Innholdsfortegnelse for #1 2022 i Artdoc Photography Magazine

My work is the recording of my fascinations with the people. Sometimes I try to understand people; sometimes, it is my psychotherapy. Grzegorz chose to live in solitude to pursue his path and calling to be closer to God, as he claims. Edward is 75 years old. He is very energetic, full of life and wears his age well. All his life, he has been a physical worker. He has lived alone for the last 25 years, cleaning forested postwar rubble. He is alone and wants to be alone. People annoy him and disturb him at work. Yet he is always willing to talk. Tomasz decided to be alone, to have peace of his mind. I have become fascinated by the voluntarily chosen solitude. These people intentionally isolate themselves from…

I can give you a flower, but you should feel its fragrance yourself. Photography, for me, is a way to express the inexpressible, to tell the world about the world. Through the purity, silence and spontaneity of photos, I peer deep into things. By studying their spirit, I synthesize human ambitions and the infinity of the universe. Through the prism of images, colours and forms, which go beyond understanding, I transform the paradoxes of space and time into transcendence. www.anna-nikonenok.ru…

Ferry Tales is the sight of a place: the vision of a reality that represents at the same time the solitude and the immensity, a second and the eternity. It is the vision of something trivial that can acquire an exceptional quality in our daily life; a piece circulating, stopping, floating in space. The work explores the departure, the journey and the arrival of a ship. It offers a rough perspective of reality and the imaginary, trying to reflect on why the ship is the ‘heterotopia’ (places that are disturbing), because, in the words of Michel Foucault, in civilizations without boats dreams mingle, adventure is substituted by espionage and pirates by the police. www.barradascarlos.com…

At the pure non-fiction extreme, I posit that the photograph never escapes at least some element of subjectivity and manipulation, even if it is simply where the photographer chooses to place the camera. The photographer is making decisions at every moment that affect the aesthetics, composition and information contained in the image. At the pure fiction extreme, there remains an element, however slight of indexicality; the thing that the image refers to is still at least partially recognizable. In instances where there is no referent, where the image has been digitally manipulated to such an extent that nothing visible looks like anything we know or can relate to, I would argue that we have moved from photography into another digital art or communication medium. The use of the photograph The…

I have been here continually for years, my relief, etched onto the dignified, enduring walls and windows that are the portals of mercy and forgiveness. Each recess of mine is the consequence of silent patience and the account of progress & loss. I protested not once while being devout to my cause. What was shaped is a bright flame called love, and this flicker began with every nail struck into my structure and pressed through into my walls. I have been obscured in the whitewash of time. My frame has the odour of dank, the smell of age. My windows no longer catch the light; my walls are foundation weary. None wished to reside in me any longer. None believed that I am secluded, enduring the sluggish demise of mankind.…

Japan has often attracted many photographers, who usually bring back the same kind of imagery, like mount Fuji, taken from every thinkable position. But Nicolas Boyer was more interested in the unknown hidden side of the country of the rising sun. He wanted to step aside from the Instagram kind of images, often made in an aesthetically pleasing style. The result is a collection of highly anomalous and sometimes uncanny pictures. Some pictures are surreal in style, but Boyer says not to have been influenced by French surrealism. “I am more influenced by the funny side of life, like the British humour.” Little finger One striking exemplary photo is Beppo, a portrait of a middle-rank ‘’yakuza’’, a criminal gang member who monitors prostitution in his sector. One of his men…

Ukraine, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Thirty-five years after the abandonment of the irradiated territory of Chernobyl, the vegetation abounds in the middle of a ghost town. It occupies all the free space, ramifies on facades, in asphalt cracks, inside half-collapsed buildings. It gives an apocalyptic vision of a dehumanised future and an estranging sensation of discovering nature growing on the ruins of our civilisation. All pictures are made with infrared light, using a dedicated material that, depending on the chosen wavelength, highlights the vegetation of the photographs. www.herminejouanphotography.com…

I am a symbolic literary photographer, a visual storyteller: pure and poetic with much attention to detail. Sometimes I’m balancing between realism and surrealism, often spiced with a touch of humour. My photos are spontaneous, not staged. I’m always focused on the decisive or unguarded moment. I shoot with my soul, not with the camera. I photograph as I live. I let things come to me, and I don’t consciously look for them. www.verloes.com…

Gideon Mendel grew up in the same neighbourhood as the late photographer David Goldblatt and went to school with his children, of which he is often taken there by David in his car. When Gideon became involved in photography, the famous neighbour appeared quite critical. “He wasn’t gentle, but I learned a huge amount from him and from seeing him work and from his dedication.” After studying African economic history and psychology, Mendel started his career in The Star newspaper in Johannesburg. “The Star was an ambivalent newspaper, liberal and conservative. A special black edition, The Star Africa was sold in the townships. I photographed everything, from dog shows to politics. Together with a journalist, I covered political events and got them in the newspaper.” After The Star, he worked…

Barry Salzman was born in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, and schooled in South Africa. After high school, he spent a year in Canada and later moved to New York. “It completely opened my eyes to what was possible outside of Southern Africa. Remember that apartheid was still enforced; there were international sanctions on Rhodesia then. You couldn’t travel without a passport. International people were not including South Africa. We lived in an incredibly closed society.” After some years in Canada and New York, Salzman returned to South Africa, where he still felt the repression and a lack of room for expression. South Africa was still a much closed country. “Until I left South Africa at 21 or 22 to go to New York, I never knew what Nelson Mandela looked like…