Ten winners will now compete for prestigious Open Photographer of the Year title at Sony World Photography Awards in April

“I’m inspired by the feelings – not only mine but also the heroes of my photos,” photographer Anastasia Markeeva (she/her/hers) tells the Phoblographer in an interview. “For example, last year, my friend told me about her impressions of the architecture of one big city. Her story inspired me, and on my next trip to this city, I devoted half a day to shooting certain buildings…” Anastasia is pretty big on calling these creative collaborators heroes, which we don’t hear often. This mindset treats her subjects with a reverence that doesn’t sound the same as when a photographer calls someone their subject, model, or muse. She combines this with a very special method: in-camera multiple exposures using film cameras.

All images by Anastasia Markeeva. Used with permission. For more from her, please visit her Instagram @nastyagornaya and Behance.

The Story of Anastasia Markeeva

Anastasia got into photography thanks to her dad — who has been a passionate photographer since he was young. And crazily enough, Anastasia’s interest started with a simple soap dish. “Dad liked my photos, and a year later, he gave me his Soviet Zenit 122 with the words ‘learning to photograph is best with a manual film camera,’” she tells us. “So I shot on film for two years (first on Zenit, then on automatic Nikon F70 and Canon 300v), and then switched to digital cameras. Now, 10 years later, I’ve returned to film shooting on manual Soviet cameras and work mainly in the multiple exposure technique.” Anastasia isn’t alone in returning to film — for many, it’s a way to slow down the process and not feed a corporate machine.

More importantly here, she’s trying to have control of every single aspect of the image — which many photographers try to outsource to their cameras or machines these days.

Her Heroes of Film

Her inspiration isn’t just from her heroes but also from randomness. She tells us that the smell of flowers, street noise, fog, nice music, how a river flows, refractions of light, etc., can inspire her. These are the things that many photographers don’t necessarily pay attention to or take a keen interest in because we lose our inner child. Anastasia instead tries to keep the idea of human connection to the world in her images.

She uses a newer Zenit 122 with a Helios 44m-6 or a wide-angle Mir-1 lens to show her images. “I usually take photos with daylight and sometimes a portable LED light panel, less often with permanent studio lighting,” she describes to us. “I like to do everything manually – set the aperture and shutter speed, rewind the film roll – in short, completely control all the process from start to finish. It makes me, you know, always stay focused.” Beyond this, she uses a Zenit E and a Kodak Ektar h35.

“…with them I capture important moments for myself, develop vision and just observe everything around me.”

Anastasia Markeeva

With Anastasia starting in film, then going to digital, and returning to film, she’s got some particular thoughts on AI. “The prospect of using AI in creativity is ambiguous – some AI photos can be difficult to distinguish from those created by humans,” she says. However, she finds AI to be a good tool for inspiration and ideas. However, she thinks humanity needs to continue to invest and create using our own creative vision, feelings, and identity.

AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT

The Phoblographer works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.

The picture was meant to douse speculation about the whereabouts and health of Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, but instead her manipulated image unleashed a torrent of internet-breaking rumors and conspiracy theories.

Dress, Balenciaga, 1967

In the section Aiming for Contrast, photographers capture moments of stark opposition in our everyday existence. A frequent contributor to fashion magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair, Cecil Beaton (1904–1980) was known for his high-contrast black-and-white portraits, which were synonymous with the high-society world of fashion and cinema. With his attention to detail and subtle poses, he captured the intimacy and glamour of his well-known sitters

Photograph: Condé Nast/Cecil Beaton

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Cloudy skies early, then off and on rain showers overnight. Low 37F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

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Cloudy skies early, then off and on rain showers overnight. Low 37F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

Updated: March 12, 2024 @ 9:54 pm

Mar 13, 2024 07:09 AM IST

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The photographer who clicked a photo of Kate Middleton sitting beside Prince William in a car has blasted claims that the photo was doctored

The photographer who clicked a photo of Kate Middleton sitting beside Prince William in a car has blasted claims that the photo was doctored. “We don’t change our photos in Photoshop other than adjusting the light levels if necessary,” Jim Bennett told New York Post.

‘Car shots are unpredictable’

Bennett explained that a news outlet hired him and another person to snap William while he headed to Westminster Abbey for a royal event. “The cars left Windsor Castle and I photographed them a short distance away on Datchet High Street — outside No. 39, to be precise!” he said. “Car shots are unpredictable at the best of times and with some reflection on the glass, it can be difficult.”

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“As it happened, it wasn’t until I checked on the back of the camera to make sure I had a frame of Prince William that I realized there was someone sitting next to him. It turned out to be Catherine!” Bennett added.

After the photo surfaced, there were conspiracy theories that Kate’s silhouette was edited and placed in the photo. Bennett also revealed that the picture was not released by the royal family, as some people claimed. It was taken by a professional photographer and later syndicated in the US by GoffPhotos, a photo agency.

Some Internet sleuths claimed Kate’s photo was actually a shot of her at a 2016 ceremony which was edited into this photo. Some even noticed inconsistencies with the pattern of bricks in the photo. However, Bennett provided a Datchet High Street address, which appeared to debunk such theories.

This comes after Kate’s Mother’s Day photo controversy, where sleuths and metadata found that a photo released by Kensington Palace had been manipulated. Kate later apologised for the Photoshop error, writing on social media, “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.”

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• Kate Middleton

Melting glaciers, rising seas, raging wildfires, displaced communities – the impacts of climate change are overwhelming. Thankfully, powerful images have the potential to spur action and incite positive change. With Earth Hour 2024 approaching, now is a great time to tackle the pressing challenges of climate change with some evocative imagery. 

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How can we truly grasp the magnitude of the world struggling against climate change? While information abounds in newspapers, magazines, scientific journals and social media, it is often the images captured by individuals facing the realities of the climate crisis that best depict the extent of devastation endured by communities, wildlife, and the environment. 

Images offer compelling proof that climate change is a tangible reality unfolding before us. By visually portraying the challenges through storytelling, photography emerges as a vital instrument in combating the perilous effects of global warming. But it also has the power to shine a light on solutions, whether it is by capturing energy conservation efforts for Earth Hour or by highlighting collective movements that inspire activism.

The Value of Climate Change Photography

Photography plays a vital role in representing the complex realities of climate change. Visuals have the unique power to engage viewers on an emotional level, something that abstract data and figures often cannot do. Visuals make climate change visible in more compelling and accessible ways and serve as an important form of truth-telling and documentation of shifting landscapes, displaced communities, and disappearing wildlife across the globe.

Photography provides historical documentation of how places are transforming under climate change and creates a visual record for posterity. For instance, photos are a great way to showcase the year-by-year retreat of a glacier or the slow encroachment of rising seas on a low-lying village. Professional wildlife images of endangered animals deliver a powerful message on the damage that changing landscapes can have on rare species in remote settings. Most importantly, this visual documentation also helps counter claims by climate change deniers by providing indisputable visual evidence of change occurring in real locations.

Climate change photography plays a key role in storytelling, too. Photographs put human narratives at the centre, capturing emotional moments of loss, fear, hope, and resistance. Storytelling through images builds public engagement, compassion, and concern for people and animals at the frontlines of climate disruption. Images that reveal the costs of climate change can motivate audiences to take action. For example, who can forget the stark reality of starving polar bears struggling to survive as a result of warming ice caps or not be moved by images of destruction brought about by extreme weather events?

Capturing Shifting Landscapes

Climate change is rapidly transforming ecosystems and geographies around the world, from mountain glaciers to arctic ice sheets to tropical rainforests. 

In Iceland, photos of the receding Breiðamerkurjökull glacier starkly illustrate how much ice has been lost over the past decade. Where mighty blue ice walls once stood tall, now only the glacial lagoon remains, filled with broken icebergs. Similarly, in Antarctica, sweeping drone photography shows the edges of massive ice shelves splintering and shearing off as warming ocean waters erode them from below.

NASA satellite images reveal how Africa’s Lake Chad, once a mighty expanse, has dried to a sliver, shrinking by about 90% in only 50 years. Before-and-after photos of Lake Mead in the United States document so-called “bathtub rings” on canyon walls, showing decreased water levels. Other images of Lake Mead capture hordes of wildlife desperate for water as their habitats dry up.

From parched riverbeds to starved animals, these photos bring forth evidence of disrupted ecosystems that might otherwise go unnoticed by the general public, providing visual proof that a warming climate is transforming the face of the planet.

More on the topic: The Causes And Effects of Lake Mead and Colorado River Basin Water Shortage, Explained 

Devastation Across Vulnerable Communities

The effects of a changing climate are not just reshaping natural landscapes but also shattering vulnerable communities. Photography bears witness to climate change displacing people, flooding homes, and upending livelihoods. Images of cities inundated after hurricanes and cyclones, from Houston to Mozambique, are a testament to the gravity of the crisis that is unfolding right before our eyes.

Some photos document people’s desperate attempts to rebuild a life after floods washed away all they had, while others capture families inspecting their fire-ravaged homes in the aftermath of mega-fires, with wide shots revealing block after block of burned-out neighbourhoods. Climate impacts are also slowly displacing populations, but photography chronicles the migration both within and across national borders, as millions are estimated to be fleeing drought, desertification, and shoreline loss.

You might also like: In Pictures: The Devastating Impacts of Wildfires in Turkey

These images connect us to the human story, the cultural loss, and the economic hardship inflicted by a rapidly changing climate. Shots of these communities alter the narrative of climate change from a distant, future problem to one we must address now.

Inspiring Activism

While photographing the impacts of climate change is crucial, it can also help highlight the solutions underway and inspire broader activism, from renewable energy development to regenerative agriculture practices that help sequester carbon in the soil through cover cropping, composting, and reduced tilling.

Likewise, photography can be a powerful tool to document protests demanding action from governments and corporations to address the climate crisis. Images of massive crowds marching on the streets convey the rising public pressure and document creative activist tactics, from rallies to artwork and installation protests. On an individual level, photography can inspire sustainable consumer choices by depicting the beauty of walking and cycling or growing produce in your garden.

While showcasing the devastating impact of climate change is important, it is equally crucial to give space to the innovative efforts, ways, and technologies societies around the world are developing to counteract the crisis.

In the same way that vivid filmmaking and social media are powerful tools for portraying the impact of climate change to a mass audience, photography has a massive part to play, too. Inspiring images make it clear that we can and must address the climate crisis together, however small an action may be.

You might also like: How Youth Climate Action Is Shaping a More Sustainable Future