“Mennonite Village Photography” exhibit features a beautiful collection of never-before-seen photographs left behind by four Manitoba Mennonite photographers who lived and worked in the early twentieth century. The images are from glass and film negatives stored in institutional archives and family collections. After being scanned and given a new life in print, the photos provide a clear view into Mennonite life and early settlement in Manitoba.

“Mennonite Village Photography” produced by the Mennonite Historic Arts Committee (MHAC) is an exhibit like no other. Often curators have trouble finding photos that can be enlarged without loss of quality, but with this exhibit every photograph is large and the visually breath-taking. You will find yourself drawn into the photos, even though they are black and white and were taken 1890 to 1940. There will be a grand-opening of the exhibit at Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) this Thursday, February 15 at 7pm, as part of MHV’s Authors Night.

Professional photographers at this time usually specialised in taking posed portraits against painted backdrops in studios. The Mennonite photographers mimicked that style, but they also captured a much less artificial picture of what existed around them. Though two of the photographers, Heinrich D. Fast and Johann E. Funk, were encouraged by their respective churches to give up their hobby in preparation for baptism and marriage, all four captured an array of subjects, both posed and candid, and the images reveal something of how they saw their worlds. Even if the men photographed for only a short window of time, their images freeze-frame a distinctive and fleeting period of time in the history of Mennonite village life in western Canada.

The attached photo depicts the MHAC committee members (from left to right): Frieda Klippenstein, Conrad Stoesz, Susie Fisher, Anikó Szabo, Roland Sawatzky, Andrea Klassen, posed in early 1900s style in front of a photography backdrop that belonged to Peter G. Hamm, a photographer from Neuberghtal, MB who is featured in the exhibit. Hamm’s original backdrop will also be available in the gallery for guests to take their own photo! So dress up with your friends and be transported back in time.

A freediver discovering whale skeletons beneath ice has been judged World’s Best Underwater Photograph of 2024

An emotive photograph showing a freediver examining the aftermath of whaling sees Alex Dawson from Sweden named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024. Dawson’s photograph ‘Whale Bones’ triumphed over more than 6500 underwater pictures entered by underwater photographers from around the world.

‘Whale Bones was photographed in the toughest conditions,’ said chair of the judging panel, Alex Mustard, ‘as a breath-hold diver descends below the Greenland ice sheet to bear witness to the carcasses. ‘The composition invites us to consider our impact on the great creatures of this planet. Since the rise of humans, wild animals have declined by 85 per cent. Today, just 4 per cent of mammals are wildlife, the remaining 96 per cent are humans and our livestock. Our way needs to change to find a balance with nature.’

Whales dominated the winning pictures of this year’s competition, including two category-winning pictures by Spanish photographer Rafael Fernandez Caballero – a close-up of a grey whale’s eye and an action shot of a Bryde’s whale engulfing an entire bait ball, both taken in Magdalena Bay, Baja California, Mexico.

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Fernandez Caballero took ‘Grey Whale Connection’ while drifting in a small boat, holding his camera over the side in the water to photograph the curious whale. ‘The End Of A Baitball’ required Fernandez Caballero to dive down and be in exactly the right place at the moment the whale lunged.

‘The photo shows the high-speed attack,’ said Fernandez-Caballero, ‘with the whale engulfing hundreds of kilograms of sardines in one bite — simply unforgettable to see predation on such a scale.’

Lisa Stengel from the United States was named Up & Coming Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 for her image of a mahi-mahi catching a sardine in Mexico. Stengel used both a very fast shutter speed and her hearing to catch the moment. ‘If you listen there’s an enormous amount of sound in the ocean,’ she said. ‘The action was too fast to see, so I honed in on the sound of the attacks with my camera to capture this special moment.’

‘It is such an exciting time in underwater photography because photographers are capturing such amazing new images, by visiting new locations and using the latest cameras,’ said judge Alex Mustard. ‘Until this year I’d hardly ever see a photo of a mahi mahi, now Lisa has photographed one hunting, action that plays out in the blink of an eye.’

Jenny Stock was named British Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 for her image “Star Attraction”, which finds beauty in species of British wildlife that are often overlooked. Exploring the west coast of Scotland, Stock explained ‘in the dark green depths my torch picked out the vivid colours of a living carpet of thousands of brittle stars, each with a different pattern. I was happily snapping away, when I spotted this purple sea urchin and I got really excited.’

Portuguese photographer, Nuno Sá, was named ‘Save Our Seas Foundation’ Marine Conservation Photographer of the Year 2024, with his photo ‘Saving Goliath’, taken in Portugal. Sá’s photo shows beachgoers trying to save a stranded sperm whale. The picture gives us hope that people do care and want to help the oceans, but also warns us that bigger changes are needed.

‘The whale had been struck by a ship and its fate was sealed,’ said Sá. ‘An estimated 20,000 whales are killed every year, and many more injured, after being struck by ships-and few people even realise that it happens’

Underwater Photographer of the Year is an annual competition, based in the UK, that celebrates photography beneath the surface of the ocean, lakes, rivers and even swimming pools, and attracts entries from all around the world. The contest has 13 categories, testing photographers with themes such as Macro, Wide Angle, Behaviour and Wreck photography, as well as four categories for photos taken specifically in British waters, with the competition’s judges this year including experienced underwater photographers Peter Rowlands, Tobias Friedrich and Dr Alexander Mustard MBE.

To view all the category-winning images and honourable mentions, head to underwaterphotographeroftheyear.com

Sara Benabdallah was born and raised in the Marrakech Medina, Morocco, in the 1990s. “At the time, we were the only Moroccan family who owned our riad” she says, “all the rest were owned by foreigners.” The rapid change in the Medina since that time looms for Moroccans who grew up in this part of the city, filled with ancient riad buildings, some dating back to the 13th century. Benabdallah, a photographer, has been privy to the rise of tourism in this part of Marrakech, and how it’s morphed the atmosphere of the medina. She recalls the ways the souks have subtly been adapted to appeal to tourists over the last three decades. “When you walk around the medina you see all these doors in the souk, to various shops” she says, “those doors used to be different colors and we would use that color to give direction. You know, instructions — ‘turn left at the green door’, but now every door is the same. It looks like a Disney version of Marrakech.”

Benabdallah grew up living in multiple riads whilst her parents flipped them before renting them out to tourists — “it was like living on a building site!” Living with her family and grandparents in this quickly changing area of Marrakech led to Benabdallah wanting to commemorate its inhabitants, particularly her own family. Her photo series xxx and xxx feature her cousin and grandmother in and around the medina, with Benabdallah’s glitzy American West inspired post-production adding a rhinestone incrusted edge to the scene. Recently, she exhibited these images at the sixth edition of 1-54 Marrakech Contemporary Art Fair. “I brought my grandmother with me to see her own photos” she says, “it was an incredible day.”

Since 2013, 1-54 Art Fair has given a platform to artists in Africa and its diaspora, after half a decade of success in London exhibiting yearly in October at Somerset House, founder Touria el Glaoui decided to establish a yearly outpost of the fair in Marrakech — “welcoming the most incredible audiences and collectors”, she says. “It’s a career-defining experience, just to be exposed to that audience” Benabdallah says of the fair. Benabdallah references a big range of creative disciplines, from fashion to architecture. Some of the first tourists that came to Marrakech’s Medina were artists, photographers and fashion designers — “these were the first tourists that came to the medina”, she says, “so I met Jean Paul Gaultier, Jean Nouvel and Laetitia Fourgeaud young, and their work inspired me.” Here, Benabdallah talks about the changes in the medina and representing her own family in her images.

What was it like growing up in the middle of the medina in Marrakech in the 1990s?

I was born and raised in the medina, in traditional homes. My family have a deep love for Moroccan riads, many of which were abandoned in Marrakech. Some Morrocans were enamored by modern homes and villas in the newer parts of town, so left the medina. The old riads are also very expensive and hard to maintain, some people gave them up. My parents bought and renovated a few riads in the medina when I was little and we would live in them when they did them up, it was like living on a construction site! When the work was done we would rent the riad out to tourists. At the time most of the tourists were photographers and painters, that was my introduction to the art world. We were the only Moroccan family that owned riads in Marrakech at that point and that’s something very special to me, and that infiltrated my work. At age 17 I moved to the US and loved New York, and lived there for about nine years and in 2021, I decided to move back home to Morocco.

How has the medina changed from when you were growing up in the 90s, to when you moved back in 2021?

A lot of Morrocans never stepped foot in the medina. There’s a split in the Moroccan community, some of those who have more means are more interested in a European type of housing you can get in Marrakech. Of course now, the medina has become very gentrified and it’s now very expensive to live there. There is no law to stop foreign people buying up properties in the medina, no rules and no regulations. There are some foreigners who bought historical riads in Marrakech in the 1980s and would remove the original features like the doors and sell them, that was the first thing to go. I see a lot in the medina now this effort to make some of the souks look like what a tourist might expect them to look like, not what they actually are.

Can you give an example?

When you walk around the medina you see all these doors in the souk to various shops. Those doors used to be different colors and we would use that color to give direction, you know, ‘turn left at the green door’ – but now every door is the same. It looks like a Disney version of Marrakech. It happens in Fez too. I love Fez, we have a riad there, it’s a very important city. Maybe a year or so ago, an artist who has been making tea for people in the medina for years told me he was really sad because the city is doing renovations and they think his shop is not touristy enough. They took his shop away.

You can definitely feel the difference between Marrakech now and ten years ago as a tourist. Is there no law that could protect your friend from that?

Unfortunately not.

How different was the type of tourist you used to see in the medina in the 1990s?

We had everyone from the empress of Iran Farah Pahlavi to Jean Paul Gaultier. There was Jean Nouvel and Yves Saint Laurent, these people, how they saw creativity and glamor impacted my photography.

Would you define some of your work as fashion photography? I saw you work with stylists and hair and make up teams. Your photograph No. 5 feels like a fashion image.

I love fashion and I love Moroccan fashion history. I think fashion can be a great tool for storytelling in the art world. No. 5, with the donkey and woman in a knitted outfit, that’s my cousin and I stumbled across an outfit men used to wear in the Atlas Mountains. It’s a fully knitted outfit, it was for the people who would work shoveling the snow in the mountains. You never think of Moroccan fashion when you think of knitting, but it looked so contemporary and modern. I found someone who could make an outfit using the same technique for my cousin to wear in that shot.

You focus on North African women a lot, what are you looking for when you’re searching for a subject?

Many of the women in my photos are family. The woman in No. 1 is my grandmother, I’m interested in women with stories of Marrakech and the medina. The theme for that series was inspired by the astrolabs, created in ancient Greece and refined in the Islamic age – the woman who did this was from Syria. But yet we don’t hear about this woman, and this is a really common thing. There’s also Fatima al-Fihri who was a scholar who built the first and oldest University in the world in Fez, she’s Moroccan. To me she’s the essence of the Moroccan woman, she’s the backbone of her community, society and home.

You exhibited these photos at the 1-54 Art Fair in Marrakech last week and you brought your grandmother to see her photos. What was that experience like?

She was so happy, she couldn’t believe it was her!

1-54 has a lot of credibility as a platform, it’s a career-accelerating place to show. How do you feel about it?

It was so amazing. The 8th of February is a special day in Islam, it’s a very religious day, and then the day after it rained for the first time in over a year. It just felt like such a special time. After my show opened I walked back to my studio for 30 minutes in the rain. I was so just so grateful for it all.

Your production in the Rhinestone Niqab series is so saturated, with lots of references. How do you get all these references into the photo in post production?

I shoot with a Cannon and then I love to add in the stars and photoshop in aspects after. I was inspired by the surrealists, by cowboys, by space and I like that odd contrast of the three. To me, that’s Morocco. There’s so much that’s changed about Morocco. They used to have bamboo shields over the streets that impacted the light and I wanted to have some of that light in my work, so I tried to recreate it.

You know I’m so inspired by cowboy culture and American western culture. I wanted to have these embroideries embellished by rhinestones. And then I had cowboy boots which I had my grandmother wearing! Again, it’s that contrast, which is what Morrocco means to me.

Sarah Moon: On the Edge is currently on display at the Howard Greenberg Gallery and includes 30 images from over four decades of Moon’s illustrious photography career.

The show will run until April 6, 2024, and provide an insight into the ethos behind Moon’s signature style, a style that remains present across all genres of her work. Although perhaps best known for being one of the greatest fashion photographers of all time, and having work published in publications such as Vogue, Marie Claire, and Harpar’s Bazaar, Moon’s still lifes and landscapes also capture the same essence that makes the images unmistakenly Sarah Moon. Often working with Polaroid film, Moon’s images evoke a sense of mystery that often conjures more questions than it answers. 

• See our guide to the best instant cameras

Sarah Moon began her career in front of the camera as a fashion model in the 1960s until she started working behind it in 1970. She began to make images that challenged the aesthetic of the time, opting for a more artistic and ethereal tone which gained her work recognition. Moon’s intimate feminine gaze and blurred aesthetic stood out in a field dominated by men, paving the way for more women photographers to join her ranks. Moon’s work was more than capturing the obvious but instead captured compelling mystery.

Her style developed further and drifted between genres, earning her shows and exhibitions all over the world. Sarah Moon: On the Edge has been curated by the artist, and includes a selection of work made between the 1980s to 2022.

In describing the work selected for the exhibition Moon states “All along, I tried to avoid the anecdote, looking for an echo between what I see and what I feel, trying to reach that visual point of no return, that second that cannot happen again.”

“Today, I realize that minimalism means more and more to me whatever I photograph, trying to get to the essential of what I see, cropping the subject out of its context, reducing it to that second, to that limit of time, grasping light before it vanishes. The photos I am presenting here are on the edge of that attempt.”

The Howard Greenberg Gallery has built a vast collection of some of the most important photographs in the medium and has a long-standing relationship with Moon and her work. Having first worked together over 30 years ago, the gallery has exhibited many of Moon’s shows and films and also produced two of her artistic books.

Howard Greenberg says “She has achieved world-class status as one of the greats, a living legend. This will be Sarah’s first gallery exhibition in America in 12 years and will continue to demonstrate the unique style and artistry of Sarah Moon!”

Not to be missed, Sarah Moon: On the Edge is on display now until April 6, 2024, at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York. It is certainly an inspirational exhibition that will last long in the memory.

We keep a guide to the best books on photography at Digital Camera World.

iMore’s iPhone Photography Week 2024 is the perfect themed week to sharpen up your photo-capturing skills with your smartphone. With expert tutorials from professional photographers, fun features, and reviews, iPhone Photography Week is the perfect place to kickstart your journey to becoming a better photographer.

Throughout the week, we’ll publish new content, including the iPhone Photography Basics course, which has been carefully curated by Mike Harris, a professional photographer and Deputy Editor of N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine. 

We’ve also got some fun features taking you through the history of iPhone photography from the greatest innovations to the times the smartphone has been used for professional videography. 

Whether you’re a budding photographer or someone who just wants to point and shoot, iMore’s iPhone Photography Week 2024 is a fun and informative week-long event that you sure don’t want to miss.

Bookmark this page and keep checking back for new guides, tips and features as they go live.

iPhone Photography Week 2024

The cameras on the best iPhones make taking photos easy, but there’s always room for improvement. The first in our iPhone Photography Basics series gives you seven tips to improve your pictures instantly without taking any form of professional course. From learning how to edit efficiently to taking photos during The Golden Hour, these tips will set you on the right path towards taking better photos with your iPhone. 

This contents page is being regularly updated throughout iPhone Photography Week 2024. Expect new posts to appear daily, focused on making your photos shot with iPhone better than ever before.

Share your photos with iMore on X (Twitter) using #iMorePhotographyWeek