." His work has been exhibited in London, Paris and Thailand and his portfolio will be featured in the May 2012 edition of the British Journal of Photography. The following images come from the series Imagining Flood, Northern Route and On the Edge.

Rania Matar, 1964, Lebanon/USA, is a documentary photographer who was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to the USA in 1984. Her career started as an architect before studying photography at the New England School of Photography. She concentrates mainly on women and women's issues as identity and religion both in the US as in the Middle East. In 2009 she released the book Ordinary Lives and this spring her second monograph, A Girl and her Room, will be coming out. This series, inspired by her eldest daughter, focuses on teenage girls within their own private spaces. Both the forthcoming book and her younger daughter were the inspirations for her latest body of work entitled L'Enfant-Femme (the Child-Women). She portrays young teens and pre-teens without giving them instructions apart from not smiling. Due to the freedom the girls have to pose in their own way; they portray an array of emotions and clues to their true self. The angst, confidence and/or body language reveal their sense of selfhood and the developing sense of womanhood. As the teenagers still fluctuate between being a child and a women, Rania asks herself whether "they are meant to see themselves as little girls, teenagers or as young women?" Since 2002 she has also been taking photographs of her four children showing the various stages of their lives. The following images come from the series L'Enfant-Femme, Christian Arabs and Family Moments.

Brent Stirton, 1969, South-Africa, is a photojournalist and documentary photographer who focuses on issues related to conflict, health and the environment. He has traveled extensively to places as Timbuktu, Yemen, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and India. He is the official photographer for the Global Business Coalition against Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Twice he visited the Ukraine, a country with the highest concentration of HIV+ people in Europe, to document the victims of Aids and the social workers and doctors who improve the lives of the infected. His goal was to humanize the disease through his photography and to lessen fear and prejudice against those who live with the disease. His work has received numerous awards amongst which are five awards from the World Press Photo Foundation and six from the Lucie Foundation. His images have been shown in a vast amount of exhibits including one at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and has been published in leading magazines as the National Geographic Magazine, Time, Newsweek and Stern. The following images come from the stories Tuareg Rebels Niger, Aids, Drugs & Uncertainty: Ukraine and Narco-wars in Afghanistan.

Tomasz Gudzowaty, 1971, Poland, studied law at the University of Warsaw before starting a career in photography. He started as a nature photographer, turned to social documentary work and is currently focusing on documentary sports photography. He concentrates mostly on non-commercial sports, sports that are not present in the media or those that are somehow different from the mainstream sports. Examples of these activities are pole dancing, sumo wrestling, wrestling and urban golf in India, Lucha Libre; a Mexican version of free wrestling, car racing in Mexico, freerunning, Mongolian horseracing, Chinese gymnasts and synchronized swimming. Tomasz tells his stories in the form of photo-essays. His strong and powerful black and white images are made with a large format analogue camera. His work, consisting of a vast amount of projects, has appeared in numerous exhibitions and magazines as Newsweek, Time and The Guardian and has won a large number of awards amongst which are the World Press Photo and NPPA Best of Photojournalism. The following images come from the essays Naadam Race, Lucha Libre and Pole Dancers' Families.

Michael von Graffenried, 1957, Switzerland, started his career as a photojournalist in 1978. Today he lives in Paris and works on long term projects often dealing with themes of ethnology. He uses a panoramic analog camera using 35mm film yet creating impressive large-scale photographs. For Michael content comes before technology and his choice for the panoramic format came somewhat by accident. He was in Algeria during the 1990's when tension was high documenting the daily life during and after the civil war. The panoramic camera proved usefull as one can keep it on the chest while taking images. People can see the camera yet do not know that an image has been taken. Once Michael saw the results he realised the aesthetic part of this format and decided to use it. His socially engaged stories and narrative images are strong, daring and sometimes provocative. He has been in numerous exhibitions and released an enormous amount of monographs between 1980 and today. The following images come from the series Eye on Africa, Cocainelove and War without Images.

Laurence Demaison, 1965, France, studied at the School of Architecture of Strasbourg before she started making self-portraits in 1993. Her vast body of work is almost exclusively constituted of photographs of herself. She does not digitally manipulate the images nor does she manipulate the photographs after they have been shot with the exception of chemical inversion for some series. All the techniques she uses are analog and done by herself. The various series have a large array of emotions. They can be poetic, fragile and classical, yet sometimes they are quirky, haunting or even freaky. She is a photographer who seeks the bounderies of what can be done within analog photography and successfully crosses them with grace. Laurence has exhibited her work on numerous occasions, mainly in Western Europe and New York. The photographs have also been released in several monographs. The following images come from the series La Chambre Noire, La Poseuse and Les Bulles.

Myriam Abdelaziz, 1976, is a French photographer of Egyptian origins and born in Cairo. Her career started in the marketing field in which she worked for seven years after having studied Political Science and Journalism. She decided to pursue a career in photography and graduated from the International Center of Photography in New York in 2006. Since then her work has been published in prestigious magazines as Newsweek, Time Magazine and Eyemazing. She is mainly working on documentary and portraiture stories in the Middle East and Africa. Her work often focuses on current matters as the hardships of the people from Darfur living in Egypt and the revolution in Egypt. She concentrated on the horrific effects of the Rwandan genocide on its survivors who were merely children at the time they were mutilated. She heard the upsetting stories of the victims but was equally shocked by the lack of response from the world community as they are still not getting surgery or psychiatric help. The following images come from the series Egyptian Revolt, Portrait of a Genocide and Darfuris in Cairo.

Photography without a lens? Xavier Lucchesi, 1959, France, uses X-rays and the most efficient scanners to create his bizarre images. He makes images while going through the matter of small and large objects, from animals, bodies, paintings of Picasso to entire trucks. Even though X-ray goes straight through matter it still shows various details of the objects, sometimes revealing secrets invisible to and hidden from the naked eye. Xavier shows us what we can only imagine but also creates a new reality, one that is based on solid objects becoming fantastical entities. His work has been exhibited on numerous occasions, mainly in Europe and Asia. The following images come from the series Radioportraits, Automates and Trafic.

Vincent Fournier, 1970, France, is an image-maker who combines documentary and staged photography. He studied photography at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles. His ongoing series entitled Space Project reflects his fascination for the space age. His inspiration stems from various things in his youth and by watching movies as 2001: A Space Odessey and Solaris. His large scale images contain an aspect of humor, mainly due to carefully placing his subjects and objects. For this project, as well as his other personal works, he has traveled around the globe. Tour Operator is a body of work inspired by the book Around the world in 80 days by Jules Vernes. He has documented the transformation of landscapes and the interaction between mankind and the environment. In an intelligent and witty manner he directs our eyes to the bizarre and the usual. In his project The Man Machine he carefully staged robots in urban settings and the spaces where they are being developed. Both his projects Tour Operator and Space Project have been released as books. The following images come from the series Space Project, Tour Operator and The Man Machine.

Tereza Vlčková, 1983, Czech Republic, is a conceptual and fine-art photographer currently studying at the Silesian University in Opava, the Institute of Creative Photography. In 2007 she completed the series A Perfect Day, Elise... showing floating girls with a mountainous background. Since then she has been in numerous exhibitions amongst which are Paris Photo in 2010 and 2011 and the traveling reGeneration2 group show. Throughout her series we find deeper layers dealing with themes as fear, the self and dreams. In her series Two she photographed indentical twins in a scary forest setting. The project deals with the questions of the "I" and the psychology of how we perceive ourselves. She seeks a fine line between fiction and reality. Are all of the twins truly twins or have some been created merely showing an alter-ego of some of the girls? Her work has been featured in a large number of photography / art magazines and catalogs as Exit, Picnic and Photonews. The following images come from the series Mirrors Inside, Two and A Perfect Day, Elise...

Claire Martin, 1980, Australia, is a documentary photographer with a focus on marginalised communities. In 2007 and 2008 she concentrated on Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Even though Vancouver is a city that was twice voted "the worlds most liveable", the residents of this part live below the poverty line. The suburb has an estimated AIDS rate of 30% and the leading cause of death is overdose. In 2009 she visited Slab City where she focused on the permanent residents of this community in the Colorado desert. It "is a place for the broken and desperate and for the fierce defenders of freedom from tyranny." In 2010 and 2011 she went to Haiti to document the aftermath of the earthquake. "Every spare piece of land has turned into a tent city and whole suburbs and major infrastructure lay demolished, essentially turning and entire city into a slum." Claire has exhibited her work in solo shows in Australia and has been in various group exhibitions around the world. In 2010 she won the Magnum Foundation Inge Morath award for female photographers under the age of 30. She is a member of the prestigious Australian photo collective Oculi. The following images come from the series Petionville - Life in Haiti's Tent Cities, Slab City and Downtown East Side.

Colin Delfosse, 1981, Belgium, is a documentary photographer who studied Journalism. Together with three other photographers he founded the Out of Focus collective in 2005. As a collective (5 photographers) they focus on social issues. One of his latest projects focuses on Kazakhstan where he concentrates on the Soviet legacy in the country, still visually present. In 2010 he portrayed a large number of Congolese wrestlers and the culture around it. This series won the PDN photo annual award in 2011. Colin has traveled extensively for his strong and intimate projects. He has been to countries as China, Mali and Iraqi Kurdistan where he documented the movement of the Free Women of Kurdistan movement. Colin's work has been featured in The New York Times, Le Monde and The International Herald Tribune to name a few. The following images come from the series Polygon - Soviet Legacy in Kazakhstan, part I, Congolese Wrestlers and The PKK Amazons.

Chen Man, 1980, China, is a commercial photographer who focuses on fashion, beauty and style. In 2005 she received a B.A. in photography and media studio at the central Academy of Fine Arts. It was before she graduated that she had already begun to shoot the covers for the new magazine Vision. The covers she created between 2003 and 2007 were unique within the history of Chinese covers. Her manipulated photography is colorful, lucious, bright and fantastical. The images are often completed in post-production where she goes over the top, creating new dimensions and worlds. Her work has been exhibited throughout the world since 2004. Amongst her commercial clients are companies as Lancôme, Lee and Sisley and her images have appeared in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Elle. The following images come from the series New China, Environmental Protection and Red Beauty.

Pierre Crocquet, 1971, South Africa, started a career in the merchant-banking sector only to find out that his choice of career was flawed. Therefore he studied photography at the London College of Printing. He returned to South Africa and embarked on a photographic career. Since 2002 he released five books of which the latest is entitled Pinky Promise. It is an exploration into the terrain of child sexual abuse. During a period of three years Pierre combined seven stories of abuse, survival and healing in the monograph. The book breaks newground by including the stories of not only the victims, but also the perpetrators of child sexual abuse. In 2008 he released Enter Exit, a book showing the inhabitants of an isolated, small, multi-racial community. "The isolated community became a portal through which to explore facets of the human psyche." It is a very strong collection of black and white portraits. His work has been exhibited on numerous occasions throughout the world. The following images come from the series Pinky Promise, Enter Exit and Us.

Corey Arnold, 1976, USA, is an Alaskan commercial fisherman as well as a documentary photographer. He received a BFA in photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. In 2011 he released the book Fish-Work: The Bering Sea which includes images that were made between 2003 and 2010 while he was working as a deckhand on the Bering Sea crabber f/v Rollo. The series Fish-Work doesn't stop there, it is a life long project and has also taken him to various European countries capturing the lifestyle of fishermen. One of his latest series is Wolf Tide which includes a mixture of experiences as a fisherman, rural encounters with unsuspecting wildlife and dramatic landscapes. Nowadays he captains a wild salmon gillnetting operation in Bristol Bay while working on photo assignments and gallery exhibitions in the off season. His work has appeared in numerous magazines as The New Yorker, Esquire and Juxtapoz. In 2009 he was named one of the PDN's top 30 emerging photographers. The following images come from the series Wolf Tide, Fish-Work Bering Sea and Graveyard Point.

Due to all other activities, my photography was at a historic low point, but we'll be back!