An impressive exhibit at the Tate Modern in London showcasing African photography examines the legacies of Africa’s past through the works of 36 artists.

In the opening room of the “A World in Common” exhibit, queens and kings from Nigeria stare back at the viewer, with expressions varying from interest to regal impassivity. 

The series of portraits, shot by artist George Osodi, is a powerful introduction to the Tate Modern’s recent exhibition featuring 36 artists from across the continent and further afield. 

‘Nigerian Monarchs’ offers an insight into how African identity continues to be shaped by ancestral legacies and traditions. 

Alongside Zimbabwean artist Kudzanai Chiurai’s series ‘We Live in Silence’, which examines monarchy and religion, the photos immediately launch viewers into the exhibit’s broad themes of Africa’s past, present and future. 

Re-focusing the lens

Curated by British-Ghanaian Osei Bonsu, the exhibit features over 150 works of photography, mixed with videography and installation, and is one of the largest exhibitions to showcase African contemporary photography.

By re-focusing the camera’s lens, artists challenge stereotypical views of the continent and offer up new perspectives on the legacies of its past. 

“‘A World in Common’ explores the ways in which artists have used the medium of photography to ‘think the world from Africa’,” says Bonsu.

“While rooted in the present, the project is staged as a dialogue between contemporary photography and historical forms of image-making. It examines the forces of mobility and circulation upon which empires and territories were built, and considers the archive as a vast space of possibility in which alternative forms of storytelling are brought to life.”

A turbulent past

Spanning generations and countries, the artists cover a wide array of topics and themes. 

A highlight is Ghanaian-born photographer James Barnor, whose work in the 1950s and ’60s showed a society in transition, as Ghana moved towards independence, and “captured the hopes and dreams of a nation”.

Algerian Lazhar Mansouri also documented the changes of a country in a turbulent time, following the start of Algeria’s War of Independence. 

These studio photographers changed the way Africans were depicted by the camera, inspiring a new generation of photographers.

Reclaiming power

Following on from the joys and griefs of the 20th century, many of the artists featured in the Tate take their cue from the likes of Barnor. 

From Ruth Ossai’s works in Nigeria, to Atong Atem’s look at the African diaspora, the studio photography of the 21st century reconciles traditions with modernity.

“The first photographs ever taken of Africans were colonial ethnographic depictions that presented the subjects in a really skewed and problematic way,” says Atem. “I wanted to see what happens when we turn the lens on ourselves and subvert that ethnographic gaze. To me, it’s a moment of power and reclamation, and an opportunity for us to celebrate our personal and cultural identities.”

Shared dreams

The exhibit comes full circle by ending with a hopeful look at the continent’s future, as Africa’s cities rapidly expand and society is forced to adapt to the challenges presented by the climate crisis. 

Contemplating the multitude of environmental issues, the artists “find inspiration in the power of a mythological universe and shared dreams of a new society.”

Through photos that mix the surreal with elements of photojournalism, the exhibit’s final room once again offers a different narrative. 

“The world is continually bombarded with the social plight of Africa,” says Aida Muluneh of her work. “My focus in this project was to address these topics without the cliche that we see in mainstream media. In a sense to advocate through art.”

Legendary fashion photographer Hans Feurer, who shot the groundbreaking 1983 Kenzo ad campaign starring supermodel Iman, has died.

The photographer, who had a career spanning five decades, passed away at the age of 85 last Tuesday. Feurer’s death was confirmed by his management on Instagram.

Feurer, who was born in a small town in Zurich, Switzerland, began his career as a graphic artist and illustrator for various advertising agencies in London in the 1960s.

In 1966, he decided to embark on a career as a professional photographer after purchasing a Land Rover and moving to Cape Town, South Africa.

According to The Business of Fashion, during his time on the African continent, Feurer captured moments of adventure and light with his camera — a decision that defined his visual aesthetic as a photographer.

When he returned to London at the end of 1967, Feurer officially launched his career as a photographer — becoming celebrated for his sensual photographs of women that experimented with light and shadow in ways previously unseen.

Feurer landed coveted spots in magazines such as British and French editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar Spain, and Elle France.

In 1974, Feurer was commissioned to shoot the Pirelli Calendar in Seychelles. His innovative images for Pirelli, which used light and shade to create extraordinary effects, are still referenced in fashion photography to this day.

In a remarkable eye-popping shot, Feurer captures rays of light bouncing off a model’s glossy red lips — which we would easily mistake for being the result of Photoshop today.

In another image shot by Feurer for the Pirelli calendar, the shadows cast by palm trees overhead look like zebra stripes on a supermodel’s skin.

Images That Re-Wrote The The Rules for Fashion Campaign

But perhaps the defining images of Feurer’s career were the ethereal photographs he shot of model Iman in Lanzarote, Spain for a campaign for the fashion brand Kenzo in 1983.

Today, Feurer’s images — which captured Iman as an otherworldly vision swathed in layers of colorful fabric — are lauded for their role in rewriting the rules for photography for fashion campaigns. Feurer’s photographs also helped solidify supermodel Iman’s status as a fashion icon.

“Hans Feurer was an icon in photography, an absolute master of natural light that held no secrets for him,” Feurer’s management writes in a statement confirming the photographer’s death on Instagram.

“He saw life in color, possessed great rigor, and knowledge of garment, while allowing a lot of freedom of expression to models he photographed. Everything had to be credible and realistic.

“For him, fashion was about expressing a joy for life, creating emotions, dreaming, all while trying to reach as many people as possible.”

Image credits: Header photo via Wikimedia Commons.

While this surreal image looks like a planet floating in space, it is actually a 360-degree image of an astronomical observatory.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is still under construction but when it’s finished it will hold the most powerful digital camera ever built and make an unprecedented map the Universe.

This spectacular view of the observatory atop of Cerro Pachón, 8,850 feet above sea level, was taken by Petr Horálek, an astrophotographer from the Czech Republic who used a Canon Ra camera with a Sigma 35mm lens attached to take a series of 10-second exposures which were then stitched into a panorama.

“Pachon has epic night sky, and I felt I was literally within reach of the Universe … and also photographing something historically epic,” Horálek tells Live Science. “The Rubin Observatory will be the best survey telescope for many years ahead … so what a feeling capturing the new epic history of astronomy.”

When the telescope comes online in August, it will begin a decade-long survey: the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will scan the sky creating roughly 20 terabytes of data each night.

Scientists hope the LSST will identify anything that moves or brightens, i.e. asteroids and supernovas, but it’s also hoped it will discover 20 billion galaxies and stars.

The LSST Camera (pictured under construction above) is roughly the size of a small car and weighs three tons. It features a five-foot wide front lens and a 3,200-megapixel sensor that will be cooled to -100 degrees Celcius to reduce noise.

The large aperture, wide-field optical camera is capable of viewing light from the near ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths and is made up of 189 charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors arranged in a total of 21, three-by-three square arrays mounted on platforms called rafts.

The 64-centimeter-wide focal plane corresponds to a 3.5-degree field of view, which means the camera can capture more than 40 times the area of the full moon in the sky with each exposure.

Image credits: Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava)

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Mist rising from the Tuscan hills, a tiny fish staring at the ocean from inside the neck of a glass bottle, and a pangolin tucked contentedly under the chin of her carer are among the winning entries from the 2023 Travel Photographer of the Year competition.

Shot all around the globe, the images illuminate both the beauty and tragedy that arise when humans interact with the natural world.

Judges crowned Slovenian photographer AndreJa Ravnak the overall winner for her depictions of dream-like European landscapes, after considering more than 20,000 images submitted by photographers from more than 150 countries.

Ravnak, an architect by trade, acknowledged the “complex task” faced by the judges and thanked them in a statement for recognizing her work.

“I’ve seen many excellent and creative photos in this year’s TPOTY final and it’s such a great honour to find my work recognized,” she said.

“Congratulations to all the winners; together, we are enthusiastically documenting this wonderful world, and perhaps this is a small contribution, a reminder to preserve its wonder for future generations.”

Other winners included Athanasios Maloukos in the “People and Cultures” category for his photos of shamans performing rituals to connect with spirits in Siberia; Martin Broen in the “Nature, Wildlife & Conservation” category with his photo series of the Mobula ray migration in Mexico; and Armand Sarlangue for his images of Iceland’s roiling landscapes in the “Landscape and Environment” category.

Meanwhile, 14-year-old Caden Shepard Choi won the Young Travel Photographer of the Year award for her black-and-white series of photos depicting the Navajo people of Chinle, Arizona herding sheep, shearing them and then weaving with the wool.

Her fellow American, Lilly Zhang, 17, won the 15–18-year-old category with her ethereal images of a Pennsylvania lake, and the wildlife drawn to it, in the early morning light.

All the winning photos can be viewed online, or at an exhibition held at the NEC in Birmingham, UK from March 16-19 and at Xposure in Sharjah, UAE.

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Travel photography is a diverse genre encompassing everything from portraiture, landscape and wildlife to documentary, architecture and food. Since 2003, the Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) award has provided a platform for imager-makers to share their travel camera captures from every corner of the globe and this year’s winning entries combine beauty, drama and human impact. From stunning aerial shots of a misty wheatfield to a heartwarming image of a pangolin and her carer to poignant shots of elephants navigating through garbage dumps, the winning entries are as diverse as they are distinct. 

Amateur and professional photographers from over 150 countries submitted more than 20,000 images – and, for the second consecutive year, a Slovenian photographer claimed the overall honors. AndreJa Ravnak impressed the judges with her images of hop growing in Slovenia and rolling fields in Italy and Czechia. Ravnak’s work combines fairytale beauty with architectural landscapes, reflecting her background as an architect.

TPOTY founder Chris Coe commended this year’s winners, noting the “subtle elegance” in Ravnak’s portfolios, one showcasing simple landscapes with delicate colors and textural beauty, and the other exploring hop fields out of season. Ravnak expressed gratitude, saying, “Becoming Travel Photographer of the Year is a huge recognition.”

A winner was selected from each of the nine categories including three Young photographers. All hailing from the US, Caden Shepard Choi won the overall Young TPOTY award, Lilly Zhang came first in the 15-18 category, while Zayan Durrani came top in the 14 years and under section. French photographer Armand Sarlangue was crowned the Landscape & Environment winner, Martin Broen took the top spot for Nature, Wildlife & Conservation, while Athanasios Maloukas from Greece prevailed in People and Culture and Alain Schroder (who recently won Photographer of the Year in The Nature Photo Contest) came first in Visual Stories. 

AndreJa Ravnak’s prize includes a £1,000 (approximately £1,270 / AU$1,930) cash bursary, a personalized leather portfolio book or iFolio, Radiant Photo editing software, a portfolio review from New York agent Frank Meo, and more. Caden Shepard Choi was awarded a  £500 ($635 / AU$960) cash prize from TPOTY, a Plastic Sandwich leather portfolio book or iFolio, Radiant Photo imaging software, a place on a Photo Iconic photography workshop, and Royal Photographic Society (RPS) membership.

The awards also introduced three MPB One Shot categories, with winners receiving £1,000 to spend on photographic equipment. Ignacio Palacios, Josien van Geffen, and Andrea Peruzzi claimed top honors in A Quieter Life, Above, Eye Level, Below, and Leisure & Adventure respectively. MPB supported the HD Video category, World in Motion, won by Matthew Williams-Ellis for his film Karibu Nyumbani, highlighting the beauty and wildlife populations of the Mara North Conservancy, Kenya.

This year’s competition was judged by a 16-strong panel of professional photographers and industry experts, including RPS president Simon Hill and National Geographic photographer Jason Edwards. 

All the winning and runner-up images will be on display at The Photography and Video Show at the NEC in Birmingham from 16-19 March, as well as Xposure in the UAE and the winner’s gallery on the Travel Photographer of the Year website. 

Take a look at the best lenses for travel photography, and if you have a particular passion for nature check out the best lenses for bird photography and wildlife

Ollie originally had a lot of shots planned out, but upon meeting people he let himself relax into the spontaneity of the situation, keeping himself ‘on call’ at all times, often leaving his family wondering his whereabouts. He soon found potential in places they had chosen to meet, like a disused car park on the north east of the island, “I really enjoyed the journalistic approach and finding new avenues on my travels around the island,” he says.

This spontaneity brought with it images that Ollie never imagined he would get, like the shot of Knuckles, a stunt driver, hanging one arm out of a spinning car. Shown in full motion, holding onto the car with seemingly superhuman strength in amongst billows of smoke from the grinding tyres, the shot has an intense drama about it. “I was not expecting anything like that and he was just casual with it,” says Ollie. “Shooting film in these situations is scary knowing it won’t be repeated but fortunately I got a few good ones.”

Not only does the series show the strength of the car racing community, but the technical ability that goes into such a passion. One of the main things that struck Ollie was the DIY nature of the project, and how many proficient mechanics he came across, and he hopes that aspect has translated. Moreover, as Barbados often gets simply labelled as a tourist destination known for its beauty and beaches, Ollie wanted to prove that it has so much more to offer. That’s why the title of the upcoming photobook is so clever – it “draws people in, and then shows them something different,” says Ollie.