PDN's 30 2018

’s 2018

Our Choic3e of New And Emerging Photographers To Watch0 Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi Sarah Blesener Ted Cavanaugh Matthew Cicanese Cody Cobb Gabriella Demczuk Kyle Dorosz Emile Ducke Kholood Eid Alina Fedorenko Johanna-Maria Fritz Julia Gartland Jennifer Garza-Cuen Matthew Genitempo Laurel Golio Brian Guido R. J. Kern Joyce Kim Daria Kobayashi Ritch Álvaro Laiz Eva O’Leary Brad Ogbonna Paola + Murray Jordi Pizarro Hannah Reyes Morales Maggie Shannon Danna Singer Daniele Volpe o Cole Wilson

Geni t e m p An Rong Xu tt he w

Editor’s Note on a new personal project work in Latin America, or in Diana be nice to people,” says Dorosz. Reading through the stories of every month for a year, which Zeyneb Alhindawi’s choice to Photojournalists Jordi Pizarro these 30 photographers, I was helped her improve as a invest her savings and move to the and Johanna-Maria Fritz address reminded of something writer photographer. Ted Cavanaugh Congo to make work. Then, too, the importance of respecting your Ta-Nehisi Coates said in an talks about the importance of there’s the other work of running a subjects by investing time with interview with The Atlantic relentlessly pursuing a body of business. Cole Wilson talks about them, or protecting them if in 2013. In talking about the work, “oftentimes without any learning as an assistant to Michael they’re vulnerable. challenging process of turning a recognition,” at the beginning of Friberg the work of “finances, When we’re looking at two- good idea into a finished work, your career. Alina Fedorenko says emails, managing clients and dimensional images, we can he said: “I strongly believe that that “always” creating new work to fighting for what you deserve.” sometimes lose sight of the physical writing is an act of courage. It’s show potential clients is crucial, There are a lot of other insights work that went into their making. almost an act of physical courage.” while Brian Guido describes here about building a photography As you read these profiles, I hope Making something—a story, a persevering through periods of low career. Joyce Kim and Daria you’ll think a bit about the effort— body of work—can be grueling, confidence. “When in doubt, keep Kobayashi Ritch talk about being and intention—that underpin the requiring repetition and refinement shooting,” he says. Danna Singer selective (when you can) about images. As Sarah Blesener notes, and the will to work with intensity. echoes this when she advocates the jobs you take so you aren’t being a professional photographer The idea applies to any creative using rejection as a motivator, stretched too thin by projects that is not about “waiting for the right pursuit, and we see evidence not a deterrent. won’t further your career in the time or the right opportunities,” of this “physical courage” in the There’s also courage evident long term. Kyle Dorosz and Brad it’s about “taking risks and stories of these photographers. in Daniele Volpe’s decision to Ogbonna emphasize the value whenever possible, taking the Laurel Golio, for instance, leave his engineering job to pursue of building a network of clients less-traveled route.” committed herself to working human rights and social justice and peers. “It’s a small world, —Conor Risch

28 pdnonline.com April 2018 ’s 2018 PDN thanks the following people for nominating photographers for the Our Choic3e of New And Emerging 2018 PDN’s 30: Photographers To Watch

0 Alice Gabriner, Kathy Ryan, to See more images by the 2018 PDN’s 30 Photographers, Visit PDNs30.com freelance photo editor The New York Aline Smithson, Times Magazine LENSCRATCH Korin Thorig, Alyssa Coppelman, West Elm photo editor, consultant Kris Graves, Ami Vitale, Kris Graves Projects photographer Laura Moya, Photolucida Art streiber, photographer Laura Pressley, CENTER Ashley Lumb, curator Maggie Kennedy, Garden & Gun Ashlyn Davis, Houston Center Maggie Soladay, for Photography Open Society Foundations Asmara Pelupessy, NOOR Marvin Heiferman, SVA Bailey Franklin, Variety Mary Snow Fletcher, Toby Kaufmann, Bob O’Connor, Refinery29 photographer Brent Lewis, Mary Virginia ESPN’s The Undefeated Swanson, consultant Bryan Derballa, photographer Michael Itkoff, Daylight Charles Traub, SVA Michael Mack, Mack Books Chelsea Matiash, James Estrin, Jeffrey Mike Davis, Henson Scales, S. I. Newhouse School, The New York Times Syracuse University Clinton Cargill, Monique Deschaines, Bloomberg Businessweek EUQINOMprojects Danese Kenon, Nick Hall, The Tampa Bay Times photographer Elizabeth Krist, Paul Schiek, freelance photo editor TBW Books Gabriel Stromberg, Peter DiCampo, Civilization Everyday Africa, photographer Greg Garry, OUT Ross Taylor, Hamidah Glasgow, photographer Center for Fine Art Photography Samantha Johnston, Colorado Photographic Hannah Frieser and Arts Center Miriam Romais, Center for Photography at Sarah Stacke, Woodstock photographer and writer Ihiro Hayami, Sasha Wolf, Tokyo Institute Sasha Wolf Projects of Photography Stanley Wolukau- Jacqueline Bates, Wanambwa, photographer and writer d O g b o nna © B ra The California Sunday Magazine Tara-Lynne Pixley, PDN thanks the Sponsors of PDN’s 30 for their support of this issue Jeff Jacobson, photographer and of the PDN’s 30 educational programs. photographer Wiktoria Jehan Jillani, Michałkiewicz, Jennifer Samuel, curator, agent, producer Moira Haney, Yancey Richardson, Sarah Leen, Yancey Richardson National Geographic Gallery

30 pdnonline.com April 2018 Daniele Volpe focuses on human Eight years ago, while they were both photo assistants, Paola rights and social justice in Latin America, Ambrosi de Magistris and Murray Hall met and showed each other their but he grew up in a small town in Italy. He work. They knew immediately they would either compete against one moved to Guatemala in 2006 after he had another or collaborate. Collaboration—and love—won out. earned an engineering degree in Rome, only First, they found common ground in a “photojournalistic/reportage to find himself bored by office life. Volpe approach” to shooting. Over the years, as they built portfolios, their style left his job and volunteered in Guatemala’s became elegant and graphic. But it was hard: two creators, one end product. Western Highlands with Italian humanitarian “Getting past our egos and creating something from love and passion was organization Caritas Italiana. After two years the key to overcoming all the obstacles,” says Ambrosi de Magistris. in the countryside, he moved to Guatemala Ambrosi de Magistris assisted Andrea Gentl and Marty Hyers, who taught City. One of the first friends he made there her to “work hard, be humble, patient; love and breathe photography.” Hall was then-AP staff photographer Rodrigo Abd. says every photographer he assisted “was a mentor in some way or another.” “I did a web search and it was a great A pivotal assignment for them as a team was a Condé Nast Traveler surprise to know he was an award-winning cover story about Italy’s Dolomites. Says Ambrosi de Magistris, “Clients photojournalist. I had no experience [with] still talk to us about it. It was a candid moment; we learned that in many how to work as a photojournalist, [even] less cases those turn out to be the most authentic photographs.” in as complicated a country as Guatemala. Clients have given them opportunities to expand their repertoire. “From The friendship with Rodrigo was the the food we photograph on our travel assignments, lately we have been greatest workshop I took,” Volpe says. asked to reproduce that feeling in studio food shoots,” says Hall. “We get In 2013, The Wall Street Journal gave attention for our use of color, its vibrancy and the emotions it exudes. I think him his first assignment. He learned an we have taken this technique forward since we started photographing food.” important lesson looking at how editor Apart from a website, Instagram account, agency blog and mail blasts Julien Jourdes edited his story. “I learned… to clients, Ambrosi de Magistris says, “word of mouth has been our best how the story could get power. From then, promoter.” The lesson for anyone starting out: over-deliver. Photo editor Daniele Volpe I paid more attention [to editing] when I Nancy Jo Iacoi observes: “They know how to dig in and cover a project looked at colleagues’ works and exhibitions. by capturing more than what was assigned. Another important piece to AGE: 36 Freelancers often edit their own work before their success is their kindness. It’s not just how they shoot; the access BORN: Priverno, Italy pitching it to media, so this ‘discovery’ was they receive is a testament to their approach and openness.” RESIDES: Guatemala City, Guatemala really useful for me,” Volpe explains. —Anna Van Lenten EDUCATION: Self-taught Since then, he has pursued personal WEBSITE: danielevolpe.com projects locally, entered awards competitions, CLIENTS: GEO, International Committee of the Red Cross, published a book and exhibited in Italy and The New York Times, Stern, UNHCR, UNICEF Guatemala. The book, Chukel, is the fruit of EXHIBITIONS: Festival della Fotografia Etica, Lodi, Italy; his long-term project about the Ixil genocide Istituto Italiano de Cultura, Guatemala City, Guatemala in Guatemala. He continues that work, but AWARDS: Foundry Photojournalism Fellowship; also spent the last two years investigating Eddie Adams Workshop; POY Latam (Photographer of the Year Latin America), 2nd Place Central America’s refugee migration and the BEST ADVICE: “I was an engineering student when I met Paolo Pellegrin in Rome. I naively asked wider crisis it has fueled in the Americas. him about how to become a photojournalist. He answered something like: ‘If you have a story to “I came here thinking it would be for a year, tell, you’ll get it.’ It was simple advice, but it still moves me to this day. My interpretation of that and one became two, and two became four,” was always, ‘Find your own story, tell the story your way.’... That’s why I think it is important to be Volpe says. “It’s my base now.” a + Murray ol a + Murray emotionally close to the issue.” —Dzana Tsomondo a © P All P h otos

Paola + Murray AGE: Paola Ambrosi de Magistris, 39; Murray Hall, 38 BORN: Paola: Rome; Murray: Sydney RESIDE: Brooklyn, NY EDUCATION: Paola: Istituto Superiore di Fotografia, Rome; Murray: Design Centre Enmore, Sydney WEBSITE: pamu.com CLIENTS: Condé Nast Traveler, The New York Times Magazine, Departures, Food & Wine, Virgin Australia Voyeur magazine, Pentagram, MGM Bellagio

e V ol pe l e © Danie All P h otos BEST ADVICE: “Leave no stone unturned.”

32 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 33 Kholood Eid AGE: 30 BORN: St. Louis, MO RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY EDUCATION: Webster University, Webster Groves, MO; University of Missouri The images we see of the natural world on social WEBSITE: kholoodeid.com media and in popular culture often focus on “the human CLIENTS: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN’s experience of the landscape or showing how we interact The Undefeated, Reuters, Bloomberg Businessweek, Refinery29, Lifetime with the land,” notes photographer Cody Cobb. “I’m trying EXHIBITIONS: University of Delaware, Newark; Open Show, New York City to do something that shows the land itself, or a more AWARDS: IWMF Adelante Reporting Fellowship, Eddie Adams Workshop internal connection with the land.” His photographs are BEST ADVICE: “One thing I try to stress with my students is that, if they don’t agree with keenly observed, reverent studies of the interactions of the narrative being presented in the media about a certain issue or community, they can light, color and weather with the natural world, and they change it. If they feel they’re being misrepresented, they can tell their stories or their evoke the “feeling of calm and stillness” that comes with community’s stories as they see fit.” “being alone in big places.” Cobb creates his images on solo missions into wilderness areas. He’s interested in less-traveled “landscapes that don’t have a name,” and vistas that aren’t frequently photographed. Even when he’s hiking a well known route, he’s more interested in “the things Journalism school taught Kholood you pass on the way to viewpoints.” He’s deliberate in his Eid the journalist’s code: Don’t befriend process, shooting sparingly and waiting several weeks subjects; don’t make the story about or more to review his images, even when he’s shooting yourself. It also taught her when to bend the with a digital camera. rules. Looking at her work, one professor Though he’s made photographs for several years said, “So, you’re a graphic shooter and that’s while freelancing as a designer of motion graphics, it’s great, but you use people as props in your only in the past year that Cobb has actively pursued pictures and there’s a distance between a career in photography. He took his work to the you and them.” She was working on a series Exposure LA and Filter Photo Festival portfolio reviews, about mental illness, influenced in part

y C o bb y where he connected with editors, gallerists and fellow by her own experience with depression. photographers and got “guidance about what I can The professor’s critique moved her to do with the images and how I can build a career.” He’s spend more time and share meals with her pursuing exhibitions and publishing opportunities as well subjects, “and share more of myself with them. It’s such a privilege that we get to pop © C od All P h otos as travel and editorial work. —Conor Risch into their lives, the least we can do is share a little of ourselves in return.” She continues to work on her mental Cody Cobb health series when time and money allow. AGE: 33 Her other in-depth projects have covered BORN: Shreveport, LA women in Haifa, Israel, and women in RESIDES: Seattle Colombia helping each other recover from WEBSITE: codycobb.com war and sexual violence. That project CLIENTS: Aesop, The California challenges the “male-dominated narrative” Sunday Magazine, Filson, about life in conflict regions, she says. Samsung, Wiede+Kennedy Eid has met editors and mentors EXHIBITIONS: Lenz Photography through word of mouth, working with the Festival, Manchester, UK; Bronx Documentary Center and attending Black Eye Gallery, Sydney; the Eddie Adams Workshop. For a time, FOCUS Photo LA, Los Angeles; the assignments she got didn’t reflect her FotoFilmic touring exhibition sensibility. Then she began using Instagram AWARDS: Photolucida Critical to share “the type of work that I was Mass Top 50; PDN Emerging interested in and resonated with me more.” Photographer; PDN Exposure The payoff came when The Wall Street BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “Finding Journal hired her to make a portrait of an my own voice or trying to make ISIS defector without revealing his face. landscape photography compelling because it’s something we’ve seen so much It landed on page 1. Eid says, “It was great of…It’s not about making these images, it’s about being out in these places, and to have someone say, ‘If you want to apply maybe that opens me up to new observations while I’m out there, just being at your weird moodiness to a Wall Street peace with it, not trying to force images. Being OK with not shooting anything Journal assignment, great.’”

when I’m out there.” E i d © Kh olood All P h otos —Holly Stuart Hughes

34 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 35 As an undergraduate, Brad Ogbonna studied international relations and political science, because Johanna- he was interested in “culture, traveling, immersing Maria myself in different places.” Now, having turned his Fritz long-time interest in photography into a career, AGE: 23 “I’ve been able to work on projects that have BORN: Malsch, related to what I initially set out to do.” Recently, Germany for example, he photographed a playwright for RESIDES: Berlin The New York Times, then a few days later went to EDUCATION: the Congo with painter Kehinde Wiley, a long-time Ostkreuzschule client, to document Wiley’s latest project. für Fotografie, Berlin He first used photography to document other WEBSITE: johannamariafritz.de cultures when, in late 2011, he traveled to Nigeria CLIENTS: Der Spiegel, ZEITmagazin, for the first time since childhood to attend his father’s Le Monde, National Geographic funeral. He stayed two months, shooting photos and EXHIBITIONS: Reykjavík Museum of videos. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, he Photography, Iceland; P7 Gallery, was able to self-publish a book of the work. It caught Berlin; United Photo Industries, the attention of Diesel apparel marketers, who hired Brooklyn, NY; Tan Gallery 798, him to shoot a project in three cities in Africa. Beijing; Photobastei, Zurich Self-taught, Ogbonna says that assisting New York AWARDS: Kolga Tbilisi Photo Newcomer photographer Aaron Richter steadily from 2013 to Prize; Feature Shoot Emerging 2016 trained him in the business side of photography, Photography Award; Magnum Foundation including managing sets and “administrative things Inge Morath Award like contracts, invoices [and] negotiating rates.” He had landed some assignments—including his job BEST ADVICE: “Be flexible and don’t documenting Wiley’s work—through word of mouth push stories. I work with super-sensitive and connections. But two years ago, he got serious themes. If I have an appointment with about promoting his work. He mailed a booklet of his someone to shoot or talk or follow up, favorite work of the year to several editors, and got and they don’t show up, it’s OK. I don’t an immediate response from The FADER, The New F ri tz J o hanna-Maria © All P h otos give up. It’ll happen.” York Times and others. Last year he signed with Redux Pictures, and together they’ve expanded his mailing list. “I’ve been able to drum up a lot of new work this way and at the very least stay on people’s radar,” he For Johanna-Maria Fritz, the moral hand wringing over whether says. Regularly posting assignment and personal or not to intervene in a situation while shooting is a no-brainer. work on Instagram “has been really helpful,” he adds. Two ongoing projects embody this ethos. One is about the Whether shooting portraits, fashion or his travels, strength and shame of a heroin-addicted woman in Kabul. The other what Ogbonna enjoys most is getting “to connect is a Polaroid series on homeless male sex workers who came to Berlin with people.” He notes: “The editors who know me as refugees. Giving the refugees control over how they’re portrayed, know I’m easy to work with and build a rapport with she and her collaborator, Charlotte Schmitz, let the young men people pretty fast. I can break down awkwardness. decide whether they want to keep the Polaroids for themselves or That’s one of my greatest strengths.” allow them to be published. Fritz and Schmitz are also organizing a

d O g b o nna © B ra All P h otos —Holly Stuart Hughes mentorship program for the refugees. “The Berlin project changed my idea of what it means to be a photographer,” she says. Her commitment to her subjects was instilled by her six-year friendship and mentorship with photographer Daniel Josefsohn, Brad Ogbonna who died last year. “He helped me meet editors. He was tough and AGE: 29 fun and brave.” Josephson once said: “If you go to a country at war, BORN: Saint Paul, Minnesota go to the people and put clown noses on them.” Fritz thought the RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY advice was silly. Two years later, she started a project on circuses EDUCATION: University of in Iran, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, and understood Wisconsin-River Falls Josefsohn had simply been urging her to “connect to your subjects.” WEBSITE: bradogbonna.com Respecting the privacy of subjects in her Berlin and Kabul CLIENTS: Google, Airbnb, The New York Times, projects, Fritz does not show faces. Other elements tell the story: The FADER, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Esquire two arms hugging a tree trunk, needle marks on the Kabul woman’s EXHIBITIONS: CAGE Gallery, New York City hand. The mystery sparks our imagination and allows us to sense BEST ADVICE: “I don’t remember who told me this first: ‘Being a successful that the person in the picture could be someone we know—or us. professional photographer has less to do with how good your pictures are Fritz continues to seek mentors, connect with photo community and more to do with how good your relationship skills are.’ I’ve learned that members, and apply for grants and awards. She remains while it is important to have work that is good, navigating photography as persistent: “Understand that mostly there’s failure. It’s normal. an actual career has a lot to do with the relationships you form over time, Don’t worry if no one is answering you; everyone has this feeling.” whether that’s with editors, art directors, buyers, etc.” —Anna Van Lenten

36 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 37 Ted Cavanaugh AGE: 29 BORN: Kalamazoo, MI RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY EDUCATION: Rochester Institute of Technology WEBSITE: tedcavanaugh.com CLIENTS: Bon Appétit, Bloomingdale’s, Bloomberg Pursuits, Men’s Health, Shape, The Wall Street Journal BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “It’s so easy to compare yourself to others, and let that get you down. I think the most important thing is to believe in yourself wholeheartedly, and to never make an excuse as to why z a-Cuen Jennifer Gar © All P h otos something isn’t happening. To begin a career as a photographer, one must relentlessly make a body of work, oftentimes without any recognition.”

Jennifer Garza-Cuen’s fine-art Jennifer Garza-Cuen photography is driven by her fascination AGE: 45 with place as a defining characteristic BORN: Seattle of individual identity. “What is it that RESIDES: Corpus Christi, TX makes us of a place?” is the question EDUCATION: The American University in Cairo; underlying her ongoing project called Rhode Island School of Design “Imag[in]ing America,” for which she has WEBSITE: garza-cuen.com been immersing herself in disparate EXHIBITIONS: Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; American locales—Reno, Detroit and Last year, still-life photographer Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY; Light Work, Syracuse, a rural Vermont town called Eden, to Ted Cavanaugh posted a behind-the-scenes, time- a Gi lmo re NY; Site:Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY; The Light Factory, Charlotte, NC; name several. The images she makes lapse video showing how he and some collaborators © As US Pavilion—Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 are “simultaneously real and staged” to produced the August cover of Bon Appétit: an AWARDS: Robert Rauschenberg Residency Award, Photolucida; Light Work Artist-in-Residence; reflect the essence of national, regional image of a peach cut in half. The video, which Research Enhancement Grant, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi and local identities. condenses parts of three days of shooting to 90 BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “One persistent challenge is knowing when not to make images. “I’m looking for what remains of seconds, shows Cavanaugh is never alone on the Photographs are so ubiquitous, they’ve become a cultural compulsion, and making them often gets place-based distinctions while also trying set. The crew talks, sets up, laughs, rearranges in the way of lived experience, which gets in the way of more deliberate kinds of image-making.” to capture an essential American-ness,” props, moves equipment, shoots, then repeats. she says. Such collaborations have been crucial to Garza-Cuen started the project in Cavanaugh’s career: “I found that my most meaningful search of her own identity. In her late relationships were built while on-set of a photo shoot.” teens, she backpacked around Central The video also reveals that being a professional and South America. She attended The photographer is more than taking photos. “Most American University in Cairo, and spent of my time is spent invoicing, retouching, paying summers traveling in Europe. Her camera vendors, preparing taxes and maintaining “was often my only companion. It was workflows and metadata,” he says. But all these a mediator that gave me license to be tasks are important. “I’ve learned that there are no places that were really uncomfortable.” shortcuts, and that running a small business is an After university, she cold-called all-encompassing lifestyle that doesn’t end when photographers’ agents in London, and the shoot is over.” ended up assisting several commercial Cavanaugh began assisting in 2011, “and photographers, including Grey Zisser, my first published commission was in 2015.” In John Lamb and Rankin. between, he was building a portfolio, and learning Garza-Cuen’s return to the U.S. was from photographers he assisted such as Martin inspired in part by a Hemingway line “that Wonnacott and Travis Rathbone. “During my years says artists have to put their feet back as an assistant, I learned that the most successful on their own soil to [create] anything photographers are, among many things, extremely of consequence,” she says. “There was accommodating, quick to solve issues and never something gnawing about it and I knew I leave perfection to chance,” he says. would have to deal with it at some point.” His goal, he says, is to satisfy his customers. Having a hard time re-assimilating, she “Many of the photographers that I assisted for and g h anau

once again turned to her camera. “That’s v admire to this day are all extremely passionate where a lot of that ‘Imag[in]ing America’ about their work, feel fortunate to be in their work came from,” she says. “‘What makes position and never complain. Additionally, they me of America?’ That’s a question you always put their client’s happiness first. I feel as can ask for a very long time.” though these traits are great traits to live by.”

—David Walker Te d Ca © All P h otos —Terry Sullivan

38 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 39 Daria Kobayashi Ritch was a student at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena when she got her first big assignment: a 10-page story in Nylon on the year’s hot trends

in beauty. “I definitely was surprised, and I think a lot of my H L I G T TC A peers were surprised,” she says, but the job didn’t come out of

the blue. It was the result of effort that Kobayashi Ritch traces AN D C T I O N

as far back as fourth grade, when she entered her first photo A contest. Today she is an in-demand photographer whose clients range from Converse to Diane Von Furstenberg. Her dreamy, romantic portraits and fashion work have been published in A L E X IA F O UN D Vogue, W and i-D, and earned her more than 50,000 Instagram

followers. Since graduating in 2015, “I really haven’t stopped T HE OM

working—it’s kind of my life.” FR T Kobayashi Ritch began to take photography seriously in O R high school, when she started to study independently with two photographers she knew through her mom, a graphic designer. After transferring from UCLA to ArtCenter, she interned and was “constantly making work on the side” to submit to publications. A few weeks after she graduated, she shot her first ad campaign. “And it just kind of kept going from there,” she says. W I T H S UPP B L E S ENER /M A D ARAH Though classes at ArtCenter covered some practical topics, “you don’t really know how to do it until you get out,” she says. “This past year I just realized the benefits of having multiple

assistants that really know what they’re doing.” She also asks © S All P h otos for advice from people in the industry. Early success meant that for a while, “I was saying yes to everything, because everything sounded exciting,” she says. “It got to the point where I was stretched too thin.” Last year When Sarah Blesener studied at the International she signed with Jones Management. Her agent had her write Sarah Center of Photography, an instructor advised her to buy down “my reach clients, the things I wanted to do,” which has Blesener a one-way ticket out of New York City. She flew to Russia helped steer her. One goal is to take on high-fashion campaigns. AGE: 26 immediately after graduation to begin her first personal She is also focusing on shooting work for herself, and has BORN: Minneapolis project: “Toy Soldiers,” about paramilitary training programs recently made a few motion pieces. Today, she says, “I have more RESIDES: New York City for Russian teens. of an idea of where I’m headed, but it changes as I keep working.” EDUCATION: International Center of Photography, “I am a believer in not waiting for the right timing or —Rebecca Robertson New York City; Bookvar Russian Language Academy, the right opportunities,” says Blesener, “but in taking risks Minneapolis; North Central University, Minneapolis and whenever possible, taking the less-traveled route.” In WEBSITE: sarah-blesener.com 2017, she won an Alexia Foundation Professional Grant to continue the project. “It greatly impacted my trajectory as a CLIENTS: National Geographic, The California Sunday Magazine, TIME, Daria The Guardian, The New York Times, Amnesty International, New Republic photographer. I was able to devote an entire year to dig deep into a project.” Her interest in youth culture, nationalism and Kobayashi EXHIBITIONS: International Center of Photography, New York; Oberstdorfer Fotogipfel, patriotism continued in assignments she shot in the U.S. and Oberstdorf, Germany; Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ; Fondo Malerba Ritch abroad for National Geographic and other publications. per la Fotografia, Milan, Italy; Annenberg Center for Photography, Los Angeles AGE: 26 Grants allowed her the freedom to pursue topics she AWARDS: Alexia Foundation Professional Grant; CatchLight Fellowship; Magenta BORN: Los Angeles cared about, and helped her learn about her process. She Foundation Flash Forward Emerging Photographer; Picture Story Award of RESIDES: Los Angeles discovered that to grow as a photographer, she needed to Excellence, POYi; PHmuseum Women Photographers Grant honorable mention and New York continually reevaluate her work. “My approach has changed KEY LESSON: “I believe pursuing personal work and projects is vital. In a EDUCATION: UCLA; ArtCenter greatly since I first began working on personal projects,” says competitive industry where it is easy to get lost in the hustle, it’s important to College of Design, Pasadena, CA Blesener. “I had to learn that not everything is visual, and [stay] centered, and to remind yourself of the topics that drove you to become WEBSITE: dkrphotography.com that some things are too visual.” She discovered this when a photographer in the first place.” CLIENTS: Dior, Marc Jacobs, showing “Toy Soldiers,” which had many photos of kids with Diane Von Furstenberg, Nordstrom, W Magazine, guns. Those images tended to be the first ones editors would i-D, Interview Germany select. Without a larger, more nuanced context for those EXHIBITIONS: Annenberg Space for Photography, Los images, she says, “the story becomes a different narrative.” Angeles Blesener has recently focused on “the off moments” h s hi R i tc BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “A really big challenge has been and “quieter” images. Inspired by the empathy of Eugene fighting for what it is that I want [a job to look like]. It’s been o baya Richards, Susan Meiselas and other photographers she a challenge for me to speak up and say, ‘No, this is what I admires, she says, “It’s not enough to find an interesting think.’ Because in the end what [clients] want is your vision. story or angle. You have to understand and struggle with [One solution has been] having a really strong team. I have what motivates you as an individual. Those self-searching great assistants who are friends of mine now. One will questions are what make you a genuine photographer.”

come up to me and say, ‘You know this isn’t you, right?’” K © Daria All P h otos — Terry Sullivan

40 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 41 R.J. Kern was a wedding photographer before wandering into a fine-art career. After shooting a wedding a few years ago, he drove into the Irish countryside to try some lighting ideas, and for the “happy, guilt-free pleasure” of shooting personal work. He photographed some sheep because they were plentiful and cooperative. “I was looking at how to find beauty in the common, and that was it,” he says. Kyle Thus began his project photographing sheep and Dorosz goats in lush pastoral settings, using a painterly style. AGE: 31 This spring, Kern will release his first monograph, titled BORN: Columbia, MD The Sheep and the Goats. Grants he’s won to support RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY the work led to another project, “The Unchosen Ones,” EDUCATION: Rochester for which he shoots formal portraits of teens and their Institute of Technology animals at livestock competitions at county fairs. WEBSITE: kyledorosz.com His work “demonstrate[s] a unique voice and point of view...not only in the images, but also in the final form of CLIENTS: Bon Appétit, Diane Von Furstenberg, the prints—a complete artistic concept,” says Lisa Volpe, Harry’s, LensCrafters, associate curator of Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts. New York magazine, Vulture, Kern studied art history and geography in college, Nordstrom, Surface Magazine then taught himself photography by studying books and lighting tutorials. He also studied paintings, and AWARDS: PDN Emerging tried to “reverse-engineer” the lighting. Photographer While earning a living as a wedding photographer, BEST ADVICE: “James Wojcik and continually pushing his lighting technique, he says, once told me to push myself out “I was always trying to do something different, and of my comfort zone, get rebelling against any formulaic approach.” strange. To get an idea, and He sold two sheep portrait prints for $1,000 push that idea even further. each in 2015. Subsequent sales came much harder, I’m always thinking about that.” though. Kern started connecting with peers and mentors by attending portfolio reviews, workshops and other industry events. “It’s important to be objective about your work, and Kyle Dorosz’s biggest break might have been when he didn’t draw input from others,” he says. Their advice taught him get the photo editor job he applied for at Esquire. After graduating everything from finding a publisher to landing a gallery from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in commercial to pricing and self-promotion, “things that they don’t

photography, he interned in the photo department at Men’s Journal, © R .J. Kern All P h otos teach you in art school,” he says. —David Walker where he learned the ins and outs of editorial photography—from the administrative side. But Dorosz really excelled at making pictures. The Esquire rejection led him to take assisting jobs with Peter Yang and James Wojcik, who became friends and mentors. He shot constantly in his spare time, but his personal work lacked focus until R.J. Kern he made a portrait of an artist friend in 2015. “I thought, hey, doing AGE: 39 proper portraiture of artists in their studios with reportage and still BORN: Peekskill, NY lifes could be my first actual project.” RESIDES: Minneapolis When he had enough studio images for a portfolio, he sent the project EDUCATION: Colgate to editors. Fortuitously, Melissa Sinclair, then the photo editor at Time University, Hamilton, Out New York, was looking for a cover image of an artist painting a NY; University of mural in Bushwick—Dorosz was an obvious match for the assignment. Colorado at Boulder Work snowballed from there. Sinclair continued to hire him, as did an WEBSITE: rjkern.com editor at Surface, for whom he photographed the artist Jenny Holzer. CLIENTS: National A friend recommended him for an advertising job with Nordstrom. His Geographic friend Marvin Orellana, a photo editor at New York magazine who had EXHIBITIONS: Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; critiqued Dorosz’s portfolio throughout the years, hired him to shoot Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA; portraits for the publication’s design and wedding issues. Orellana National Portrait Gallery, London says Dorosz has a “sense of daring that I think pushes the photographs AWARDS: CENTER Curator’s Choice Award (2017), osz beyond just a portrait.” Today, Dorosz contributes regularly to the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grants publication’s many verticals, and has been hired to shoot celebrities KEY LESSON: “One of my favorite things about such as Brit Marling, Michael Strahan, Naomi Watts and Trevor Noah. portfolio reviews is expanding your peer group, Dorosz naturally excels at portraiture—but attributes his success and looking at each other’s work until 1:30 in the to a thriving network of friends and colleagues. “It’s a small industry,” morning, critiquing and sequencing and editing

he says. “So be nice to people.” —Brienne Walsh © Ky l e D o r All P h otos and sharing ideas.”

42 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 43 Emile Ducke decided to put off Eva O’Leary finishing his college degree and move to AGE: 28 Moscow last year in order to be closer to BORN: Chicago the stories he wants to tell. He had spent an exchange semester studying and teaching RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY at Tomsk State University in Siberia, and EDUCATION: California College during that time he created two projects of the Arts; Yale School of Art about how communities in Siberia cope WEBSITE: evaoleary.com with their isolation. One depicts a Russian CLIENTS: Bloomberg orthodox village reachable only by boat. Businessweek, The New The other is about a medical train that York Times Magazine, travels the Trans-Siberia railroad delivering The New Yorker, WIRED

care to doctor-less villages. Ducke is now AH L EXHIBITIONS: MEYOHAS, expanding his work to document other Queens, New York;

communities in Western Siberia. © DO N ST CrushCuratorial, Ducke says his larger interest is New York City; Vontobel, investigating how “historic changes” affect Zurich; Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Petzel Gallery, communities. This grew in part from his New York City; Aperture Foundation, New York City; curiosity about his Serbian stepmother’s large Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich family, which is from the former Yugoslavia. AWARDS: Vontobel Contemporary Photography Prize, Zurich; “On one side, the family was former Foam Talent, Amsterdam communists, socialists, and on the other side KEY LESSON: “Translate and move toward uncomfortable orthodox believers. And this contrast was and terrifying ideas, and believe your experiences have very interesting to me,” he says. Photography urgency and value. That’s something I learned while working became a tool to understand their stories, for Hank Willis Thomas. Also: have a disciplined artist and then “communicate something of the practice and work all of the time.”

© Em i l e Du ck All P h otos understanding.” His interest has moved from his family to Yugoslav and Balkan history “to Emile Ducke even further east,” he says. His first major project was about AGE: 23 Transnistria, a territory caught in a political Born: Munich struggle between Moldova and Russia. RESIDES: Moscow He worked on that project for two and a half Education: University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hannover, Germany years before showing it to editors in Germany WEBSITE: emileducke.com and at portfolio reviews at the Visa pour CLIENTS: D la Repubblica, L’Obs, Newsweek, Washington Post In Sight, l’image festival. There, he met an editor at ZEITmagazin French magazine L’Obs. The magazine has EXHIBITIONS: VGH Galerie, Hannover, Germany; PhEST, Monopoli, Italy; published a portfolio of his Transnistria work Lumix Festival, Hannover, Germany and his subsequent stories from Siberia. As an undergraduate at California College of the Arts, Eva AWARDS: Marty Forscher Student Fellowship; PDN Photo Annual; Kolga Tblisi Newcomer Award; He received his first editorial assignment O’Leary began photographing teenage girls and middle-aged women. College Photographer of the Year Gold Award, Documentary Photography last year from ZEITmagazin, and he hopes She was interested in how, even in a “post-feminist world,” women Biggest Challenge: “Photographing something [that] is not happening in real time in front of to do more assignments in Russia while he across generations still feel pressure to present themselves as overly you [is] really a challenge, but it’s really interesting to find pictures and to translate somehow continues his personal work. sexualized beings that do not age. Furious, terrified and disgusted by her those [historic] stories into pictures.” —Conor Risch own teenage transformation into “a Barbie clone,” she says, she wanted to push against the ideal. “I am making photographs of girls and women that go against traditional notions of beauty,” she says. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked in the studios of a number of artists, including Hank Willis Thomas. He inspired her to pursue a career as a professional artist. After she completed her MFA at Yale in 2016, she returned to New York with massive student loan debt. To keep herself afloat, she’s shot editorial work for Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker. “Her work is very modern, but there’s also an almost hallucinatory feel to it,” The New Yorker’s Joanna Milter told PDN. “There’s something underneath that’s kind of dark and interesting.” Winning the Vontobel Contemporary Photography Prize in 2017 led to a solo exhibition where O’Leary showed recent work, including

a O’Leary “Splitting Image”: large-format images of teenagers looking at themselves in a two-way mirror. “In terms of making pictures and getting paid for making pictures, I think a year and a half out of grad school, I’ve found a pretty ideal

44 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 45 Álvaro Laiz AGE: 37 BORN: Léon, Spain RESIDES: Madrid EDUCATION: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca WEBSITE: alvarolaiz.com CLIENTS: Forbes, National Geographic, The New York Times EXHIBITIONS: Galería Freijo, Madrid; Museo de la Minería Sabero, León, Spain; Fundación

Cerezales, León, Spain; PhotOn Festival, Valencia, Spain; Cortona on the Move, Cortona, Italy; ilmondo gallery, Barcelona AWARDS: National Geographic Explorer grant; Juror’s Choice, CENTER; FotoVisura Grant; POPCAP BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “Getting to know the market in which you’re working and how you fit. That involves everything: Your principles, the things you’re willing to do, the things you don’t want to do. It’s complicated. I have discussed it with so many friends [and] photographers, [including] fashion photographers, and we are

l e s © H annah R eye s M o ra All P h otos somehow all in the same place.”

When Hannah Reyes Morales was 14, Álvaro Laiz was working on his project Hannah Reyes Morales she saved up to buy Annie Griffiths’ book “Transmongolia” when he turned a corner in his AGE: 27 A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel, and read it nascent career as a photographer. Documenting BORN: Manila, Philippines over and over. Since then, she dreamed of becoming the lives of transgender Mongolians, Laiz began RESIDES: Manila, Philippines a National Geographic photographer. However, collaborating with his subjects on posed portraits, EDUCATION: University of the Philippines Diliman money was tight. It was not until university that moving away from the strict photojournalistic WEBSITE: hannah.ph she finally got her first DSLR camera. style he’d used to that point. Since expanding his CLIENTS: The Washington Post, The New York Times, She landed a student internship with the visual language, he’s “committed to this idea [that] National Geographic, Médecins Sans Frontières European Pressphoto Agency, began shooting if it’s good for the story, and I am honest with the AWARDS: Chris Hondros Fund award; 6x6 Program (World Press Photo); National Geographic assignments and got work published in The New people I am photographing and, of course, honest Society Grantee; IWMF Fellow York Times. To make ends meet, she resold used with the public, there is no wrong thing for me in KEY LESSON: “I was much more traditionally Filipina when I was starting out, but I quickly clothes, and for a time she lived in her aunt’s photography.” He’s since shown his work in galleries learned that I needed to learn how to communicate to Western thought, and to be more dental clinic. In 2014, National Geographic and museums, and he recently published his first assertive and forthcoming than I naturally am…. I practiced, I stopped panicking. Learning Society awarded her a grant. They also set book, The Hunt (Dewi Lewis), about a Siberian to code-switch culturally has been really useful in speaking with editors, in writing grants, in her up in a mentorship with Erika Larsen. tiger that hunted down and killed a poacher translating my local knowledge and stories so they can be understood by a broader audience.” Assignments picked up after that. who’d wounded it. Morales had thought that she wanted to Laiz studied journalism and worked as a political use photography to travel the world. But after reporter prior to launching his photography career. moving to Cambodia and living there for three When he started working on his own photography years, she returned to the Philippines. Seeing her projects, “I felt somehow I found my place,” he says. country with fresh eyes, she realized she could While pursuing projects on LGBTQ human rights—in use photography to translate for others what she addition to “Transmongolia,” Laiz also created a was seeing at home. project about trans people in indigenous societies She has covered the country’s violent in Venezuela—he’s also interested in animism and war on drugs. With a fellowship from the shamanism, and the influence of technology on GroundTruth Project, she documented Filipina indigenous societies. In 2016, he won a National women displaced by Typhoon Haiyan who fell Geographic Explorer grant to pursue his project into the sex trade. She is now working with “The Edge,” about Paleo-Siberian people who for National Geographic on a project about the thousands of years have inhabited the area in Filipino diaspora. Russia’s Far East along the Bering Strait. “I’m trying to make sense of my own identity The National Geographic grant has been and my own portrayal of my own country so I “game changing for me,” Laiz says. While a “huge o Lai z

don’t sink into the stereotypes of it,” she says. ar responsibility,” the grant has provided him the She still wants to tell international stories, she opportunity to challenge himself creatively. “You says, “but I think it is very important that I have have the time, you have the resources, so let’s make a clear understanding of where I am from. So I’m something special, let’s do something new,” he says.

trying to do both.” —Mimi Ko Á lv © All P h otos —Conor Risch

46 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 47 Matthew Cicanese has used photography to express his fascination with nature since he was 14. Deaf in his right ear and blind in his left eye since a childhood bout with meningitis, “my camera was the ‘missing link’ I needed to make up for those lost senses.” His passion is using macro photography to document mosses, lichens, “the outliers and underdogs in nature.” After getting a degree in environmental studies and taking some photography classes, he pursued an MFA. At Duke, professors helped him “think beyond the boundaries of science” and tap his “childlike wonder and imagination.” He also enrolled in a seminar where students collaborated with the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative. Gabriella He landed a grant from National Geographic Demczuk that allowed him to join an expedition of AGE: 26 scientists studying mosses in Iceland in 2016. BORN: Stockholm, Sweden “It’s not just a grant: You’re becoming part of RESIDES: Washington, D.C. a community,” Cicanese says. The magazine EDUCATION: George Washington University invited him to a workshop on storytelling WEBSITE: gabriellademczuk.com Matthew Cicanese and “how pitch to different parts of National CLIENTS: The New York Times, Smithsonian Geographic.” He stays in touch with editors in Magazine, The Atlantic, NPR, CNN AGE: 26 different departments. “A big part of it comes EXHIBITIONS: Houston Center of Photography, Houston; Annenberg Space for BORN: Tampa Bay, Florida down to having a niche that you’re really Photography, Los Angeles; FotoWeekDC, Washington, D.C., Angkor Photo RESIDES: Dade City, Florida passionate about and being willing to put your Festival, Siem Reap, Cambodia EDUCATION: Florida Southern College, Duke University neck out there,” he says. National Geographic AWARDS: White House News Photographers Association; Emerging Talent, WEBSITE: matthewcicanese.com connections led to a collaboration with a Getty Reportage; Women Photograph Grant CLIENTS: National Geographic Partners, Dilmah Conservation, lichenologist in 2017 and publication of his KEY LESSON: “It is vital to bring context and intention into one’s work. As social Canadian Wildlife Magazine, Cochlear Americas work in an upcoming science book for kids. media and technology advances, and we are inundated with quick visuals, now EXHIBITIONS: Light Grey Art Lab, Minneapolis; Royal Photographic As an Emerging member of the more than ever is it critical to work slower, longer and more thoughtfully to make Society, London; Power Plant Gallery, Durham, NC; Louise Jones Brown Gallery, Durham, NC International League of Conservation people stop and think and feel and, perhaps, even act.” AWARDS: National Geographic Young Explorer Grant; Finalist, Atkins CIWEM Environmental Photographers, he’s been mentored by such Photographer of the Year veteran nature photographers as Ronan A photojournalist who has covered both politics and Biggest Challenge: “Being a person with disabilities that are invisible to others presents Donovan and Piotr Naskrecki. Cicanese’s social issues, Gabriella Demczuk says her goal is always “to push daily challenges that go unnoticed, but are ever-present in my life. Half of the battle is being an advice: “Build a network that can support you creatively and conceptually, while still maintaining the ethics and advocate for others with disabilities, and showing that this community (despite our limitations) through your hard times, and celebrate with boundaries of journalism.” She studied painting before she fell can be empowered. At the end of the day, my disabilities drive me to pursue my goals. They you for the good times.” in love with photography. As an undergraduate, she worked shape how I perceive and experience the environments we live in.” —Holly Stuart Hughes on the student newspaper, and interned at four news outlets in Washington. The hours spent working in the media pool in the Capitol not only pushed her photography, but also helped her build relationships with editors and fellow photographers. Born in Sweden to American and Lebanese parents, Demczuk spent the first years of her life in Europe before her family settled in Baltimore. Having grown up in a civically engaged family in Baltimore, Demczuk has been driven to explore issues of race and life in minority communities. She describes herself as “a long-form photographer interested in politics, policy and history.” While working on these topics, she also finds ways to experiment creatively. Her project “Coming Home: Unionville” centers on a community founded after the Civil War by 18 black veterans from the United States Colored Troops. Her uncle, a u k historian, had written his dissertation on the community, ane s e and she decided to tell the story of its modern residents. A Ci c printmaking class she was taking at the time prompted her to

tt he w try using the intaglio etching process, which was used in the 19th century and “evokes the esthetic of the past.” Going forward, she intends to continue photographing in the Baltimore area and also delve into issues around immigration. ll a De mcz © Gabrie All P h otos © Ma All P h otos — Mimi Ko

48 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 49 Joyce Kim always loved taking photographs, The most important stop on Cole Wilson’s career path was Salt Lake but photography didn’t seem like a practical City, where he assisted photographer/director Michael Friberg, whom he career path. After graduating from the Maryland met at a mutual friend’s wedding. The two of them hit it off, and Friberg Institute College of Art with a degree in video, offered Wilson, who was working as a bike mechanic in San Francisco, she eventually landed a position as a photo a position as his studio manager/assistant. Wilson, who’d left art school producer for Urban Outfitters. convinced he’d never work as a photographer, didn’t even own a camera at A year of office work burned her out. “I did the time, but he took the job and hasn’t looked back. [all this work], but I had nothing to show for “In addition to learning many technical aspects under his tutelage, Mike it,” she says. Determined to take a break, she was crucial in impressing upon me the value of hustle and the importance moved to Los Angeles. Friends from school were of the back-end of freelance photography. The finances, emails, managing making films and music videos there, and Kim clients and fighting for what you deserve,” Wilson explains. volunteered to photograph behind the scenes After three years of assisting and making his own work in Salt Lake on their sets to build her portfolio. To make ends City, Wilson moved to New York City in 2015. Since then, he has shot for meet, she delivered cakes, walked dogs and The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Vice Magazine and WIRED. apprenticed for woodworkers. A lifelong soccer fan, Wilson did a personal project about amateur soccer A big break came when a friend recommended in the Balkans that helped him land commercial work for adidas and Puma. her work to Geordie Wood, then the photo editor “As much as I love the challenge of making an interesting portrait in a dingy at The FADER. “I was looking for people who office, the decision to meld my love of soccer with my career was a natural were untapped, who I could help bring into the and necessary one, for both my sanity and the longevity of my career,” fold,” he says. “I liked photography that was Wilson explains. “I reached out to several soccer media outlets, and after stripped down and intimate, so that’s what drew working many assignments for free or very little pay, I’ve been able to pave me to Joyce’s work initially.” the way to more commercial work in that area.” Kim began shooting portraits for almost Friberg believes one of Wilson’s strengths is his ability to build rapport every issue of The FADER. Other editorial with subjects. “Cole is hilarious and a people person who has never clients began to find her—first The California met a stranger. I think ultimately this is what makes him a successful Sunday Magazine reached out, and then Brutus photographer,” Friberg explains. “He is genuinely interested in people and in Japan and Spex in Germany. Assignments is always making sure everybody is having a great time.” snowballed from there. Kim is also building —Dzana Tsomondo her commercial portfolio. An advertising client introduced her to the agents at DSREPS, who represent her and have helped her land work c e Ki m

y with brands such as Dior. Looking back, Kim feels her initial ambivalence about a photo career was vital. “All of that self-doubt and hesitation was important for me to get here.”

Joyce Kim AGE: 32 BORN: Rochester, NY N W I LSO © COL E All P h otos RESIDES: Los Angeles EDUCATION: Maryland Institute College of Art COLE WILSON WEBSITE: joyce-kim.com AGE: 28 CLIENTS: Bloomberg BORN: Pasadena, CA Businessweek, Dior, RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY KENZO, The California WEBSITE: colecwilson.com Sunday Magazine, The FADER, The New York Times, CLIENTS: adidas, Bloomberg ESPN’s The Undefeated, Urban Outfitters Businessweek, Chelsea FC, KEY LESSON: “Early on, I used to take all sorts of jobs Inc. Magazine, Kith, Popular because I wanted any experience I could get. I quickly Mechanics, The New York Times learned what kind of work I didn’t want to be doing, and KEY LESSON: “I can be a bit how to say no to those opportunities. It can be really scatterbrained….One of the tempting when you’re just starting out to always say yes. biggest things I’ve learned is to take my time. If I have five I think it’s important to just trust your instincts, and be minutes with a subject, that means I need to take my time selective about the opportunities you seek and take…. in other ways—preparation, research, pulling references or Your time and energy is too valuable to not be making asking to show up to set the sorts of images you want today.” as early as I think I need.”

50 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 51 DANNA LAUREL SINGER GOLIO AGE: 46 AGE: 33 BORN: New Brunswick, NJ BORN: Bronx, NY RESIDES: Philadelphia RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY EDUCATION: Pratt Institute;Yale University School of Art EDUCATION: Smith College WEBSITE: dannasinger.com WEBSITE: laurelgolio.com CLIENTS: New York Times Magazine, CLIENTS: Bloomberg The New Yorker, ACLU Businessweek, Champion, EXHIBITIONS: Aperture Gallery, New York City; AR The New York Times, National Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Danziger Gallery, New York City; Nike, PowerBar, Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles; Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT Urban Outfitters, WIRED T HAN BA J AWARDS: John Ferguson Weir Award and Schickle-Collingwood Prize, Yale; fellowship, EXHIBITIONS: International © NA Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights/Yale Law School Center for Photography, ANNA S IN G ER KEY LESSON: “Not all rejection or failure is bad…It can make you work harder and lead you New York City; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, in directions that are ultimately better for you and your work…I usually give myself two or New York City; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; three days to feel sorry for myself after a rejection and then I force myself to get back up Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

and start working again. Even if I believe all the negativity in my head, I start working.” © D All P h otos AWARDS: American Library Association Rainbow List; Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant; Do Something Grant KEY LESSON: “Keeping in touch with people—editors, At 18, Danna Singer worked in a one-hour photo producers and other photographers—has been key for me: lab in her hometown of Toms River, New Jersey. finding the right balance between pestering someone and Though in love with photography, she had no reminding that person that you’re still around and making new particular plan to build her life around it. But using work and would love to collaborate. Also, engaging with a larger the darkroom to make his own black-and-white photo community and learning from my peers and the people prints was someone from her neighborhood: around me has been tremendously helpful.” music photographer Danny Clinch. “I felt like I wanted to be that person,” she says. Fifteen years later, after a stint in Seattle raising a family and waitressing, Singer returned east, and briefly interned with Clinch. For the next decade, she persistently sent her work to him, galleries, editors and grantmakers. Then came Yale at age 44. Before, she was making formal black-and-white pictures. After her first crit, “I made the ugliest pictures I could Growing up in Ossining, New York, Laurel Golio knew she was of the ugly subject matter that I saw around me different from other kids. A self-described “tomboy who loved sports and when I was growing up. And I came back with building spaceships out of cardboard,” Golio was always on the fringes, raw, real pictures that wound up being good.” an outsider. Now, she’s known for her work documenting subcultures and At Yale she met writer Rick Moody, who alternative communities. She is also the co-founder of We Are the Youth, advised her: “Be vulnerable and tell your truth.” a photography project centered around LGBTQ youth from all over the U.S. Her recent pictures focus on cycles of poverty, telling their own stories. teen pregnancy, addiction and abuse. To capture this “I’m really interested in the idea of finding authenticity when shooting emotional terrain, she studies the “architecture of people,” she says. She strives for images that are natural—natural light over the space, its claustrophobia—how it collapses studio lighting, candid over posed—and it’s that quality that her clients seek on you, or you go outside and there’s something out. Clinton Cargill, director of photography at Bloomberg Businessweek, beautiful against something despairing and was introduced to Golio’s work by colleagues Caroline Tompkins and ugly. It’s also a description of my relationship to Alis Atwell, who hired Golio to photograph an Olympic rower in 2016. growing up in that type of place.” “Admittedly the subject was quite photogenic (Olympians usually are), but Her mentor and professor Gregory Crewdson Laurel’s edit had 64 images, and of those easily 20 could have been the says, “Danna’s work is very challenging—disturbing select in another assignment,” Cargill tells PDN. “The light was painterly and even—but she captures beauty, humanity and naturalistic, and very elegant.” a yearning for grace and possibility. It recalls Professional anxiety is a reality of Golio’s life, as it is for any artist in a the documentary photography of Arbus and place as competitive and expensive as New York. She says she faces that Goldin, but also feels completely relevant to anxiety by constantly working and building her skills through repetition. In the present moment.” 2015 she completed a different body of work every month of the year as Today, she earns a living teaching and doing part of a project called “12 of Twelve.” It was a brutal year, but looking back editorial assignments; she is working on a long- she knows it increased her confidence. Golio has learned that community term project for The New York Times Magazine. is as important to her growth as a busy schedule. “The more I connect with Going forward, she wants “to tell stories about like-minded people, and the more I shoot and engage with projects that I

America, and to make work outside the States.” l G ol i o © Laure All P h otos feel passionate about, the more confident I feel.” —Dzana Tsomondo —Anna Van Lenten 52 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 53 Brian Guido makes just about everything and everyone he photographs look inviting. He specializes in portraiture, while pursuing personal projects about the people and places he encounters on his periodic travels. “His portraits are loose, fun and are more in line with capturing a natural moment than a formal portrait,” says Rolling Stone photo editor Ahmed Fakhr. Guido is also versatile (and tasteful) with a flash, has a sharp eye for color and detail and an appreciation for the absurd. But he didn’t find his footing easily. After graduating in 2008, he spent years as a digital tech and assistant—first for local Chicago photographers, later for nationally known talents including Joe Pugliese, Martin Schoeller, Rob Howard and Jennifer Livingston. Guido landed his first big commercial job, a national campaign for Kraft Lunchables, in 2014. Though it was a success, he had an existential crisis afterward. He felt he didn’t have a distinctive style. He recalls: “I thought, i w i a ‘Is this who I am as a photographer? Is this what I want to shoot?’ I got stuck.”

Al hin d He spent the next year focusing on personal work. With his then-girlfriend, now wife, photographer Julia Stotz, he spent time traveling in Asia and also drove a van around the U.S. Over several months, he says, “I really started to see a style and voice.” He was also able to identify portraiture as his particular strength. The experience taught him: “When in doubt, keep shooting! [That’s] the golden rule of photography, I think.”

© Diana Zeyneb All P h otos Guido continues to experiment. “Outside of assignment work, I also carry my camera and flash with me whenever I travel,” he says. “I’ve been focusing Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi was born in Romania to on keeping things simple with the equipment I carry and trying to modify a Romanian mother and an Iraqi father. At the age of 8, available light…with whatever seems appropriate at the time, and not getting Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi she and her family were refugees, driven to the former too locked into any one style.” —David Walker AGE: 38 Yugoslavia by the volatile political situation in their BORN: Comănești, Romania home countries. Eventually they settled in Canada. RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY Alhindawi explored painting, then neuroscience, EDUCATION: Johns Hopkins University, American University then became interested in humanitarian work and WEBSITE: dianazeynebalhindawi.com landed a job through the United Nations, working CLIENTS: The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The in crisis zones. As she gained experience, she was Wall Street Journal, VICE, Le Monde, Away, Higher Grounds Trading given more administrative responsibilities and did less of the field work she enjoyed. While she was in EXHIBITIONS: Visa Pour L’Image, Perpignan, France; Galerie Causette, Paris; United Nations, New York City; Palazzo Madama, Turin, Italy the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an eruption in the decades-long civil war brought in a flood of AWARDS: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Humanitarian Visa d’Or Award; international photographers. She cornered some of Allard Prize for International Integrity—Photography Award; LensCulture Emerging Talent Award them to learn how they worked. KEY LESSON: “Always keep at the very forefront of your thoughts the reason why you started In New York City, she took a photography class, “just down this path to begin with.… Making a profession out of photography requires a lot of work to prove to myself I know how to take a picture,” she on the business and logistical side of things, so it’s easy to lose sight of your core motivation.” says. She used her savings to return to the Congo and started photographing whatever caught her interest. Thanks to her contacts and knowledge of the country, she knew about the Minova Rape Trials: a trial of 39

Congolese soldiers who had attacked women and girls © B rian Gui do All P h otos during a ten-day rampage in 2012. She spent a week documenting the proceedings and doing interviews. She sent the project to editors, and the images were eventually picked up by Al Jazeera America. Brian Guido She searched for photo contests that would be AGE: 32 fitting for her subject matter. Her entries won the BORN: Detroit International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) RESIDES: Los Angeles Humanitarian Visa d’Or Award in 2015. She continues EDUCATION: Columbia College Chicago pitching clients stories she has shot, mostly in Central WEBSITE: brianguido.com and West Africa. CLIENTS: Apple, Bloomberg Businessweek, To Alhindawi, what matters most is “being honest Monocle, Metropolis, Outside, Rolling Stone, WIRED, YouTube with yourself, about what drives you, what your interests AWARDS: Albert P. Weisman Award really are. If I close my eyes [I ask myself] where do I BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “The greatest challenge is staying motivated want to be, where do I see myself. And then make it to make work you believe in and not just work you think will get you happen. Whatever it takes, just make it happen.” [assignments]. Following that advice is hard, but I definitely try to —Mimi Ko just go out and make pictures if I get into that funk.”

54 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 55 In the past two years, Alina Fedorenko has visited 14 countries while working on Jordi Pizarro an ambitious story about people inhabiting AGE: 32 difficult and eccentric living spaces: immigrants BORN: Barcelona, Spain in colorful dwellings floating on rivers in Cambodia, RESIDES: Barcelona, Spain Egyptians living among the tombs in a cemetery. EDUCATION: Self-taught Jehan Jillani, an associate photo editor for WEBSITE: jordipizzaro.com National Geographic, met Fedorenko at the CLIENTS: TIME magazine, National Eddie Adams Workshop and was impressed Geographic, Washington Post, Le Monde, by “the sheer breadth of the project.” Most GEO magazine, The Sunday Times importantly, she had done her research, was Magazine, Foreign Policy open to feedback and was excited to do more. EXHIBITIONS: Perspektivet Museum, Tromso, Norway; Photolux Fedorenko always travels with her young Festival, Lucca, Italy; Instituto Cervantes, New Delhi, India; son, Romeo. He helps her quickly gain the trust PhotOn Festival, Valencia, Spain; Photoville, Brooklyn of the people she photographs. She admits BEST LESSON: “I believe in slow journalism. Long-term projects that, as a single mother, managing her business are the only way that we can go deep with the people and the and marketing while making new work is her context that we want to tell others.” biggest challenge. Born in the former Soviet Union, Fedorenko’s homeland became the independent state of Ukraine in 1991, the year she moved to Berlin with her family. The feeling that a true home has never existed for her led her to photograph other people’s intimate living spaces. Alina Fedorenko Fedorenko attends as many photo fairs, AGE: 32 exhibition openings and book signings as BORN: Lviv, Ukraine possible. It’s important to “swim in the pool,” RESIDES: Berlin she says, and “meet people who understand o WEBSITE: alina-fedorenko.com you and your work and will offer support.” At the CLIENTS: National Geographic Unseen Photo Festival in Amsterdam, she met EXHIBITIONS: ACCI Gallery, San Francisco; gallerist Wouter van Leeuwen, who has become Galeria Valid Foto, Barcelona a source of encouragement and advice. AWARDS: International Photographer of the Year (IPOTY); Silver “Always keep working and never stand still,” winner at PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Paris; Pollux Awards winner; Eddie Adams Workshop says Fedorenko. “Editors and publishers want

BEST ADVICE: “You can do better. This is a sentence I’ve heard a lot in life. It always makes me to see new work, plus you’ll improve from shoot J o r d i P z arr © All P h otos upset and it always pushes me to do better, to be better. Always be willing to learn.” to shoot.” —Sarah Stacke In the three years Pizarro lived in India, he worked on long-term projects he plans one day to publish as books. He first traveled to India to photograph the pilgrimage in Allahabad for what has become “The Believers,” a project that he hopes will offer “a global view of the search for something between heaven and earth.” He has shot photos for the project in Israel, Cuba, Poland and other countries, but says, “It’s about 50 percent done.” After falling in love with India, he moved to New Delhi. While based there, he made repeated trips to document life on Ghoramara, an island in the Bay of Bengal that has lost 75 percent of its territory to rising seas. He shot the project digitally and on film because, he says, “You have to use more imagination and thinking before you shoot analogue.” Through research, talking to locals and small, local NGOs, he found stories he pitched to editors, and he published work on punk music in Myanmar, a hospital train serving poor rural communities in India and a solar panel factory employing women in Rajasthan. He spent a few months living in Cambodia, spending time “looking at what I’m shooting and why I’m shooting.” He recently moved to a small studio in Barcelona, and is now looking for a few commercial assignments that will support his personal work. “My idea is to spend more time shooting for me.” —Holly Stuart Hughes Al ina F e do ren ko © All P h otos

56 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 57 Photographer and director An Rong Xu Julia says emotion is essential to a good photo, but 90 Gartland percent of the process is gaining access: “Access AGE: 28 to subjects, access to resources.” The intimacy BORN: Los Angeles and emotion in his portraits and fly-on-the-wall RESIDES: Brooklyn, NY documentary images come from his ability to build EDUCATION: Parsons rapport with his subjects. That trust shines through School of Design in “My Americans,” his ongoing series that documents WEBSITE: the lives of Chinese Americans. juliagartland.com After graduating from School of Visual Arts, Xu CLIENTS: Food52, assisted photographer/director Bon Duke. They met at H&M, Macallan, SVA when Xu was a freshman and Duke was a senior. Martha Stewart, “Bon is like a big brother who has really elevated my understanding of photography, [of] making work,

© J o e Chernu s Mercedes Benz, siggi’s, Vogue and [of] work ethic,” he says. “I saw how tirelessly he BEST ADVICE: “One of my first photo teachers I worked and how much thought and effort goes into ever had used to say, ‘Make the work until you find what he does.” the work.’ It takes into consideration the grit and Through Duke, Xu met Eve Lyons, who was then at unpleasantness of getting the work you’ve been Real Simple. After she moved to The New York Times, trying to make or find. It doesn’t happen easily a she gave him his first assignment in 2014. He’s lot of the time, and requires returning to the same continued shooting a range of stories for the Times, concepts and continuing to experiment, even and pitched them a series on street style in Hong when you’re not sure where it’s going.” Kong and Taipei that was published in the paper’s Style section. In-person meetings and Instagram have helped get his work in front of magazine editors and, recently, land some ad assignments. Xu also directs short films and music videos, which in turn have helped his often-cinematic photography, Julia Gartland was studying fine-art he says. “While making films, you learn to build a photography when health issues changed the character for the person you’re working with, you course of her career. Illness forced her to cook learn to build narratives, and you learn that to create nearly all of the food she ate herself. She “fell powerful images, you need to have a culmination of in love with food and cooking,” and decided to visuals and narrative built into it.” create a food blog, Sassy Kitchen, to document —Mindy Charski her experience. She was “not naturally good” at photographing food, but she enjoyed the challenge. “I was all in,” she recalls. Gartland didn’t completely abandon her fine-art training, however. As a student, she had been drawn to films by

Godard, Fellini, Antonioni and Hitchcock, and the n g Xu A n Ro work of Cindy Sherman. She shows her interest in bold, graphic imagery as she creates dramatic

food and still-life images. © All P h otos Lacking technical training, Gartland initially found it hard to break into food photography as an assistant. Stylist Michelle Gatton “gave me a chance” and became a mentor, Gartland says. An Rong Xu Working as Gatton’s first assistant for two years, AGE: 28 she was able to connect with stylists looking to BORN: Taishan, Guangdong Province, China make test images. Then she began “reaching out RESIDES: New York City specifically to women photographers,” and got EDUCATION: School of Visual Arts, New York City assisting work. Clients have found her through WEBSITE: anrongxu.com her blog and Instagram, and in-person meetings CLIENTS: The New York Times, TIME, The Washington have been important, she says. Post, GQ Taiwan, A&E, Airbnb, Google She’s also pushed herself to combine “my EXHIBITIONS: American Pacific Place, Jakarta; fine-art background and my editorial life” as she Gallery 360, Boston; Suwon International Photo Festival, Suwon, South Korea; continues to develop her work, using food in a tl an d En Foco, New York City; Alice Austen House, New York City more sculptural way and building more narrative BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “In today’s atmosphere, you have to be able to sometimes into her images. “Straight still life and straight food go 70 percent of the way [in terms of expenses] and the client’s going to go 30 photography [are] beautiful and lovely and I like percent of the way to make [assignments] happen. It’s not like the good old days doing them, but I feel like there’s room to kind of where you could call someone and say, ‘I have this great idea of this place,’

mess it up a little and deepen it.” —Conor Risch Ju l ia Gar © All P h otos [and they say], ‘OK, great, we’ll fly you up.’”

58 pdnonline.com April 2018 April 2018 pdnonline.com 59 “I’ve always been attracted to societal outliers,” says Matthew Genitempo. “For the past few years, I’ve Maggie Shannon been shooting in Arkansas and Missouri, in the Ozarks, AGE: 30 photographing hermitic men who have chosen to live BORN: Boston in solitude.” They, along with the rugged landscape, are RESIDES: Los Angeles the subjects of his graduate thesis, a photo book he’s EDUCATION: Hampshire College, titled Jasper. Amherst, MA; School of Visual Arts, He shot the project using black-and-white 4x5 film on New York City a large-format view camera. “A lot of these people don’t WEBSITE: maggieshannon.net gg ie Shann o n come in contact with a lot of strangers,” says Genitempo, CLIENTS: Opening Ceremony, VICE, a long-time film shooter, “and are a little xenophobic. When Need Supply, Coveteur, Man Repeller, Bloomberg Businessweek you shoot with a view camera, it’s a slow process to take EXHIBITIONS: RUBBER FACTORY, New York City; A/D/O, Brooklyn, NY; Annenberg pictures that way. Also, taking pictures of these people Space for Photography, Los Angeles; The Society of Korean Photography, Busan, © Ma All P h otos takes a lot of time because you have to get to know them. Korea; Press Street Gallery, New Orleans; Dossier Outpost, New York City And you have to move slowly. So, I think a view camera AWARDS: Magnum Photos 30 under 30 helped facilitate that relationship.” He was able to spend BIGGEST CHALLENGE: “The loneliness of being freelance is a tough one. It’s great time in each place by camping or sleeping in his truck. when work’s consistent but sometimes it’s not, and it can go a week or, heaven forbid, After graduate school, Maggie Shannon worked “Film, food and gas were my only expenses, really.” three with no jobs and then you start freaking out. It’s [important] to have a support as a product photographer in New York “at this really The landscapes have the gravitas of the nocturnal group of friends to grab a coffee with, to ask questions and bounce ideas off of.” crummy sales company,” she recalls. “It was pretty awful. images of Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz, while But I was sending work out,” entering contests and his photos of people call to mind the great portraitists of applying for grants to support the portrait series she’d the 19th century. But the shots of interiors appear both made into her thesis project. Then she won Magnum’s humdrum and surreal, and look like settings for the TV 30 Under 30—“such a huge boon,” she says. She quit her horror series The Walking Dead. day job. The prize offered portfolio reviews and meetings Though he has shot assignments for clients who with editors and working photographers who showed her found him through Instagram, his website or word of the steps to creating a career as an editorial shooter. mouth, the book is Genitempo’s first completed major The most important advice she got was to shoot the project. “I’ve been shooting for a while,” he says, “but work she wanted to be hired for. a big part of why I decided to go to grad school at the Shannon began documenting women who make University of Hartford is because this program requires experimental music, which became her series “Noise you to have a finished project.” Genitempo is currently Girls.” Her images show women in the artful chaos of seeking a publisher for Jasper. —Terry Sullivan their makeshift studios, often lit with poppy flash. She

o emailed editors, and got meetings and jobs. Her first real assignment was for Brooklyn Magazine, photographing a musician at a Brooklyn bar. While “Noise Girls” had Geni t e m p prepared her to work in different kinds of environments,

tt he w she says editorial assignments forced her think fast on her feet. Recently, Shannon has brought her airy palette and eye for strange shapes to fashion stories and look books. “It’s been fun flexing that creative

© Ma All P h otos muscle,” she says. But personal projects remain essential. An interest in Martha’s Vineyard’s annual shark fishing contest led to an assignment from The New Yorker to go out with a Matthew boat during the hunt. The series became “Swamp Yankee,” Genitempo which Shannon published as a book. Her interest in the Greenbrier bunker, which was once prepared to house AGE: 34 members of Congress in the event of nuclear war, landed BORN: Houston her an assignment to shoot it for Topic. RESIDES: Marfa, TX When Shannon moved from New York to Los Angeles EDUCATION: Baylor University, last year, she found herself without a personal project. Waco, TX; University of Hartford “I had a week or two where I was frantic and I felt like I WEBSITE: matthewgenitempo.com needed to shoot something,” she says. Eventually she “got CLIENTS: Acne Studios, Monocle, really obsessed with this utopian town in Arizona” called Undertow Records Arcosanti. Like the Greenbrier, the place is “forgotten but EXHIBITIONS: Farewell Books Gallery, represents this moment in American history,” she says. Austin, TX; Kominek Gallery, Berlin; Shannon says that when she fell for photography in Joseloff Gallery, Hartford, CT college, she didn’t know what form her career would take. AWARDS: LensCulture Emerging “I just knew I was obsessed with going out and exploring Talent Award; FotoFilmic’s SOLO III Award; Mary Frey Award and using the camera as an excuse to talk to people and KEY LESSON: “Awards have been very helpful for getting my work out there… see more,” she says. Her pursuit continues. I think if you make good work, it will find its way into the right hands.” —Rebecca Robertson

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