An online magazine dedicated to female photography

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Micheal Taeggi | (I)Sola

A Poetic Journey Across Sea, Sky, and Self

There are journeys measured in miles, and there are journeys measured in transformation. (I)Sola, a photographic series by Italian visual artist Michela Taeggi, belongs to the latter: a voyage not of distance, but of perception and feeling.

Composed of paired Polaroids, (I)Sola presents the sea and sky not as static landscapes, but as elemental voices engaged in an ongoing dialogue. Horizons dissolve, boundaries soften, and what once appeared distinct, water and air, earth and ether, merges into a luminous continuum. In these images, the horizon is not a limit but an invitation: a threshold where forms blur and the viewer is asked to relinquish fixed definitions in favor of presence and sensation.

Taeggi’s vision treats the natural world not as an object to be observed, but as a partner in poetic exchange. Water becomes more than a backdrop; it emerges as a central subject, a source of mystery and metaphor. The sea’s shifting surfaces and the sky’s infinite hues act as conduits for reflection, stirring both disorientation and wonder as the viewer stands, visually, between waking and dreaming.

The imagery in (I)Sola evokes landscapes that feel at once immense and intimate, powerful yet calm, vast yet suffused with stillness. These are not merely scenes to behold, but moments to inhabit, where sea and sky become mirrors for the inner terrain of emotion and memory. In letting go of the horizon, we may find ourselves reflected in its absence.

From Photojournalism to Inner Landscapes

After beginning her career in photojournalism and collaborating with major Italian national publications, she gradually shifted toward a more personal and research-driven photographic language, where the image becomes a tool for emotional and symbolic investigation.

Her early projects received international recognition. Love Grows was shortlisted in the People category at the Sony World Photography Awards, while Child of the Woods received an honorable mention at the Photo Annual Awards. Over the years, her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Italy, presenting both narrative projects and contemplative visual explorations.

Taeggi’s photographic evolution reflects a broader shift from external documentation toward internal inquiry. While her early reportage and portrait work demonstrated narrative clarity and technical rigor, her later project, including The Novel of Nature, a published visual book exploring the human bond with the natural world, emphasize atmospheric, psychological, and perceptual depth. One notable exhibition of (I)Sola took place in November 2024 at the Gallerie FIAF, highlighting her ongoing investigation into perception, time, and identity through photographic sequences.

Rooted in themes of transformation, solitude, and the relationship between the visible and the invisible, Taeggi’s work often blurs the boundaries between reality and imagination, landscape and self. Her practice remains grounded in a contemplative approach, seeking to reveal how images can speak not only of the world around us, but of the inner landscapes we inhabit.

Immagini in Movimento: A Community of Visual Inquiry

In 2020, Taeggi founded Immagini in Movimento, a community and educational platform dedicated to deepening photographic culture and visual research. Far from being merely a school, the initiative champions a conscious, authorial approach to image-making, encouraging photographers to develop their own narrative voices. Immagini in Movimento offers a wide range of workshops, courses, and collaborative projects that span contemporary photography, conceptual practice, collage, and experimental visual processes. These include programs focused on photographic archiving and storytelling, Zen-inspired visual awareness, photography and collage, and conceptual approaches that connect the visible and the invisible in image-making. The workshops, ranging from hands-on field sessions to online creative laboratories, emphasize personal exploration, reflective practice, and the development of a coherent photographic voice. Through these activities, Immagini in Movimento functions as a forum for creative exchange, where photography becomes a tool for deeper self-understanding, cultural dialogue, and artistic research, a philosophy that closely resonates with the introspective currents present in Taeggi’s own work.

Michela Taeggi is an Italian photographer and visual artist whose work explores identity, perception, and inner landscapes through a poetic and introspective lens. After beginning her career in photojournalism and collaborating with major Italian national publications, she gradually shifted toward a more personal and research-based photographic practice, where image becomes a tool for emotional and symbolic investigation.

Her work has received international recognition, including a shortlist selection at the Sony World Photography Awards (People category) and an honorable mention at the Photo Annual Awards. Taeggi’s projects have been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout Italy and published across various editorial platforms.

In 2020, she founded Immagini in Movimento, an online platform dedicated to photographic education and visual research, fostering a conscious, authorial approach to image-making through workshops, courses, and collective projects.

Find more or her work here: Michela Taeggi and here: Immagini in Movimento.

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​Maryam (Nilu) Ghasempour Siahgaldeh | Photography in the Space Between Memory and Exile

Maryam (Nilu) Ghasempour Siahgaldeh (b. 1994) is a researcher, photojournalist, social and documentary photographer, activist, and MFA candidate in Photography at Kansas State University. Maryam's photographic practice is rooted in lived experience, shaped by years of working in northern Iran under conditions of artistic restriction, surveillance, and censorship. Before migrating to the United States, she documented intimate and often unseen moments of everyday life, with particular focus on older women and men living under the Islamic regime, as well as urgent social justice issues such as child labor and women’s rights.

Like many Iranian artists, Ghasempour was ultimately forced into migration and exile. The departure was not voluntary but imposed, the result of political oppression that extended deeply into personal expression, artistic freedom, and even imagination itself. Since leaving Iran, she has lived within a dual identity, caught between the memory of a homeland she cannot return to and the reality of a new country she is still learning to inhabit. This in-between state has become central to her vision, positioning her simultaneously as insider and outsider, witness and participant.

Her photographic language merges research, activism, and social justice. She documents women and marginalized communities while critically examining the politics of space, visibility, and survival. Through layered visual strategies (such as double and long exposure, photomontage, and the use of film, large-format, and digital photography) she weaves personal images with archival material. The resulting photographs function as fragile architectures where past and present coexist, allowing memory to surface within contemporary landscapes.

Throughout her work, women appear not always as direct subjects, but as presences that linger. They inhabit broken windows, abandoned rooms, and quiet landscapes that seem to remember them. Some images are rendered in black and white, evoking loss, disappearance, and the slow erosion of time. Others remain in color, carrying warmth and resilience—small, persistent flames that resist extinction. This tension between monochrome and color mirrors the emotional space many women occupy, holding both pain and endurance within the same body.

Migration, for Ghasempour, is not merely a geographic shift but a psychological rupture. Even after leaving Iran, political barriers continue to separate her from family and home. She cannot return, not even briefly, not even to touch the hands that raised her. Life unfolds at a distance, love expressed through screens, connection sustained through images, memory preserved as an act of resistance. Photography becomes the only site where return is possible, a place where time can be folded and distance temporarily undone. Empty frames, blurred self-portraits, and shadows suggest the fading of memory and the isolation of beginning again. The work confronts loneliness directly, revealing immigration as both an ending and a beginning—an experience marked by loss, adaptation, and quiet resilience.

Iran, in her photographs, exists not only as geography but as emotion, as a pulse beneath the surface of every frame. Her images speak of longing, displacement, and resistance, honoring immigrant women who continue to carry their homes within them, even when borders, distance, and politics insist on separation. Through her lens, survival becomes a shared language, memory a living archive, and photography an act of holding close what the world has tried to take away.

More on her work here: @Niloofarlenscraft 

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Valentina Benassi | My Beloved

Italian photographer and art director Valentina Benassi is sharing her work My Beloved with us today.

"When I approached photography five years ago, I fell in love with Nan Goldin. Looking at this series, it feels very far from my initial inspiration. I tend to take very different kinds of pictures, using both black-and-white and color film, and working with both analog and digital cameras. So, I’d say the medium is not the fil rouge in my practice. Rather, I approach my work focusing on feelings and emotion. I practice photography to be able to capture the moment while I live it, without having to alienate myself from the scene. In other words, I want the camera to be an extension of my eyes, not my hands.

My beloved is a series that was shot at Kata Tjuta, a sacred site for the Anangu people in the Australian outback. I was in the middle of the desert – around me, only red, dusty plains scattered with dry grass. It felt like stepping onto Mars. The trail I hiked was called The Valley of the Winds – the air rushed through the cracks and blew fast along the path. The wind was so strong it swept my mind clean, so that every glance felt new. These photos bear witness to the otherworldly immensity of this beloved site."

Valentina works as an Art Director for Turbìne Magazine, an independent cultural publication and has been working in photography for the past five years, almost entirely with film.

She recently traveled to Australia for an extended period of time, and a solo experience to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. "Visiting Kata Tjuta—sacred rock formations for the Anangu people—was deeply moving. I was overwhelmed by the shapes and textures of the landscape". This is where My beloved was born out of.

You can find more of her work here: https://www.instagram.com/vale.benassi/

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Georgiana Feidi | Chrysalis

Georgiana's surreal images invite reflection on the delicate cycles of renewal that govern both nature and humanity. Just as the chrysalis silently shelters transformation, so too does the Earth move through its quiet rhythms, inviting us to recognize our place within its continuous cycle of growth and change.

"Imagine our planet Earth as an independent living entity, undergoing its own cycles of rest, regeneration, and transformation. Chrysalis explores this idea, portraying the Earth in a state of slumber, where the natural world becomes a cocoon for unseen changes. Through surreal imagery and ethereal blue tones, I delve into the interconnectedness between nature, the cosmos, and humanity, where the natural elements blended with the human presence reflect the Earth’s quiet metamorphosis. By extensively editing the images, I aim to amplify their surreal qualities, blending reality and imagination to evoke a dreamlike, otherworldly atmosphere. The human body becomes a symbol of transformation, mirroring the Earth's regenerative process and the deep connection between humans and the natural world." ***

Where are you from and where are you living right now?

I’m from Timișoara, România, and currently I live and work in Cluj-Napoca. 

Does the place you live in affect your art and practice?

Yes. The city is surrounded by natural areas and living close to it influences my practice. Nature has always been a consistent source of inspiration - not just visually, but emotionally and intuitively, often becoming a metaphor for transformation and presence.

How does being a female photographer influence your work? Do you encounter any challenges in your practice related to that?

I don’t approach my work through the lens of gender. My focus is more on exploring light, transformation, and expanded perception, often guided by intuition and inner resonance rather than conceptual frameworks based on identity. Still, I’m aware that being a woman in the art world can come with certain challenges, but these don’t shape how I create.

Do you want to share something about your body of work? What are you working on right now?

I often don’t begin with a fixed concept, but rather with a pull toward a certain color, atmosphere, or form. Intuition guides the process more than logic. I see nature, the body, and the cosmos as part of the same ongoing flow. My goal isn’t to illustrate this visually, but to create a space for it to be felt. Right now, I’m continuing my work on the Chrysalis series, while also staying open to unplanned visual explorations that often evolve into new directions.

How do you get inspiration? Who do you admire?

Inspiration often arrives unannounced through direct experiences in nature, quiet moments of presence, music, and everyday situations that call for full attention. I also enjoy sitting and observing my surroundings, whether in nature or the city, and in that stillness, small details always stand out and inspire me. I admire anyone who creates and lives with authenticity and depth.

Do you shoot mostly color or black and white? Why?

For a long time, I was drawn to b&w for its ability to evoke emotional resonance and different states. Lately, I feel drawn to color, especially blue, which currently feels essential for expressing certain atmospheres I’m exploring. In general, I don’t impose a specific palette when I work; instead, I observe where the creative process leads the final image.

Georgiana Feidi is a visual artist based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, who uses both digital and analog tools, including post-processing and darkroom explorations. Her work is inspired by the mysteries of the universe, nature, and personal insights, creating visual narratives that transcend conventional boundaries of thought. Georgiana has showcased her work in solo exhibitions nationally and in group shows both nationally and internationally.

In 2024, she was shortlisted for the Fine Art Photography Awards and the MonoVisions Awards, and became a member of FUTURES Photography. Recent publications include the Fresh Eyes 2025 book by GUP Magazine (launched at Haute Photographie), Anarchyº2 by Ephemere Tokyo, a feature in Figures Photography Berlin, Humble Arts Foundation and Planted Journal.

You can find more about Georgiana's work here: @georgiana_feidi

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Michele Zousmer

Where are you from and where are you living right now? I live in San Diego ,Ca. Originally from NYC. I feel growing up in NYC had a bigger effect on the way I see the world than living in San Diego . NYC is full of diversity . I love different cultures, especially their foods and music.

Does the place you live in affect your art and practice? I became interested in photography while in San Diego. In NYC, after college, I worked in medical research,. My son was a competitive basketball player, so I taught myself photography while photographing him and his team. I eventually became the sports photographer for his private school. It was when he went away to college that I went on a photo tour with a professional photographer and came back loving storytelling. I started volunteering for local organizations and, very luckily, met our local Sheriff,, who asked me if I could “change the perception of the female convict ‘. He was very excited about a new reentry program at our local jail. This changed the course of my work. My name became known in SD, and I was asked to photograph many other social issues – homelessness, domestic violence, trafficking, adoption and foster care, and animal rights.

How does being a female photographer influence your work? Do you encounter any challenges in your practice related to that? Being a female photographer, a mother, a wife, and a good friend, along with life experiences, shapes how I see the world. I never enter a photographic situation with a camera first but with an open heart and mind. I feel we all have a story to tell. We all are deserving of fundamental human rights. We all want the same things in life - to love and be loved in return. I am completely respectful of someone who does not want to share. It is only through this sharing that I can portray a poignant reflection of shared humanity. Through my lens, I become a storyteller, an advocate, and a vessel for change.

Do you want to share something about your body of work? What are you working on right now? How do you get inspiration? Who do you admire? I documented a homeless choir for over 7 years and made a film about one of their members. He was dying from pancreatic cancer and he wanted me to document his death so he could tell the choir how loved he felt by them and it was ok for him to leave. I spent the last 3 months of his life with him. The film is ' Sounds of the Sidewalk: A Journey of Goodbye '. I received a Humanitarian award from the NYC International Film Festival. I have also traveled internationally and am always searching for a story to tell,mostly about women and children. My work in Costa Rica on child labor earned me another Humanitarian award . Costa Rica agreed to become a socially conscious country after my images were included in a US government report on countries the USA traded with. They agreed to have daycare centers built on the coffee plantations. Today, there are over 60 Casa Alegrias for children under 12 to spend their days while their parents are in the coffee fields. My recent book MIS(S)UNDERSTOOD explores the role of women in the Irish Traveller community. They face many challenges in keeping traditions alive in our rapidly changing world. They are the marginalized community in Ireland and discriminated against both socially and culturally. I currently have two other long-term projects in progress. One is ‘Brilliance Exposed, ' which showcases professional African Americans as role models to students of color. This is especially important given the disturbing climate in the USA at this time. The second is “Feminization of Aging “, which explores the challenging roles elderly women face around the world. Research shows that in older populations, the proportion of women compared to men is higher. Due to social, economic, and cultural policies, supporting these issues is essential. Improving the quality of their lives through increased access to health and social services and implementing empowerment programs can improve the quality of their lives and reduce social isolation. I hope to bring attention to this.

"As a humanitarian photographer, I use my lens to illuminate the lives and stories of people and communities often overlooked. My work is driven by a deep commitment to truth, dignity, and the power of visual storytelling. I strive to capture moments of grace, beauty, resilience, vulnerability, and strength, offering a window into worlds that deserve to be seen and understood.

Through my photography, I aim to challenge perceptions, evoke empathy, and inspire action. Each image is a testament to the human spirit—an invitation to witness, reflect, and engage. Whether documenting the struggles of the marginalized or celebrating their triumphs, my work bridges lives and perspectives, fostering a deeper connection between us all."

See more of Michele's work here.

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Chiara Dondi | I Tarocchi

Where are you from and where are you living right now?  I was born in Bologna and after studied Industrial Design in Florence, I have returned to my home town.

Does the place you live in affect your art and practice?  For sure. The place where I was born and the places where I lived allowed me to develop my aesthetic. The ancient flavor of the technique I use together with the figure of the women in the paintings I have always looked at and the natural component that I find in the landscapes of the Apennines have certainly characterized the appearance of my works.

How does being a female photographer influence your work? Do you encounter any challenges in your practice related to that?  Being a woman has certainly influenced my choices not only in style but also in the subject matter. Being a woman is not a delicate experience, the ways in which we are brutally treated as objects are multiple and therefore I try to be light and delicate in my work. I am happy to see articles about female artists more and more often because even in my studies I noticed this enormous gap in consideration between men and women.

Do you want to share something about your body of work? What are you working on right now?  I have always thought that it was possible to find a common thread in my photographic series if not only for the style certainly for the choice of who to portray and how to portray them. The latest series that I am working on are different for the chosen colors. I see an even closer connection between them, as if I were creating real conversations between a subject of one photo and the other.

How do you get inspiration? Who do you admire? Music and cinema first of all. There are some cornerstones in my preferences: Depeche Mode, David Lynch and Julia Margaret Cameron. But I'm always open to change and adding new inspirations.

Do you shoot mostly color or black and white? Why?  I only take photography on black and white film. Always. The reason is that I want to conceive the photograph in two distinct moments: I want to create what I want to represent at the moment of photographing and then I want to interpret it with a clear mind with the colors they prefer even if they are different from reality.

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Rivkah Gevinson | Leaver, Returner

Combined with text, the latest photographic work of Rivkah Gevison results in a uniquely-crafted handmade book. With her images, she investigates the idea of home, not only as a physical space, but something liminal, belonging to the realm of feelings and duality. Rivkha holds up a mirror, giving the viewer the space and time to pause and reflect. A meditation on observing and reflecting.

"Leaver, Returner is not a book about any particular place, but rather a time in my life when my overwhelming sense of home was a state of being between. Through the objectness of a book, I’ve tried to give form to–make a place out of–that intangible place of betweenness."

Leaver, Returner Handbound photobook 2019 Self-published, printed by Conveyor Studios Edition of 200 32 pages 7.5 x 5 inches

You can find it on her website, here.

Rivkah Gevinson (b. 1990) works across painting, photography, book-making and music. Her artistic practice draws from the characteristics of her various mediums, and using those as a vehicle for play, observation, and spontaneity. Currently, her primary medium is egg tempera.

In her work, Rivkah thinks about the ways that each medium offers unique ways of bridging the gap between the personal interior and the external. For example, she’s curious to find out what the slow and painstaking process of painting with egg tempera will facilitate, in contrast to the instantaneous and prolific process of photography. She finds the through-line in her diverse output in its sensibility and themes, rather than through dictating a uniform medium or style. Her images span abstraction, representation, and imagination. Her work includes installations, artist-books, paintings, drawings, stop-motion animations, videos, tapestries, live musical performance and self-recorded music.

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Lynne Breitfeller | After the Fire: Water Damaged

Where are you from and where are you living right now? I was born in New Jersey and have always lived in the state.

Does the place you live affect your art and practice? In some situations it does. For example, I take walks in the Emerson Woods Preserve, a local nature preserve. When I am there and photographing I feel very connected to the environment and I am in the moment. I am also working on a long-term project of my caregiving experience of my parents and when they were living in their home, my childhood home memories of growing up would flood back to me while I was there, taking me back in time. Photographing my parents helped keep me present.

How does being a female photographer influence your work? Do you encounter any challenges in your practice that relate to that? It influences the way I think, perceive and see the world and that’s in my work. I find photography a journey, an exploration that often taps into the unconscious and lets me understand myself better and the world around me. It allows me to wonder, the way I did as child. I’ve encountered some challenges from male counterparts; often I have not been taken seriously or given a dismissive attitude. Sometimes I was the recipient of unwanted attention.

Do you want to share something about your body of work? What are you working on right now? Yes. In 2000 I shared a studio with two painters in an old industrial warehouse in Jersey City that had been converted to studios, galleries, and lofts. A third of my archive was damaged when water seeped from the ceiling above into the metal cabinet where I stored my negatives, chromes, and prints. I tried to salvage some of it, but emotionally it was too much to process. I threw out most of it, but I couldn’t bring myself to trash it all. What I did keep was arbitrary, just to save myself the pain of losing so much of what I had devoted years to creating. The fire and its aftermath left me devastated. For the next 15 years, I couldn’t reach the place inside me that held the desire to create. Sure, I would occasionally take some photos, but my heart wasn’t in it. There was no intent or vision. At that point I was the mother of a toddler and working full time, so it felt like photography was better left in the past for me. When my job at the publishing company of 28 years was phased out in 2016, I hadn’t felt like a photographer for many years. But when I volunteered at a local thrift store that doubled as a cat rescue organization, I started taking pictures of the cats up for adoption, as well as some of the items for sale in the shop for their social media page. I began to reconnect with myself as a photographer. During the pandemic, when so many aspects of our everyday lives were disrupted, suspended, or just ended, I finally found the time, energy, and inspiration to sift through my negatives. I found many of the damaged negatives and a few chromes. I began to review them on a lightbox with a loupe, and a film scanner app on my phone. One of the first images that jumped out at me was a self-portrait—the way the water damage had distorted it It was still me, recognizable as that girl in her 20s who identified as a photographer and artist, but it was also not-me, something that had been forever altered. I realized that this was emblematic of what time does to all of us, to our memories, to our lives. There’s a certain beauty to the starkly different, damaged images, just as there is a certain beauty to the ravages of time. In concrete terms, water on emulsion had transformed the composition of these photos, making them something entirely new and different. They had new meaning, and they helped me come to terms with so much of what was going on then. The pandemic, with its cruel isolation; my parents aging, with the harsh realities that entailed; as well as my own shifting identity a mother/daughter/caretaker/artist. I saw it all as I revisited the past in these sometimes haunting, surreal or humorous images. It helped me reconnect with old friends—including my past self. I was able to recollect some of the events and people that had played such crucial roles in shaping my life. I was able to reassure my younger self that her work and passion were important—to me, her future self, and also potentially to others, to help them reconcile with their own beautiful and damaged pasts. Currently I am working on a long-term project of my caregiving experience of my parents.

How do you get inspiration? I can find inspiration in so many places. Sometimes I can get inspiration from the walks in the wood, other times in the ordinary things that may get overlooked and these provide a further look. If an obstacle is in my way I traverse it, examine it closer, and photograph it to understand it.

Who do you admire? There are so many people I admire, the list is so long, but photographically speaking, some of are: Nan Goldin, Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann, Margaret Bourke White, Zanele Muholi, Loiuse Dahle-Wolfe, Carrie Mae Weems, Cindy Sherman, and Aline Smithson. They, along with so many others, broke through barriers to visibility and recognition and helped paved the way for female photographers. I lean on role models to help me do my best to show up and to do my work with courage and conviction. I encourage female photographers to take heart and courage from female artists who led the way and who are leading the way today and don’t be afraid to share your own vision and voice, believe in yourself and the act of doing your work.

Do you shoot mostly in black or white or color? Right now I am mostly shooting in black and white, but I do shoot in color. It depends on the project.

Lynne Breitfeller is a visual artist based in New Jersey. She explores both the mundane and unexpected details of everyday life. Human relationships, memory, loss, and humor are recurrent themes in her work. She received her B.A. in English from William Paterson University. After a two-decade career in text book publishing, she returned to the visual arts.

Her work has been exhibited at The Griffin Museum (Massachusetts), Center for Fine Art Photography and Colorado Photography Center (Colorado), Soho Photo Gallery (New York),Vermont Center for Photography (Vermont),  Los Angeles Center for Photography and the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (California) and Montclair Art Museum (New Jersey). amongst others. She won first place in Soho Photo Gallery’s 2023 National Competition, and was a merit winner in All About Photo Womens Competition in 2023 and the Rfotofolio Open Call 2022, and a finalist in the Lucie Foundation’s Carte Blanche in 2022. Additionally, her work has been featured in Fotofilmic, All About Photo, SHOTS, and Float magazines.

To know more about her work visit: www.lynnebreitfeller.com

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Beth Maciorowski | Memory Burn

Hoping that everyone is staying warm and cozy this holiday season, we are sharing the Memory Burn, the photographic work of Beth Maciorowski.

"I put together this series from the many photographs I have made over the last year or so during a challenging time within myself and due to the pandemic. I have always found comfort and solace in creating, especially shooting film, and have been lucky to feel inspiration through tough circumstances.

Nature is always my biggest inspiration and taking self portraits is an emotional release for me. It's nice when I can combine the two.

My process takes time. I only shoot film and try to do all of my manipulations in camera or with the film itself. I shoot mostly spontaneously and without planning, and sometimes it is much later on that I am able to really see what has come from the process. I like to make multiple exposures, using film soup (soaking the film in various liquids that affect the emulsion) and using long exposure and light painting.

One of my new favorite films are the very low ISO ones, a few in the series with lots of deep blues are made with that. I develop my film at home and scan it. Sometimes I don't look at the images after scanning for a few days. Sometimes the entire process from manipulating film to scanning can take awhile.

I like the slow process especially in the fast times we are living in. It slows me down.

Shooting film teaches me about impermanence. Of course there are times when something doesn't go right and I lose the whole roll. There is an aspect to letting go that I have to accept with this medium, and with the risk I take by messing with the film. There is beauty in the destruction and the mishaps.

This is all why I like to shoot in a more random way without much thought. It is almost like my camera becomes another appendage and the work is created without me thinking in a technical way and just making it from my heart”. 

Beth is a self-taught artist, specializing in analog photography. Her edgy photographs express creativity through experimentation, often manipulating the film. The images in this series were shot on 35mm film and home developed. 

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Auriane Kolodziej | Le Mirroir

Today we are sharing Le Mirroir (The Mirror) the photographic work of Auriane Kolodziej. Mirror, mirror, tell me who I am…

Mirror, mirror, tell me that I am.

“This series started with a dream I had in the summer of 2020. I was standing naked, in a bright endless room in front of a small mirror. I remember being intrigued by the back of the mirror instead of the front-my reflection, as I used to the last years suffering from anorexia nervosa. I recall wanted so deeply to know what was behind. The hidden face, the one that nobody sees, nobody cares. I woke up with that vital feeling of needing to know: who I am?

Growing up, I had hard times accepting myself. I even refused myself, for a while. 6 years to be exact. From 2012 to 2019; spending 1/4 of my life repressing my own self. It was a dark period during which I shut down every light within me. I simply turned life off. I guess I almost did it forever. Luckily, I failed. I began to take self portraits. My self portraits became a way to prove myself that I was, indeed, existing. I never stop ever since.

I always have taken photographs with my mobile phone; it is handy, I have no constraints as it is always with me.

I did some researches and experiments on how to clear a mirror in order to bring some transparency to it so it could reveal the picture I would transfer on. The oxidation process removes the silvering responsible for the reflection to be. I do not oxidize the full mirror, just some part. I relieve myself from my own reflection. Like open cuts, I clean them with acetone. Once the mirror is all dry, I take my hammer, and I hit it. One time. Two times. Three, even four times. I break it into pieces.

I know the superstition says that breaking a mirror brings 7 years of misfortune. I don’t believe breaking mirrors is a way for me to forever stay at that current stage of my life. My aim is actually the opposite: I transfer self portraits on my small broken mirror’s pieces to take a step back to who I was, and therefore learn who I am and discover who I want to be. I put my pieces inside transparent resin blocs-as the materialization of the endless room I dreamed in and of. I like to think about those crystal cubes as asylum for my reflection, the one I have been so sick off for years. It is a way for me to lock down the past, to put it on hold forever. I write poems to each piece, like little prayers telling their stories. Those blocs are the coffins of who I was; and I will cherish them, as myself, for as long as I live".

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Karla Guerrero | Jorge

I’ve been familiar with Karla Guerrero’s images since she was featured on Underexposed Magazine a few years ago. In her poetic and contemplative work she highlights themes such as family, loss, memory and absence.

Today I am delighted to welcome Karla again, and to share Jorge, her latest photo book which revolves around personal history and family archive.

"This series emerges from an aesthetic nexus that responds to nature elements seen on my grandfather’s road trip photos. The resulting images intervenes and aesthetically recreates my family archive, new memories within the ephemeral relationship with nature, with my grandfather as the principal character. The places visible in the images correspond to different locations in Mexico".

Jorge, Karla Guerrero, 2022 The third Photographs by: Karla Guerrero, Jorge Enrique Guerrero González Design & creative concept: Karla Guerrero, Ricardo G. Caballero Edition: first edition of 36, soft cover, with 3 types of paper, 64 pages. Dimensions: 17 x 22 cm

Jorge can be purchase directly through this link.

Karla Guerrero | Photographer and cultural manager (b. 1993, Mexico City).

Since 2017 she has participated in an international scene with greater scope and representation of contemporary photography as a curator, writer, and portfolio reviewer. In 2019 she founded Femgrafía, a platform for women photographers in Latin America and Spain. Recently, she was selected by Artpil as one of the “30 under 30 women photographers”.

More of her work here. Instagram & twitter: @karlagtfoto

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Gala Garrido | Apuntes sobre el Hastío

Apuntes sobre el Hastío | Annotations on Boredom

Apuntes sobre el Hastío is a multi media on going project, divided into section: Diarios, Fragmentos, Apuntes, and includes photography, video and lie performances by photographer and artist Gala Garrido.

The work, displayed as an immersive thread of consciousness, is based in personal experience and an exploration of a curated selection of poems. "My journey starts in Venezuela, with my soul looking for freedom in the depths of hell. While faced with deathful anguish, the poets’ voices became my Virgils, guiding me to overcome the dangers of the path and giving me refuge in every live performance when I read their passages. The pilgrimage develops in three general movements:

The Outward Journey when I document the authors’ work and life. The Inner Journey, a documentation of the symbolic realm orbiting each author; and The Reconciliation: a staged post-poetic installation that reconstructs the incarnation process of my Selves".

Gala Garrido is an artist from Caracas, Venezuela. Her work is about creating a space for empathy and exploring identity and eroticism through photographic representation from a feminine perspective.

Her work has been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum of Zulia; Mendoza Gallery; El Hatillo Art Center; Panoramic Emerging Art in Venezuela 2000-2012; TAC Gallery; Trasnocho Cultural; MAD Gallery, Los Galpones; UCAB Cultural Center; No Place Contemporary Art (Ecuador); Féroces International Photography Festival (France), Rhizome (Spain), Festival Hybrid (Spain), among others. See more of her work here.

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April M. Frazier | Frame of Reference

Frame of Reference is April M. Frazier's ongoing work that involves research and documentation of her ancestral roots in Texas through the creation of imagery on lands with an identified familial connection from the time of enslavement to present day. "Frame of Reference is a pictorial representation of familial influences and experiences which shaped my life. Using images and genealogical research, Frame of Reference serves to present an alternate narrative of the African American experience in Texas and beyond. Images of accomplishment, celebration and love are shown from as early as 1890 to present day including selected portraits from my family collection. Collages in the in exhibition carve out details of those lives lived and highlights certain triumphs, including Emanuel Roberts, my 2nd Great Grandfather and his acquisition of one hundred acres of land in Wharton County, Texas in 1893, and Henry Cox, my 3rd Great Grandfather, whose parents Jacob Cox and Malissa Truesdale married as freedmen in Fayette County, Texas January 1866. Sixteen portraits from Black Chronicles on loan from Autograph ABP, London are displayed in parallel to my portraits to demonstrate similarities in features, style of dress, and strong presence through time of AfriDescent people across the globe.

Frame of Reference demonstrates the growth, breadth, love, and interconnectedness in tradition and experiences over many generations. The threading signifies those connections in family ties and derived from observing the thread pattern on the back of a collage of images sewn by my grandmother. The work speaks to the power of photography and the privilege of my family’s access to the artform.

I want the viewer to feel like they are flipping through a family photo album in a relative’s living room, seeing similarities in their own lived experience. I chose to leave the images as-is to show their less than pristine condition. They serve as tangible evidence reaffirming this was family known and loved".

April M. Frazier is a documentary and lifestyle photographer from Houston, TX. She is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University receiving a BBA in Management Information Systems and Rice University, with a Master of Business Administration. April worked in Oil & Gas for fifteen years in various Information Technology roles, including a 10-month expat position in Hamburg, Germany. In 2011, April launched her photography business and has since served clients in all genres specializing in collaboration with minority and women owned businesses in Houston. 

Her personal photography projects include architectural and documentary images from her European and Caribbean travel with extensive focus on Jamaica. Her photographic work has been exhibited in galleries in New York, Oregon, and Texas, along with a group exhibition in London.

You can see more of April's work here.

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Arboreal | Virginia Wilcox

Today we are excited to share the work of Virginia Wilcox, Arboreal. Arboreal, defined as “living in trees,” is a body of work comprised of photographs taken in Los Angeles parks. These images present a survey of trees inhabiting a mangled urban landscape that looks something like wilderness. The photographs are formal studies, primarily concerned with texture, dimension, depth, and division of space. Light wraps itself around objects contained by carefully constructed frames. Within the frame, location, scale and time are brought into question. There is a tension between beautiful, formal landscape and frequent interruptions of everyday objects - sewer drains, concrete pathways, trash - reminders of the sprawling city below. This juxtaposition is mirrored in the construction of the images themselves: amidst the density of intersecting forms and vistas, a suggestion of infinity invites the viewer to look further while questioning what is beautiful in the contemporary landscape. Human presence remains subtly traceable in the details: man-made objects scattered amidst brush, alterations to the landscape, and a feeling of searching and belonging to hidden spaces.

Virginia lives and makes work in Los Angeles, California. She received her MFA in Photography from the University of Hartford, and BA in Photography from Bard College. She has spent the last decade teaching photography to at-risk youth in both Los Angeles and Seattle. Her first monograph, Arboreal, was published with Deadbeat Club Press in the summer of 2021. Additionally, Arboreal has been featured in publications such as Humble Arts Foundation, Juxtapoz, and Collector Daily. Her work has been exhibited at Actual Size Gallery (Los Angeles) and Glass Box Gallery (Seattle), and a two-person exhibition at Hedreen Gallery (Seattle). Her photographs have been published in Fotofilmic, Closing Ceremony, Humble Arts Foundation, Aint-Bad, and C41 Magazine.

You can see more of Virginia's work here.

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On Winter’s Margin

During the Covid-19 health crisis, as photographers, we had to reinvent the way we made images. Often cooped up inside, isolating and social distancing, here is how 16 photographers made work during the 2020 Pandemic. 

Dawn Yow | Laiane Teles | Luciana Merino | Yazmeen P. Loaiza|  Silvia Sanna | Paloma M. Ryan | Anna Clem | Ketevan Gvinepadze | Erica McKeehen | Karen Olson | Cristina Fiorito | Chiara Amelli | Jessica Voas | Molly Goodspeed | Roslyn Julia | Hellen Hernández |

Dawn Yow

Laiane Teles

Luciana Merino

Yazmeen P. Loaiza

Silvia Sanna

Dawn Yow

Paloma M. Ryan

Anna Clem

Erica McKeehen

Laiane Teles

Ketevan Gvinepadze

Paloma M. Ryan

Anna Clem

Erica McKeehen

Dawn Yow

Paloma M. Ryan

Hellen Hernández

Cristina Fiorito

Karen Olson

Yazmeen P. Loaiza

Chiara Amelli

Jessica Voas

Roslyn Julia

Karen Olson

Ketevan Gvinepadze

Silvia Sanna

Ketevan Gvinepadze

Laiane Teles

Cristina Fiorito

Molly Goodspeed

Hellen Hernández

Luciana Merino

Chiara Amelli

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Open Call: On Winter’s Margin

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Anna Marchioli

1. Where are you from and where are you living right now? I am half French, half Mexican and I am living in Clamart, in the Greater Paris area. I grew up living in France, Morocco, Greece and Israel. 2. Does the place you live in affect your art and practice? Very much so, each environment will inspire me differently, although I have my recurring subjects and topics. For instance, I live in the Parisian suburbs, the “banlieue” as we call it, it has its own atmosphere, it’s closer to nature, calmer, with more families and residential areas. I realized I like showing a magical side of it. Simple photos of branches look like exotic corals with the right light. As I read on enlargeyourparis.fr, the suburbs need a new outlook on them. Because they are underrepresented and often misrepresented. 3. How does being a woman influence your work? Do you encounter any challenges in your practice related to that? I’m not sure it influences me but stepping into this world through Instagram since July, I did notice it’s quite male dominated, like most sectors. I am glad my father allowed me to borrow his camera at a young age because, I realize it now, it meant he valued my outlook on life somehow. I realize I was privileged that way.

4. Do you want to share something about your body of work? What are you working on right now?  Right now I am putting together a project called “Greater (Lens) Paris”. It’s a selection of unedited captures taken in the town where I live, Clamart. The Grand Paris Express project will change Paris with the construction of new

metro lines around Paris. It will expand Paris into a Greater Paris area. For now, the vision of the “banlieue” which means “suburbs” often suffers some negative stigma. I would say Paris is seen as more exciting, younger, trendier. In many ways it is, but I like to shed a light to show Clamart’s surprising beauty, mystery and eerie nature. As it is changing very quickly, it’s sort of a love letter from me to the town that is seeing my children grow up. I hope that these photos can be seen as unexpectedly colorful, beautiful and maybe poetic. 5. How do you get inspiration? Who do you admire? I get inspiration by observing landscapes or people mostly by walking the streets. I particularly like taking walks at Blue or Golden hour. If I take my camera out at these times, I am sure that something will strike me as beautiful or interesting. I love to capture things that I find moody, dreamy or eerie in nature and this is also the type of photography that interests me the most. There are so many photographers I admire!! Right now I’m thinking of Todd Hido for the moodiness and mystery of his work, Erik Madigan Heck whom I recently discovered and whose use of color is to die for. And I realize, I picked two men!! So as women, Elsa Bleda is a young, amazing photographer who captures exactly the moods that I like with an extraordinary color palette. I also love another young Elsa’s work: Elsa Leydier. I share her love of color and flora and I find her outlook very unique as well. 6. Do you shoot mostly color or black and white? Why? I shoot mostly color. I am very much drawn to color but also to strange matter. I will eventually prefer the shot that is the most eye-catching or striking.