Two Portraits from “Planet Shanghai” © Justin Guariglia

Born in 1974 in Maplewood, New Jersey, Justin Guariglia has lived and worked in Asia for nearly a decade before returning to live in New York City in 2006. He is the author of the critically acclaimed photography book SHAOLIN: Temple of Zen, which the Aperture Foundation has turned into a 100-piece internationally traveling photography exhibition. Guariglia is a regular contributor to Smithsonian magazine, and is a photographer and contributing editor to National Geographic Traveler magazine. He has been nominated for the International Center of Photography’s Young Photographer Infinity Award, selected as a Fotofest Discovery of the Meeting Place, received several photo of the year awards, and was named one of the “30 Young Photographers under 30″ by Photo District News. His book Planet Shanghai was recently published by Chronicle Books.

About the Photograph:

“While I love Beijing, the cultural capital of China, I quickly became enamored with the character, and characters, of Shanghai’s back streets. There seemed to be a greater sense of pride, joy , and cohesion among the inhabitants here than elsewhere-as if they knew they were part of the club- the club of the real and everlasting. Like the artwork in Venice’s churches and pallazi, here the Shanghainese seem to be art in its original setting. The setting is the streets, and the art is the people themselves, living life in an urban alfresco, and often clad in silk to boot.” (more…)

Jaakov, Helsinki, 2006 from the Finnish & Jewish series

Dina Kantor is a Brooklyn-based photographer who began her career photographing for the Minneapolis City Pages. She received her MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in 2007, and her BA in journalism and studio arts from the University of Minnesota. Dina’s photographs have been featured in various publications including Photo District News. She was named to Heeb Magazines Heeb 100 list in 2007 and has received grants from both the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Finlandia Foundation National. Her photographs have been exhibited nationwide.

About the Photograph:

At the time that this image was made, Jaakov had recently graduated from the Jewish day school in Helsinki and had moved on to a public high school. Jaakov is the son of an American Jewish father, and a Finnish mother who converted. This photo is from a series of portraits that I have been making of the members of the Jewish community in Finland. Finland has a population of 5.3 million people, with only an estimated 1,500 Jews (and just two synagogues). I am interested in how such a small community maintains its cultural identity. (more…)

Holi Festival, from the series “Old Dhaka: Belonging”

Munem Wasif (Bangladesh, b. 1983) graduated from Pathshala- The South Asian Institute of Photography in Dhaka. He began his career as a feature photographer for the Daily Star, a leading English daily of Bangladesh. After that, he worked two years with Drik international news photo agency as a staff photographer. He is represented by Agency VU in Paris. In 2007, he was selected for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in the Netherlands. He won an “Honorable Mention” in the All Roads Photography Program by the National Geographic Society for his extensive work on Old Dhaka. His work is exhibited worldwide including the Angor Wat Photo Festival in Cambodia, International Photography Biennial of the Islamic World in Iran, Fotofreo- festival of photography in Australia, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Japan and Getty image gallery in England.

About the Photograph:

Wasif’s introduction from the Old Dhala series: “A sense of belonging to the people, the place, the innocuous values of small town life -the closeness of it all- came bundled with the person that was to start a new journey in the city. The days of nameless acquaintance was fixated with forgetfulness. Homesick for my mother and sister, the nights were crossed with bouts of restlessness. To make the best out of such a turbulent time, my uncle admitted me to a photography course. While the medium had not appeared in any formal mode before, growing up in a visually explosive country with riots of colors all around, it instantly grabbed my attention…days of frenzied fermentation of variant frames were followed by equally fantastic nights of soul searching within those newly discovered worlds.”

Day Laborers. Kandahar, Afghanistan

Twenty-nine year old French photographer Véronique de Viguerie has produced a wide array of features for World Picture News, including the “Madrassas of Pakistan” and “Afghanistan’s Fiercest Policewoman.” She covers many types of subjects ranging from hard news to reportage. Based in Afghanistan, de Viguerie narrowly escaped death in 2005 in a Kabul café when caught up in a suicide bomb blast; the man next to her was killed. In 2006 she was winner of the Canon Prize for Best Female Photojournalist at Visa Pour l’Image. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, LIFE, Geo, Stern, The Times, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Libération among others.

About the Photograph:

“I took this picture in Kandahar. I was doing a story on the growing influence of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. I was told that the Taliban were using poor people to work for them. So early morning we went to the market where all the men were waiting for day work. They do anything you need for a few dollars. This “main d’oeuvre” is used by the insurgency to carry explosives, arms etc.”

Carolynne St. Pierre watches her son EJ play. Concord, NH

Preston Gannaway is a staff photographer at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, CO. Until recently, she was a photojournalist for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire (2003-2008). Gannaway’s documentary story on the St. Pierre family, Remember Me, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 2008. She was named the NPPA Region 1 (New England) Photographer of the Year in 2005 and was runner-up in 2006 and 2007. Before working for the Monitor, Gannaway interned at the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Bangor Daily News. A native of North Carolina, she began her career at the Coalfield Progress in rural southwest Virginia after earning her Bachelor of Arts in fine art photography at Virginia Intermont College

About the Photograph:

“This photograph was taken as part of a larger documentary project titled Remember Me. Carolynne passed away in February of 2007. I’ve spent almost two years following the family, both before Carolynne’s death and afterwards.”

“When this image was made, I had stopped by their house to spend a little time with them as Carolynne’s husband Rich was leaving for a business trip. I knew that Carolynne, whose strength was quickly diminishing, was worried about taking care of EJ. After shooting for a while, I hesitated leaving the house because I was concerned to leave them alone. The next day, Carolynne fell while carrying EJ down the stairs. It was a turning point for the family when they realized that Carolynne couldn’t care for the kids on her own. I think this photo illustrates that turning point. Watching Carolynne and EJ that day, I started to understand the strain that sickness was putting on their relationship.”

Dance Hall. Juárez, Mexico

Timothy Fadek is a photojournalist based in New York City. He began his career in December 1998, covering the presidential campaign and election in Venezuela, on assignment for the Associated Press. Since then, he has photographed conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Kosovo, Macedonia, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Haiti, the 9/11 attack in New York and regularly covers important political and social issues. His photographs and stories have been published in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, German Geo, Le Monde, and Stern, among others. He has won a number of awards, including Pictures of the Year (POY), NPPA Year in Pictures, the CARE Prize for Humanitarian Reportage, Communication Arts photo annual, American Photography annual, and recently, American Photo named him a hero of photography. Timothy also teaches photography as an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

About the Photograph:

“This photograph was made inside a dance hall, with women lined up and waiting for men to ask them to dance. The women charge 5 pesos, approximately 50 cents (U.S.) for a dance. I was wandering the streets one night, trying to capture the sleaze and atmosphere of the city. I had heard about Ficherias (dance halls), wandered in, sat down, had a beer, and observed the scene.”

There is a saying in the area that, if you want to find Juárez, located just across the border from El Paso, Texas, just follow the crosses. Fadek made several trips to the troubled Mexican border town Juárez, to document a ghastly legacy — the murders of hundreds of women over the past decade. “Once you get into the grips of the Mexican authorities it’s a black hole, and you can simply disappear. You just want to be invisible. You can’t trust anyone in this city. Every journalist who ever does this story eventually becomes paranoid. Every person on the street becomes suspicious.” Most Americans are unaware that this city has been the center of an epidemic of horrific crimes against women and girls. Since 1993, more than 450 young women, many of them workers at U.S. and foreign assembly plants, have been murdered in this tough Mexican-border factory city. Hundreds more women have disappeared. The victims are kidnapped, raped, and mutilated before being killed, their bodies then dumped in the dusty fields in the surrounding desert areas of the city.

First communion of Tomasz Wypasek, Poland 2006

Born in 1974, Przemysław Pokrycki is a Polish press photographer. He works as a freelancer and is a regular contributor to Polish magazines. Przemysław graduated from the photography department at the Film School in Łódź, Poland in 2002. In addition to his editorial work he has been part of several group shows including: International Discoveries, FotoFest. Houston 2007, The New Dokumentalists, Warsaw, 2006 and Poland Now, Schindler’s Factory, Cracow, 2006. His solo exhibits include: Rites de Passage, Starmach Gallery, Cracow, 2007 and Laborers, Luksfera Gallery, Warsaw, 2004

About the Photograph:

From the series Rites of Passage. “All my projects are based in Poland. The subjects are either friends or people I meet when photographing for the press. With my pictures I describe the world around me. This reality is very familiar but sometimes very surprising. There so many photographic projects to be done in Poland. I want to photograph here. I don’t look for extreme situations such as war, hunger or disasters. Society in itself is most interesting for me especially the changing life styles and standard of living after the transformation in 1989. I regret I didn’t start my projects 20 years ago.”

Outside a brothel in Manipur, India. 2007

Adam Ferguson was born in Australia in 1978 and graduated from Griffith University with a Bachelor of Photography in 2003. In 2004 he was awarded a Peace Scholarship from Griffith and travelled to South East Asia to document Peace Art Project Cambodia, a European Union public awareness campaign aimed at curbing small arms. After working for regional newspapers in Australia and Mexico, he moved to Paris in 2006 and interned with VII Photo Agency. In 2007 he moved to New Delhi, India, where he is currently based as a freelance photojournalist. Adam’s work has been published in Time Magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg News, Courrier International, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.

About the Photograph:

With the ‘Golden Triangle’ stretching between Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China, a porus Indian border leaves India’s northeastern states like Manipur vulnerable to an illegal heroin trade. Ongoing tribal insurgencies, corruption and a disregard for India’s northeastern states from New Delhi, render communities like Churandchanpur in Manipur politically volatile and economically stifled. High unemployment and minimal opportunity cause a high number of youth to turn to drugs to escape poverty. But with Myanmar as a rogue neighbor, and corruption making the stifling of the heroin trade almost impossible, heroin trafficking goes on and little hope is left for any action to stop the free flow of heroin that devastates lives in India’s volatile northeast.

Barradas Alho, 86 years old. Leper Colony, Brazil. 2005

Anderson Schneider is an independent Brazilian-based photographer represented by WpN and Grazia Neri. Working self-assigned, as well as for newspapers, magazines and international organizations, he strongly believes that a camera, a photograph, a news page can make the world a more real place to live in. Anderson is 33 years-old and was nominated twice as a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Grant (USA, 2006 & 2007), received the Special Prize for Humanistic Photography at the IV Pleven Biennial of Photography (Bulgaria, 2005) and also two prizes at the NPPA Best of Photojournalism (USA, 2005 & 2007). He lives in Brasilia with his wife Adriana and his new-born daughter Anna.

About the Photograph:

During almost all of the 20th century, the treatment for leperosy in Brazil was understood as the total confinement of the patient in a sanitarium. These people were taken from their homes and families, many of them under gunpoint by the so-called Sanitary Police, and locked up in small isolated communities, usually forever. After 1976, due to the changes in the policy for the treatment of this disease, these colonies were partially or totally deactivated and the patients were abandoned without any policy for social reintegration. Without any place else to go, they were confined to these archaic structures until now, dying one-by-one, slow and silently. (more…)

Construction worker, Soweto Township

Edward van Herk (b 1973) in the Netherlands is passionate about documentary photography His interest began after 2003 when he lost his son. “Becoming involved in this work taught me to see because I needed to deal with my grief”. During his extensive travels as an airline pilot he became increasingly aware of the crisis in many parts of the world and felt drawn to the documentary photographic essay. Edward is mainly a self taught photographer.

About the Photograph:

Final construction at the Maponya mall in Piville township, Soweto. The 650 million Rand mall is one of the largest shopping centers in South Africa, and its opening is a sign of the commercial awakening of Soweto. The mall is likely to change the face and shopping habits of Soweto residents, who, in the past, have had to leave their area to go and do their shopping in the former white areas. In the past 80% of all disposable income was spent outside Soweto. “In November 2007 I photographed an assignment for a cultural center in Soweto. Since 1948 when Apartheid officially started, Soweto has grown into 27 townships with a population of 3.5 million just 25 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg. Today it is buzzing with spirit and celebrating the unique culture, heritage and history of struggle. My essay ‘Deep Soweto’ is dedicated to the proud people of Soweto. The title is the name of a hiphop gang and stands for the deep connection I felt with the people”. It’s obvious in looking at this work that the connection was mutual.