My work illustrates a need to find order in chaos with representation and creative interpretation held in precarious balance. I'm always looking to go beyond documentation, to elevate the image to a new level of emotional and intellectual vibrancy, to arrange and distill complex disparate elements into a dynamic whole.

I consider myself a traditionalist who embraces technology, and the move from analog to digital has been liberating, creatively. After 30 plus years as a professional architectural photographer, I have learned to recognize the moment that illuminates a project in it's best light. More importantly, my experience has nurtured a core intuition that helps me instantly pre-visualize the final image and capture compositions that blend grace and simplicity with visual complexity.

Every subject has a point at which its expressive potential is fully realized, and I strive to reach that point. At it's best, the resulting image is transformative, the photograph is no longer just a document, but a new and surprising re-imagining that transcends the captured subject.

balloggphoto.com

From the practice of Zen Buddhism I have learned that our existence is composed of interconnected relationships. This notion has inspired me to use photography to reveal and establish such dynamics and connections. While in Japan, I attended Nagoya University where I gained BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Neuroscience. After moved US in 1992, I started using camera and capture the people and city of Chicago. I learned photography from photojournalist Damaso Reyes.

My series “Lights in Chicago” has roots in the previous pictures I took, but the project officially started in 2011. For “Lights in the City” I have been using a off camera flash on streets. I use light trees positioned behind the subject to produce the backlit effect. Through unique illuminations, I aim to capture social and cultural complexities within our society. In opening my own mind to new and often frightful vulnerabilities, I offer the viewer an opportunity for parallel understanding and connectivity.

satoki.com

Ming Thein is a fine art and commercial photographer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He graduated from Oxford University at 16, and left a successful corporate career in 2012 to shoot because the need to create something grew to the point of no return, and photography was able to satisfy that need. He has had several solo exhibitions in the past in Kuala Lumpur and has a diverse international client base ranging from automotive to luxury goods to architecture and heavy engineering. Ming is also a member of Getty Images, a prolific writer and operates the thinking photographers’ website www.mingthein.com, which has an archive of over 1,100 articles on every photographic topic under the sun. Together with Wesley Wong of Giclee Art, he has developed an extremely high resolution ‘Ultraprint’ process which is as close as we can currently get to a digital contact print, and has the sole aim of increasing transparency in an image to maximise its narrative qualities. 2015 marks his first year in the fine art market.

Robert Shults is based in Austin, Texas. His work has been exhibited at The Print Center, Candela Gallery, and The Camera Club of New York. His
publication credits include The New Yorker, The Guardian, Slate, WIRED, Smithsonian, and The New York Times. More of his work is available at robertshultsphoto.com

Jeff's background is based on years of training as a watercolor artist. By career, a food photographer with 30 plus years of experience, Jeff has been featured in Popular Photography, Shutterbug, PDN and awarded a James Beard nomination. His passion is his personal work where he is lucky enough to train with Ansel Adams, Arnold Newman and George DeWolfe.

Years of watercolor training coupled with Monet's inspiration to paint the atmosphere and see beyond the obvious is the foundation of who I am as an artist and what I want my work to communicate. I produce photography that is transformative and empowers the viewer to dream of a place they may never have perceived.

jeffkauckfineartphotography.com

Nicholas Pinto is an Italian-American photographer. He grew up on the southwest side of Chicago. He spent a few years serving in the United States Army and subsequently studied Fine Art Photography at Columbia College. After graduating, Pinto has worked as a freelance photographer and designer. Since that time, he has “been actively challenging myself to take photographs through every stage of my life” and he does so with a masterful eye and a keen awareness of the surreal aspects of the ordinary reality present on every street corner. He lives with his wife and his “awesome little boy” in Chicago.

nicholaspinto.com

Born in Chicago, Jay King began taking photographs in 1962 at the city's Riverview Amusement Park. After completing a BA in history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1966) he embarked on a profession as a commercial photographer. In the meantime, as can be seen in his photographs of street scenes in Chicago from the late 1960s, King was developing his sensibility as a street photographer while drawing on the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank as models. Photographing ordinary activities and commonplace occurrences in the neighborhood, he attempted to capture the variation in lifestyles and the ways in which different kinds of people coexisted.

Daniel Stranahan is a Chicago-based photographer working in the documentary and reportage tradition. The images in “Our Liberty is Bound Together” reflect an ongoing exploration of Chicago, Illinois, the Great Lakes and Miami, Florida.

Photojournalist Dennis Chamberlin has worked for a number of publications throughout the world but most of his professional career was spent living and working in Poland. He covered the fall of communism and reintegration of Europe for various international publications for over 15 years. He now lives in Iowa.

I first visited Poland during the final days of martial law. I was in search of family roots and in addition to finding family I also found a place where I felt at home. The summer of 1983 opened my eyes to the possibilities that lay before me. In the past 25 years Poland has changed dramatically but there is something indelible about that country during the 1980s that makes it hard to let go.

David Tepper is a Chicago based photographer. David works mainly in a black and white medium, either with digital or film cameras. First inspired by Minor White, and later by Imogen Cunningham, Irving Penn, Paul Caponigro, Douglas Beasley, Clelia Belgrado, and painters such as Vermeer, and Alejandro Rosemberg. David focuses on his sense of intuition and sensitivity as a means to create images of people and places. He hopes that his images are seen as offerings. Images that engage the viewer to see the human spirit. Images that engage the viewer to see beyond a seemingly simple landscape. Images that ask more questions than they answer. Images that show that we are all connected.

davetepperphotography.com