Latest news with #photographer
Globe and Mail
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
Fine Art Photographer Johan Siggesson Reveals Decade-Long Quest to Capture Singular Image
Valletta, Malta--(Newsfile Corp. - June 20, 2025) - Fine art photographer Johan Siggesson announced today the culmination of a remarkable ten-year journey to capture a single, transcendent image that has eluded him for a decade. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: Image caption: Lioness drinking from waterhole in the Masai Mara, Kenya To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: The photograph, titled "Soul to Soul," represents the photographer's unwavering dedication to his craft and illustrates the profound commitment required in fine art nature photography. "Truly experiencing what I see and sharing that vision with you is where creation comes to life," said Siggesson. "This image required not just technical skill, but a deep communion with nature that unfolded over years rather than moments." For more than a decade, Siggesson tried to capture this moment. He had many encounters with lions drinking over the years, but so many elements needed to align at once: the light, the timing, the behaviour, and an unobstructed view. It rarely all came together. Siggesson's quest exemplifies the often-unseen aspects of fine art photography-the patience, perseverance, and deep reverence for subject matter that transcends the instantaneous nature of modern image-making. "My photography is fueled by a deep desire to find harmony within the intricate, often chaotic beauty of the natural world," Siggesson explained. "Some visions require years to materialize, and this image represents the culmination of countless hours of waiting, observing, and connecting." The photographer's decade-long commitment to a single image stands in stark contrast to today's culture of immediate gratification and rapid content creation. Throughout the ten-year journey, Siggesson made countless expeditions to lion-territory, each time refining his approach and deepening his understanding of the environment and the animal. "While each attempt yielded different photographic opportunities, they were all united by a profound respect and reverence for the fragile beauty of the natural world that surrounds us," said Siggesson. The image was recently unveiled at the exhibition ' Africa - Land of Icons' at Christine X Art Gallery in Malta. This milestone achievement reinforces Siggesson's philosophy that seeing is just the beginning of the creative process-a perspective that has defined his artistic approach throughout his career. The untamed animals and landscapes that inspire Siggesson's work serve as boundless sources of inspiration, compelling him to capture their essence through a lens of patience and deep observation. Art critics have already praised the image for its emotional depth and technical mastery, noting that its impact is heightened by the knowledge of the decade-long commitment behind its creation. About Johan Siggesson Photography Johan Siggesson is an award-winning fine art photographer specializing in nature and wildlife imagery. His work is characterized by a contemplative approach that seeks to find harmony within the intricate beauty of the natural world. Siggesson's photographs have been exhibited internationally and are held in private collections worldwide.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fine Art Photographer Johan Siggesson Reveals Decade-Long Quest to Capture Singular Image
Valletta, Malta--(Newsfile Corp. - June 20, 2025) - Fine art photographer Johan Siggesson announced today the culmination of a remarkable ten-year journey to capture a single, transcendent image that has eluded him for a decade. Johan Siggesson To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: Image caption: Lioness drinking from waterhole in the Masai Mara, Kenya To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: The photograph, titled "Soul to Soul," represents the photographer's unwavering dedication to his craft and illustrates the profound commitment required in fine art nature photography. "Truly experiencing what I see and sharing that vision with you is where creation comes to life," said Siggesson. "This image required not just technical skill, but a deep communion with nature that unfolded over years rather than moments." For more than a decade, Siggesson tried to capture this moment. He had many encounters with lions drinking over the years, but so many elements needed to align at once: the light, the timing, the behaviour, and an unobstructed view. It rarely all came together. Siggesson's quest exemplifies the often-unseen aspects of fine art photography-the patience, perseverance, and deep reverence for subject matter that transcends the instantaneous nature of modern image-making. "My photography is fueled by a deep desire to find harmony within the intricate, often chaotic beauty of the natural world," Siggesson explained. "Some visions require years to materialize, and this image represents the culmination of countless hours of waiting, observing, and connecting." The photographer's decade-long commitment to a single image stands in stark contrast to today's culture of immediate gratification and rapid content creation. Throughout the ten-year journey, Siggesson made countless expeditions to lion-territory, each time refining his approach and deepening his understanding of the environment and the animal. "While each attempt yielded different photographic opportunities, they were all united by a profound respect and reverence for the fragile beauty of the natural world that surrounds us," said Siggesson. The image was recently unveiled at the exhibition 'Africa - Land of Icons' at Christine X Art Gallery in Malta. This milestone achievement reinforces Siggesson's philosophy that seeing is just the beginning of the creative process-a perspective that has defined his artistic approach throughout his career. The untamed animals and landscapes that inspire Siggesson's work serve as boundless sources of inspiration, compelling him to capture their essence through a lens of patience and deep observation. Art critics have already praised the image for its emotional depth and technical mastery, noting that its impact is heightened by the knowledge of the decade-long commitment behind its creation. About Johan Siggesson Photography Johan Siggesson is an award-winning fine art photographer specializing in nature and wildlife imagery. His work is characterized by a contemplative approach that seeks to find harmony within the intricate beauty of the natural world. Siggesson's photographs have been exhibited internationally and are held in private collections worldwide. Media Contact For high-resolution images or interview requests, please contact: media@ To view the source version of this press release, please visit
BBC News
7 hours ago
- Climate
- BBC News
Covid 2020: The packed Covid beach described as 'Armageddon'
In June 2020, a popular British seaside town was swamped with beachgoers amid a global pandemic. One photographer captured the chaos. In June 2020, the UK began to swelter amid a summer heatwave. Normally, Britons would flock to the country's iconic beach resorts, sunning themselves on pebbly beaches, feeding coins into garish arcade machines on "pleasure piers", and protecting their rapidly melting ice creams from the ever-present attention of marauding seagulls. But this year was different. Since March, the UK had been in lockdown. Pubs, clubs and theatres had shut their doors. The UK's high streets shops were largely closed except for supermarkets and food stores and a handful of other traders deemed essential. Sporting events, from horse racing to the country's world-famous Premier League football, had been cancelled. Despite stringent lockdowns, the death toll had climbed day after day; by early June, some calculated that 50,000 people had died from the disease in the UK since the outbreak started. In the middle of June, however, the British government made tentative steps to try and re-open some elements of society. They allowed many shops to re-open (though pubs and restaurants were still shut) and made plans to relax the 2m (6.6ft) social distancing down to 1m (3.3ft). As the mercury climbed, the Covid restrictions seemed to ease, at least a little. On 25 June, 2020, the UK recorded its highest temperatures of the year so far; as high as 33.3C (92F). In the county of Dorset, the hot, sunny weather resulted in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, which oversees three of the most popular seaside resorts, declaring a major incident. Britons appeared to have decided, en masse, to have all had the same idea: try and cool off at the beach. News agency Agent-France Press (AFP) photographer Glyn Kirk would normally have been spending a hot Saturday shooting cricket matches; but this being 2020, all the cricket matches were cancelled. He found himself, instead, with a news assignment: head to Bournemouth and take pictures of the crowds. "You can see it looks really busy," says Kirk, looking back over images at his home in seaside city of Brighton. "You can see people were kind of distanced on the beach. It was weird. How can all these people keep away from each other?" The last crowd Kirk had seen of this size had been in March, the Cheltenham Gold Cup. This premiere horse racing event, which drew nearly 250,000 over four days. "And then the following day they announced that, you know, the Covid thing [lockdowns] was coming in," Kirk says. The Gold Cup was considered by a former UK chief scientific advisor to have been a super-spreader event, sending newly affected racegoers back to their homes across the country. Back on the Dorset beaches. At the time, the BBC reported gridlocked streets, overflowing waste, fights and people camping on the beach because they could not return home. In its coverage, the Daily Telegraph newspaper even described the scene as "Armageddon". "I can remember at the time, there was people complaining that we were making the beach look busier than I actually was," Kirk says. He says he took many of his shots on a 70mm portrait lens, a focal length which doesn't compress the perspective as much as the long lenses used for sports events. More like this:• The pictures of the Covid crisis at close hand• The photo that captured Covid's terrible toll• Covid 2020: A landmark without a tourist crowd Kirk says that deluge of people meant he had to park his car miles away from Bournemouth's beach, and walk there and back, weighed down with his photographic gear to take the pics the agency needed. Even sending the pictures back to the office was a challenge: "There were so many people on the beach on their phones, the network was swamped. I had to walk ages just to find somewhere quiet to send the pictures back." Over two days of crowded beaches, the local council's waste services had to clean up some 41 tonnes of waste – including human effluent. Because of the Covid restrictions, none of the usual public toilets were open, adding an extra public health issue. It was a problem Kirk knew well from his wanderings around locked-down London. "When we were in the centre of town, certainly for the first few months, there were no toilets open in the Tube stations and stuff. So, yeah, you had to go. I think I went about eight hours one day without going to the toilet, which is a record for me. That was hard. That was the difficult bit of walking around, doing news stuff. Because everyone was shut, you couldn't even pop into a café." Living in Brighton, Kirk had become used to seeing the strange sight of a British beach relatively devoid of life over the previous few months. "I think the seagulls were wondering what was going on, because there's no one there, there's no chips to rob from people. You were definitely thinking, 'this is strange. Why is there no one here?'" --
CTV News
14 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- CTV News
Photographer's personal work on display at Calgary gallery
Calgary Watch A Medicine Hat man spent more than two decades as a world-featured fashion photographer. Today, he lives a quieter life and finds beauty in the landscape.
CNN
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
This Abu Dhabi photographer is on a mission to define his country's ‘architectural identity'
When Hussain AlMoosawi arrived home, he didn't recognize anything. The Emirati photographer, who had spent six years studying in Australia, returned to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2013. He'd missed a real estate boom of dizzying proportions: not just new buildings, but new districts. More than that, the buildings of his childhood were disappearing, replaced by shiny new skyscrapers. But for AlMoosawi, these international icons were not the urban fabric of his home: it was the oft-overlooked, mid-century office towers and residential blocks squeezed between new highways and overshadowed by luxury developments that felt most familiar. It sparked a desire to 'understand the urban context of the UAE,' and AlMoosawi set out to meticulously document and capture these underappreciated buildings, 'and reimagine the city as if it were the '80s, the time when I was born.' Initially focusing on industrial landscapes, temporary structures and air conditioning units, he began to notice symmetry in many of the buildings he was photographing, inspiring his current project: facades. 'Facades are like a face,' said AlMoosawi. 'It's something that people connect with.' His bold, geometric images strip away context to spotlight the character and diversity of everyday buildings. Using a telephoto lens to shoot close-ups from the ground or elevated positions, AlMoosawi carefully frames out distractions and sometimes removes minor obstructions like lampposts in post-processing. So far, the 41-year-old, who is editor-in-chief for National Geographic AlArabiya Magazine, has photographed over 600 buildings across the UAE, and next year hopes to complete his collection in Abu Dhabi, where he lives. In the long term, he hopes to turn the 'lifetime project' into an interactive archive that both preserves urban heritage and invites viewers to rediscover their own city. 'Our cities aren't big, in terms of scale, compared to many other cities,' said AlMoosawi. 'But then they have a story to tell, they have things between the lines that we don't see, and my quest is to see these things.' Born in 1984, AlMoosawi grew up during a period of rapid development: the UAE was formed a little over a decade earlier, and the discovery of oil in 1958 had led to significant urban expansion and an influx of foreign workers. While many early buildings were designed by Western architects, the 1970s and '80s saw more Middle Eastern and South Asian architects moving to the UAE, particularly from Egypt and India, said George Katodrytis, a professor of architecture at the American University of Sharjah, who has lived in the UAE for 25 years. This multicultural history is reflected in its architectural identity, 'which is different than the West and is not completely Islamic, in its patterns and formal language,' he added. Buildings from the early days of the UAE fused modernist forms — like precast concrete facades — with climate adaptations, social customs, and Arabian and Islamic design features like arches and domes, creating a 'hybrid' identity, said Katodrytis. Katodrytis sees a distinctive style emerging in Emirati facades of the 1970s and '80s, with features like recessed balconies creating a 'jigsaw puzzle' effect that reflects cultural preferences for privacy and heavily shaded outdoor space. 'It's not what we expect Islamic architecture to be, from a textbook or history, but it's more of an informal interpretation,' said Katodrytis. Like the rest of the UAE, Abu Dhabi has continued to expand over the past few decades. Between 1975 and 2019, its urban area grew from just 54 square kilometers to 758 square kilometers, and according to government data, the city saw a 66% increase in the number of residential and non-residential units between 2011 and 2023. In recent years, 'mega projects' such as Yas Island and Saadiyat Island have added new residential and business hubs to the ever-evolving city. Construction methods, materials and styles have changed significantly in the past 30 years, but Katodrytis can see an 'indirect' legacy in some of the city's recent structures, which have some similarities to designs from the 1980s, rather than those from the 2000s: 'The facades have more thickness, less glass, and it's a little bit more three-dimensional.' Projects like the Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith complex featuring a mosque, church, and synagogue, and Louvre Abu Dhabi, offer more subtle inflections of Arabian design, focusing more on the geometry and abstract shapes often seen in the city's 20th-century architecture. The buildings also reflect the city's distant past, when low-rise settlements centered around shared courtyards. And while many buildings from the 20th century have been seen as outdated, and even demolished to make way for new construction, there's been some changing sentiment around modern heritage. At the 2014 Venice Biennale, the UAE's exhibition highlighted 1970s-1980s residential architecture and its connection to the country's cultural identity. Since then, each Emirate has started to review its approach to urban conservation: in Abu Dhabi, 64 sites were given 'unconditional protection' in 2023, including the Cultural Foundation, a 1980s building that was earmarked for demolition in 2010 before it was ultimately refurbished. 'The interesting thing is that (many of) these buildings are not necessarily big, iconic buildings. They're middle class, even workers' housing from the '60s and '70s. So it's a different social, cultural value, which now has been elevated,' said Katodrytis. In 2024, this was formalized in a national policy that focuses on identifying, documenting, and protecting modern architectural heritage in the UAE. 'In urban planning, if the value of the land supersedes the value of the building, then the building has no relevant value, and so it's demolished to be replaced by another building,' said Katodrytis. 'Now, the historic value of the building supersedes the economic value.' Other photographers have also been documenting the Emirates' urban history: two European expatriates, known by their Instagram handle @abudhabistreets, are showcasing a side of the city beyond well-known landmarks, in a bid to reveal the cultural fabric and the city's ever-evolving identity; and architecture professor and photographer Apostolos Kyriazis spent two years documenting Abu Dhabi's public spaces for a joint research project. For AlMoosawi, buildings from the '70s and '80s are deeply nostalgic, evoking memories of his grandmother's low-rise home in Old Dubai, now a commercial center. The project has revealed to him 'a clear architectural identity' that he's found resonates with others, too. His next challenge is working out how to organize and categorize the buildings. Finding information on buildings, like the architect or even the construction date, can be tricky, especially for older and less well-known residences, AlMoosawi said. 'I had the idea to put it out there as an interactive archive,' he said. 'What I want is people to interact with these pictures. We have many people who lived in these buildings. They might have old pictures of them. So they could add more information, add more visual data, and you never know what you might get.' By the end of the project, he expects to have photographed around 2,000 buildings — and hopes the project will inspire people to look again at the urban landscapes close to home that many of us take for granted. 'I have many people who tell me, 'We've always lived here, we've never seen that,'' he added.
