Jean-Michel Berts
About Jean-Michel Berts
Despite a promising scientific career, Jean-Michel Berts chose a different path—to become a photographer. With his first Rolleiflex, he became sensitive to the effects of light. Since the eighties he has worked as a still life photographer for several well-known cosmetics and perfume brands. While involved in this field, he pursued a body of work with a more personal focus: to portray the essence of cities, reminding one of the grandeur of civilizations. As Berts explains, “Architectural construction is the cultural reflection of a civilization.” The abstraction of characters makes it possible to move human construction forward and thus reanimate its timelessness. From Paris to New York, and Venice to Tokyo, these sublimated cities take on a poetic, ethereal and dreamlike value through his eyes.
The richness of Jean-Michel Berts photographs also comes from his technique. Using the Zone System of Ansel Adams, and with an exposure time between nine seconds and ten minutes, this method of overexposing negatives and under-developing them allows a stronger density, enhancing the contrast in black and white.
Select exhibitions
2012 BLIN plus BLIN, Montfort l’Amaury, France
Envie d’Art, Paris, France
2011 City Portrait, Envie d’Art, London, UK
City Portrait, Young Gallery, Knokke, Belgium
Portrait de Villes Boutiques, Jaquet Droz, Paris, France
New New York, Gallery Samagra, Paris, France
2010 Gallery 21, Tokyo, Japan
2008 Light of Cities, Sous Les Etoiles Gallery, New York, NY
Outdoor Exhibition, Paris-Bercy, France
2007 Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, France
2006 Embassy of France, Berlin, Germany
Moscow, Exposition de l’Art et de l’Artisanat Français
Embassy of France, Beirut, Lebanon
2005 Camerawork, Hamburg, Germany
Many of his pieces are currently on display at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery
Julia Anna Gospodarou
About Julia Anna Gospodarou – founder of (en)VISIONOGRAPHY™
Multiple award-winning internationally acclaimed photographer, accomplished architect, author and highly sought-after educator, teaching workshops and lecturing around the world, Julia was passionate about art from a young age, striving to express herself artistically through a variety of mediums: architecture, drawing, and photography. Julia is the founder of (en)Visionography™, the artistic movement that aims to define a new way of creating fine art photography in the digital age, based on the vision of the artist and their own life experiences and emotion, rather than on depicting the actual subject or the conventions of traditional photography.
IPA International Photography Awards Professional Architecture Photographer of the Year, World Photography Awards & Hasselblad Masters Finalist, winner of more than 80 prestigious international awards and distinctions, Julia is considered a leader of the contemporary Black and White Fine Art Photography.
Julia’s work is represented by Rotella Gallery, one of the most well-known fine art galleries in SoHo New York. Large limited edition prints of her work are available for the collectors at the gallery and through her own studio.
She is also a member of the prestigious DxO Image Masters Gallery and a DxO Ambassador, a VIP Formatt-Hitech Ambassador, featured artist endorsed by Topaz Labs, NIK Software, SmugMug, Camerapixo, Stark Magazine etc.
Published internationally in numerous books and magazines, Julia’s photography can be found in numerous private collections worldwide.
Christian Meermann
About Christian Meermann
Christian is an enthusiast photographer and teacher with a strong interest in black & white photography.
“Although his portfolio indicates an emphasis on animal portraits, he is also interested in landscape and abstract photography. In his photography, he reveals what otherwise might go unnoticed. This can be the fur structure of an animals fur, the intensity of a gaze, the drama in a beautiful sky, or a mood in between it all.”
He leads a Black and White photography mentorship at The Arcanum, called House of Monochromatic Exploration.
2013
Winner “Driven Creativity” competition – Best Amateur Photo
2017
Black Spider Award, Honorable Mention, Abstract category
Black Spider Award, Nominee and 3rd place, Wildlife category
Monochrome Photography Awards, 4x Honorable Mention, Wildlife category
Monochrome Photography Awards, Honorable Mention, Abstract category
Monochrome Photography Awards, Honorable Mention, Architecture category
Fine Art Photography Award, Nominee, Architecture category.
Color Photography Awards, 2x Honorable Mention, Wildlife category
2018
Black Spider Award, Nominee, Wildlife Category
Black Spider Award, Honorable Mention, Abstract Category
Black Spider Award, Honor of Distinction, Silhouettes Category
Black Spider Award, Honor of Distinction, Nature Category
https://www.chm-photography.com/
Joel Tjintjelaar
ABOUT JOEL TJINTJELAAR / OWNER AND FOUNDER BW/VISION
Joel Tjintjelaar is a black and white photographer, author and educator who teaches workshops on black and white and fine art photography, architectural photography and long exposure photography, around the world. Joel uses digital SLR and Medium Format cameras, and analog 4×5 large format cameras, without favoring one over the other. Born in Jakarta and moved to the Netherlands as a young boy, Joel calls the world his home, not so much the country he lives in. Having aspired for the more artistic professions like architecture, music and writing from an early age, Joel ended up studying Criminal law and working in the IT for many years to make a living. This, however, could never suppress his needs for creative expression, and photography was his preferred way of meeting those needs. For Joel photography didn’t stop by just clicking the shutter. That was just a necessary part of an approach to photography and art that also encompasses a specific way of black and white post processing in the digital darkroom. He developed his own signature method of post-processing that has been adopted by many of his students and followers around the world, to not only create beauty but also communicate emotions. His love for writing is reflected in the many tutorials and essays he wrote on photography and how art can be created with that medium.
Joel is also the co-author with Julia Anna Gospodarou of the 424 pages eBook From Basics to Fine Art – Black and White Photography – architecture and beyond released in 2014.
Nathan Wirth
About Nathan Wirth
Using a variety of techniques– including long exposure, infrared, intentional camera movement and the occasional dip into compositing– Nathan Wirth, who was born and raised in San Francisco, is a self-learned photographer who seeks to express his unending wonder for the fundamental fact of existence. In his work, he attempts to focus on the silence that we can sometimes perceive in between the incessant waves of sound that often dominate our perceptions of the world. Nathan earned both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English Literature from San Francisco State University and brings a deep appreciation of poetry to his explorations of place (especially the sea). Poets such as George Oppen, Gary Snyder, Seamus Heaney, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Oliver, Lorine Niedecker, and George Mackay Brown have played a fundamental role in shaping his attention to the things and places that he photographs. Often returning to the same locations many times, Nathan seeks to explore the silence and the sublimity of those places. In addition to poetry, Nathan is profoundly influenced by the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, and Camille Pissarro and the photography of Michael Kenna, Edward Weston, and Wright Morris.
For the past few years, Nathan has been studying and integrating into his work Japanese traditions of Zen, rock gardens, and calligraphy– as well as the transience, impermanence, and imperfections of wabi-sabi. Nathan’s studies of calligraphy and Zen writings have led him to the practice of trying to achieve, while working on his photography, a mind of no-mind (mu-shin no shin), a mind not preoccupied with emotions and thought, one that can, as freely as possible, simply create.
Nathan also curates and edits, slices of silence, an online place to read and view conversations about photography.
Nathan, after living in San Francisco for the first 44 years of his life, moved to Marin County and currently makes his living teaching English Composition at City College of San Francisco.
Exhibitions
- 2018 — Marin County Fair, San Rafael, CA. June 30-July 4, 2018 (8 images)
- 2017 — Marin County Fair, San Rafael, CA. June 30-July 4, 2017 (13 images)
- 2017 — Wanderlust Exhibition, Dickerman Prints, San Francisco, CA June – 2017 (Group Exhibition- 1 image)
- 2017 — B&W Minimalism Magazine Photography Exhibition, Center for Contemporary Creations, Isfahan, Iran – May 26, 2017 – June 20, 2017
- 2017 — B&W Minimalism Magazine Photography Exhibition, Yadegaran Art Gallery, Kerman, Iran – February 17-24, 2017 (4 images)
- 2016 — International Symposium for Contemplative Studies, San Diego, CA – November 10-13, 2016 (Exhibited with Matthieu Ricard)
- 2015 — Stone Altars (book release and solo show), The Great Highway Gallery, San Francisco, CA September 19, 2015 – October 17, 2015
- 2015 — Marin County Fair, San Rafael, CA, July 1-5, 2015 (6 images).
- 2015 — Golden Camera Awards Exhibition. Kyiv Photography School, Kiev, Ukraine, March 31-April 30, 2015 (6 images)
- 2015 — Golden Camera Awards Exhibition. National Museum of Taras Shevchenko, Kiev, Ukraine, March 27-29, 2015 (6 images)
- 2014 — a slice of silence (solo show), The Great Highway Gallery, San Francisco, CA May 3, 2014 – July 4, 2014
- 2014 — Marin County Fair, San Rafael, CA, July 2-6, 2014 (4 images).
- 2013 — Marin County Fair, San Rafael, CA, July 3-7, 2013 (3 images).
http://www.nlwirth.com/photography
