Photographer Profiles

If there’s one thing to be learned from a 27-year career shooting for the New York Daily News, covering everything from breaking news to sports, food to fashion, it’s to keep your eyes open. David Handschuh calls this photo “the ultimate walking around with your eyes open picture.”

Designer toys got their start in Japan and China but their uniqueness (and the fact that they are so freaky/cute) soon propelled them to red-hot global collectable status. Produced as limited editions, some of these vinyl creations can be worth thousands of dollars to dedicated collectors.

Nashville-based photographer Ryan Roberts began by creating whimsical images of vintage toys but he soon discovered the odd (and a bit warped) world of designer vinyl toys by artists such as Frank Kozik (Mongers Menthols series), Doma (Acid Sweeties series) and Pete Fowler (Monsterism series). It was then he knew he had the perfect photo subject for the fantastic scenes he saw in his head.

Andrei Duman shot this beautiful, ghostly image in Kolmanskop, a German ghost town in the Namib Desert in Southern Namibia, Africa. The town was once the heart of a diamond rush in the 1900s that drew hordes of German miners. But when the diamond fields dried up after World War I, the miners left the town and it was abandoned in 1954.

Can you picture yourself burying a C-print in the ground halfway around the world? Or perhaps dunking a print in a lake, processing a print with tar from the La Brea Tar Pits, or streaming electricity through an entire photo exhibit interconnected with live wires to switch on a light bulb? And all for the sole purpose of artistic expression? That defines the uniquely imaginative and forward-thinking work of Matthew Brandt.

Just how influential is photographer Jeremy Cowart? Wi-Fi card manufacturer Eyefi recently named him the “most socially influential photographer” in the world. But for Cowart, the operative word is “social,” even more so than “social media.” His online efforts go well beyond using online sharing sites to simply promote his image and his work. He’s out to change the world.

Successfully capturing dancers with grace, style, and a certain sensibility for how they move takes a discerning and artistic eye. Equally, it takes an appreciation and understanding of how dancers do what they do to be able to capture just the right moment. And all that defines the photography and lighting techniques of Lois Greenfield.