Alex Majoli (1971-)

Alex Majoli was born in 1971 in Ravenna, Italy. He joined the f45 studio in his native city, working alongside Daniele Casadio when he was just 15 years old. In 1989 he became a full-time photojournalist and joined the Grazia Neri agency the year after, where he remained until 1995. In 1992 and 1993 he traveled to Yugoslavia to document the conflict there, and in the following years followed the strife into Kosovo and Albania. 

In 1994 Majoli dedicated himself to a long-term project on the insane asylum on the Greek island of Leros. This notoriously brutal institution, a former political prison, housed the outcasts from the country's psychiatric hospitals. Majoli documented the closing down of the asylum and the introduction of the inmates to island society, the result of the pioneering work of Dr Franco Basaglia, from Trieste.

Majoli's Leros was published in 1999, as well as other photo essays on the closing of psychiatric hospitals throughout the world. In 1995 he worked in South America where he began his personal project Requiem in Samba. The project is now focused on Brazil, where he has traveled every year since 1996. 

He began work on another personal project Hotel Marinum in 2001, covering the life of maritime port cities worldwide. In 2004, together with Thomas Dworzak, Paolo Pellegrin and Ilkka Uimonen, he conceived and produced the exhibition and installation Off Broadway, shown in Soho, New York.

Majoli joined Magnum Photos in 1996 and in 2001 he became a full member. In that same year he documented the conflict in Afghanistan and subsequent conflict in Iraq. 

He continues to document conflicts worldwide for several major magazines including Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, and National Geographic. Alex Majoli's books include: One Vote (Filigranes Editions, 2004) and Leros (Trolley, Italy & Phaidon, UK, 1999/2003)

“I really don’t have any idea about photography, 

but I take pictures.”

Photo of Alex Majoli (from: Gianluca Pavarini) 

Photos of Alex's work (from Magnum Photos)

Jim Goldberg  (1953-)

Jim Goldberg is an American photographer and writer whose work reflects long-term, in-depth collaborations with neglected, ignored, or otherwise outside-the-mainstream populations.

Jim Goldberg’s innovative use of image and text make him a landmark photographer of our times. He has been working with experimental storytelling for over thirty years, and his major projects include Rich and Poor (1977-85), Raised by Wolves (1985-95), Nursing Home (1986), Coming and Going (on going) and Open See (2003-present). 

Goldberg’s work is consistently presented as a layered, sensory experience that overwhelms the viewer and forces a consideration of artistic form and documentary practice.

A piece of Jim's work (From: Blog Spot)  

“ I have the great privilege of being both witness and storyteller. Intimacy, trust and intuition guide my work.” 

Photo of Jim Goldberg (from: Wirtz Gallery)  

A piece of Jim's work (From: Word Press)  

Chen Man (1980-)

Chen Man was born in 1980 in Beijing, China, where she studied graphic design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. She is THE star of the fashion photo world in China. She made a huge impact when she started shooting the covers for the Chinese Vision Magazine. As her work hit the streets it was met with surprise and awe.  

People were not only blown away by the amazing photographic images combined seamlessly with computerized 3-d rendering, but also by the fact that the artist herself is a Beijing born girl who is only 28 years old.  

Chen Man’s work is a combination of her skill with a camera, and her technical wizardry with a computer.  With her fresh style and all this 3D technique she created her own style in photography. 

She does all of her post-production image work herself, from retouching with Photoshop, to 3-D rendering with 3-D max.  

She has an extremely strong aesthetic eye that brings out the best of her models, and consistently shoots for the Chinese make up artist Tony Li, and various celebrities from China and Hong Kong.   

Her work for Vision Magazine includes the covers from years 2003-2006 and 2007. 

She is also a regular contributor to the Chinese publications in Vogue, Elle, Bazaar, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire. Her work is exposed in the most famous Chinese galleries and museums in China. 

In 2008 she was a part of the “China Design” exposition in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. One of her pictures was selected for the exposition’s advertisement.

Photo of Chen Man (From: Word Press) 

Photo (From: Word Press)  

Ken Kitano (1968-)

Ken Kitano, 1968, Japan, is a conceptual photographer who uses long exposures and piles images on top of each other to create a new photograph. He has been working on the series Our Face since 1999. He shoots portraits of various social groups as young girls in Harajuku, office workers, farm village women in Bangladesh and supporters of the English national soccer team. 

Each time he shoots various dozens of evenly taken portraits which he piles on top of each other. 

The more faces that are printed, the more the contours of an individual become blurred and the expressions and ages become more ambiguous in the final portrait. 

The project started in Asia, but should cover the American continent, Europe and Africa in the future. 

In 2005 he released the book Our Face. In his series One Day Kitano captures specifically chosen locations using an exposure time that stretches from sunrise to sunset.

Photo (From: BAIJIN)