WOMEN STREET PHOTOGRAPHERS

2026 Artist Residency 2nd Runner Up: Anastasia Rudenko

Artist Statement:

I am a social documentary photographer, and capturing people has always been at the heart of my work. Over many years, I have photographed in challenging and intimate environments, such as psychiatric institutions and prisons, and I even had the opportunity to photograph political figures. I have also accompanied the police on assignments, which has given me valuable experience working in difficult and uncomfortable conditions, all of which taught me to stay calm, observant, and sensitive to complex, often hidden human stories that raise important social and class issues.

The photographs presented in my application are part of my “Visual Dictionary” project, a contemporary visual guide to life in Russia. In this series, I document real scenes, phenomena, and images of everyday life to visually interpret and explain complex social realities.  As a social documentary photographer, people, their stories, and the intricate forces shaping their lives have always been at the heart of my work. Through “Visual Dictionary,” I have developed an approach that blends the search for metaphor, visual depth, and a keen eye for the absurd or poetic in everyday street moments.

BIO:

Anastasia Rudenko is a Russian documentary photographer born in Kazakhstan.  She works on social issues in contemporary post-Soviet society, exploring themes such as violence, the daily realities of marginalized communities, and the absurdities of Russian identity.  Her work often forms a “visual dictionary” of Russia, reflecting the country’s most pressing social processes.

Anastasia works primarily as a freelance photographer, dedicating most of her time to personal long-term projects.  She is the recipient of various acclaims, such as the Canon Female Photojournalist Award and finalist of the POYi in the category World Understanding Award.

Through her lens, Anastasia seeks to document and critically examine the complexities of society, always striving to give voice to those whose stories are ofter overlooked.

IG: @garibbb

Artist Statement:

My work explores the contrasts and quiet rhythms of urban life.  Through strong color, clean lines, and layered compositions, I focus on moments where stillness and motion intersect,   where people, architecture, and atmosphere shape the soul of the city.

This series is a tribute to myself, to my vision, and to the city that has shaped me.

These photos were taken in Munich, the city I moved to in 2020 for what was meant to be just a one-month photographry workshop.  But something shifted.  I stayed, and that decision changed my life.

Over the years, Munich has become my creative ground.  A city that may seem quiet and reserved at first glance, alomost too polished or bourgeois, but which, when observed closely, reveals a kind of unexpected energy and theatricality.  That contrast is exactly what I love:  the calmness of a structured place interrupted by moments of spontaneity, humor, and beauty.

I work in both color and balck-and-white, depending on the emotional quality I want to evoke:  in color, I tend toward soft saturation with a cinematic, almost analog mood.  The tones are in often natural but subtly warm or nostalgic, reinforcing a quiet intimacy.  In black and white, my images become more graphic and contrast driven, emphasizing form and gesture over context, often transforming mundane settings into dramatic stage-like spaces.

Each photo is built on observations of subtle interactions, fleeting gestures, and how people inhabit the architecture around them.  I don’t intervene or direct;  I wait.  I look for visual tension, a pause in motion, a shadow cast at just the right angle, or an unexpected gesture in a predictable space.

These images represent a process of growth, discovery, and trust in myself.  They tell the story of someone who stayed and chose to see.  And they are also a quiet thank you to the city that welcomed me, challenged me, and helped me become who I am.

BIO:

Elena Garibaldi is an Italian street photographer based in Munich.  Originally from Comiglia, a small village in Cinque Terre, she moved to Milan in the 2016 to pursue a BA in Languages and Communication.  In 2020, she relocated to Munich to attend a photography internship at Officina Fotografica, where she assisted photographer Alessandro Piazza and took her first steps into the world of street photography and visual storytelling.

Before settling into her current role, Elena experienced Munich through various jobs, including working as a sales assistant at Viktualienmarkt and working as an assistant direcetor in two local theaters.  These diverse rolds enriched her understanding of the city and its culture.

Since then, Munich has become both her home and a place of artistic growth.  Alongside her creative pursuits, Elena works in marketing and commnication for a German transportaion company based in the city.

Largely self taught, her photography explores the poetry of everyday life, often guided by instinct, light, and a curiosity for human presence in urban spaces.  She is also passionate about community and has founded a local street photography group in Munich to foster connection and creative exchange.

IG: @hollysarahburgess

Artist Statement:

My work explores the timeless interconnectedness of Maori worlds. For Maori, the past, present and future are not separate nor distinct from each other. Past and future generations coexist, reflecting each other in intimate relation with the natural world from which we descend––our lands, mountains, oceans, and rivers. As the foundations of our worlds, these landscapes and seascapes are the backdrops of our existence, and are thus the backdrops of our street style.  Having grown up away from the lands and waters of my ancestors, I have been on a journey of deepening my relationships to my whakapapa (which translates to genealogy and intergenerational relationships, and includes our more than human relations). This has looked like long drives home, sitting with my aunties and uncles, listening to music, line dancing, looking through old photo albums, hearing stories of our people and our landscapes, and tracing the paths of our ancestors.  This has meant deepening my relationships with, and journeying alongside, other wahine Maori (Maori women) and creatives. My camera has been my greatest companion on this journey, and has been with me as I have journeyed home for over a decade. This series of photos is a part of the visual archive of my journey home, of the landscapes and seascapes that constitute our “streets” in Aotearoa, and the generations who walk them. Through my photography, I seek to capture the timelessness of our existence as Maori, and the ways we each reflect past and future generations. 

Bio:

Based in Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand), Holly Sarah Burgess is a descendant of the Maori tribal groups of Ngapuhi and Te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi. Grounded in and learning from her whakapapa (genealogy/intergenerational relationships), Holly’s work is grounded in care, collaboration and cultural connection, weaving fashion, identity and community with poetic intent.  Holly moves through the world with a clear vision, which is articulated in her practice. Her métier is ever-evolving and dynamic, making each frame feel connected and alive — a testament to her meticulous eye. In 2017, Holly graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland, specializing inphotography. Building on her impressive portfolio of fashion, people and community, Holly is always looking for different ways to capture people in place, working in collaboration through a lens of respect, reciprocity and a willingness to listen and learn. Holly’s work is the culmination of her desire to tell meaningful stories, grounded in the collectives of which she is a part. Living in Auckland, Holly is a “city kid”, but her heart is at home in the Hokianga, where her family is from. Her photography covers a portal into her connections home, and her wider exploration of what it means to be Indigenous and deeply connected to place.

As a wahine Maori (Maori woman), Holly prioritizes the building and nurturing of relationships in her practice, which is evidenced by her long standing networks of relationships with New Zealand brands, designers, artists and creatives. Holly’s photography is fundamentally about storytelling, and she situates each shoot as a part of a wider story of Aotearoa (New Zealand) that is unfolding across generations.

IG: @_isabelpadilla_

Artist Statement:

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a silent observer of the world and its figures. As a photographer, I often feel like a peaceful ghost—haunting a world that moves too fast for me to follow in life.  The more deeply I feel, the more dreamlike my images become.  I’m drawn to timeless figures: older people, taxi drivers, and silhouettes.

In 2017, I was 21 and living in Seoul for a semester abroad. One night, I experienced an assault that has stayed with me ever since. I fled the scene and got into a taxi. The driver kept glancing back. We had no shared language, but something passed between us. I was crying, disoriented. I felt entirely alone, and I think he knew that.

I’ve always been fascinated by taxi drivers—their presence, their solitude, the way they silently witness so many lives. They see strangers’ silences, heartbreaks, drunken nights. They see girls like me, and don’t always know how to help. After that night, I began writing stories about drivers who could see every rider they’d ever carried. Who could speak a universal language in an afterlife. As I grew older, I started speaking with drivers—asking them about their most memorable rides. That’s how I first learned of a local belief: many drivers in Hong Kong speak of having picked up ghosts. I felt something click. I could be that ghost. Maybe I always was.

I want to keep exploring this space—the spiritual and emotional terrain between rider and driver, between subject and photographer. I want to hear taxi drivers’ stories, their personal myths, their private rules for navigating the night. But more than that, I want to explore my own floating presence in this city. I want to find out what other spaces can be haunted—who notices me, and who doesn’t.  And what better place than New York City? It’s been my home for seven years. Nearly everyone here is from somewhere else. Local taxi drivers are icons, but so are the unnoticed. The city itself is a kind of shared language—one where belonging means being part of something constantly shifting, constantly foreign.

BIO:

Isabel Padilla Soto is a Spanish photographer and cinematographer based in New York City. Her work explores the emotional possibilities of observation, often leaning into shadow, subtlety, and spatial tension. Whether photographing strangers in the street or constructing more abstract visual narratives, Isabel’s images are driven by mood, ambiguity, and an intuitive sense of stillness.

She studied Film, Television, and Communication at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, with a semester abroad at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea, where she deepened her interest in visual storytelling and experimental form.  After moving to New York City, she completed the Cinematography Conservatory at the New York Film Academy, but her foundation has always been in photography. Her early work behind the still camera trained her eye for framing, atmosphere, and light — sensibilities that continue to guide both her photographic and motion work.

 Her photographs have been exhibited and published internationally, including by PhotoVogue Italia, CICA Museum, the Brooklyn Public Library, Matadero Madrid, and MadCool Festival. In 2024, she co-organized and co-curated Ink Archives, a group exhibition in Brooklyn, exploring tattoo as ephemeral art;  she also participated as a photographer and is preparing its next edition.

Her cinematography work has been featured in films screened at Palm Springs ShortFest, RiverRun, Fantasia, NFFTY, and Cinema Jove. She has lensed narrative shorts, hybrid pieces, and experimental work across the U.S., Central America, and Europe, and has collaborated with artists such as Julien Baker, Eartheater, LSDXOXO, and Molchat Doma. She is a proud member of The International Collective of Female Cinematographers (ICFC) and Directoras de Fotografía. She is deeply committed to fostering visibility and community among women and nonbinary image-makers in both photography and film.

IG: @kamna_dhankhar

Artist Statement:

I visited Havana, Cuba, in March 2025. To me, Cuba was like entering a time capsule: quiet but vibrant. The silence there spoke very loudly of the people’s will, determination, and resilience. I was moved by how they were living with joy in a place where the buildings told a story of past glories and present neglect. Kids played in playgrounds with broken equipment but enjoyed them as if they were brand new. Small acts of kindness brought smiles to their faces, young and old alike. Everyone dressed with care and dignity, so much so that you almost don’t notice the whole country falling apart behind them. The Cuban Kids really touched my heart, and I could not help but capture their everyday struggles and joys. I can’t wait to go back and explore more of the unsaid stories that the locals carry in their hearts.

Bio:

Kamna, an Indian photographer based in Guraon, India, first became fascinated by photography in college. She traveled abroad in 2000 for her bachelor's degree at Arcadia University, Pennsylvania, United States. This is when she got her first taste of solo traveling. During these travels, she felt a desire to come back with images to show what she had seen. This desire led to her first purchase of a DSLR. She learned the basics of street photography with a Delhi-based photographer. She wanted to make her photographs deeper and more meaningful. In 2014, she enrolled in a Master's program in “Photography and Urban Culture” at Goldsmiths College, London. She chose to quit this program when she was expecting her son. After her son was born, she chose to be a full-time mother and homemaker. In the summer of 2023, she attended a street photography workshop in Rome, Italy, with Steve McCurry. This workshop was a turning point in her life, and she felt the pull to enter the world of photography again. In January of 2024, she completely committed the year to rediscovering her passion for photography, and this time she was attracted to the streets. The thrill of the street and the unpredictability of what she would encounter made every shooting day feel like a treasure hunt. She was one of the finalists in the Rome Photo Lab's “Streets of the World” exhibition held in Rome in September 2025.

IG: @kantaya_new

Artist Statement:

This series is called The Odd One Out? I photograph real people and objects in public spaces just as they are, but I try to capture that feeling of not quite blending in. Some people are hidden behind plastic sheets. Others fade into fog. Some appear only as shadows or cutouts. These are not staged moments — they are about people who are here, yet not always fully seen for who they are: the experience of existing and not existing at the same time. My photos are an extension of how I see and experience the world around me.

BIO:

Kantaya New is a Thai–Singaporean street and conceptual photographer based in Singapore. Her work explores themes of invisibility, emotional distance, and the quiet strangeness of everyday life. Entirely self-taught, she draws from her experiences across Bangkok, Tokyo, and Singapore to create visuals with a quiet appeal, drawing viewers in and invite reflection.

Her photography has been recognized by LensCulture Critics’ Choice (2023), Sony World Photography Awards (2022), and Fujifilm Moment Street Photo Awards (2nd Prize, 2024). She has exhibited internationally, including with Women Street Photographers in New York (2022–2024), Xposure Festival in Sharjah (2024), and in group shows across Europe, Asia, and North America.

IG: @mai.arrieta

Artist Statement:

Everyday Habana is a street photography series that reflects my ongoing interest in how people move through, pause within, and inhabit public space. Made in the streets of La Habana, Cuba, the series focuses on everyday moments, fragments of leisure, rest, waiting, and interaction, where the human body becomes part of the city’s visual and emotional architecture. In Habana, the line between public and private blurs; the street often becomes a living room, a resting place, a space of expression. That fluid relationship between the individual and their surroundings is what drew me in.

For me, documentary photography is also a form of visual anthropology, a quiet, noninvasive way of studying how culture is enacted through gesture, presence, and spatial behavior. I photograph from a position of curiosity and care, working with both analog and digital formats, always responding to the rhythm of the street and the emotional tension held in seemingly ordinary scenes.

Bio:

Mariana Arrieta Ibarra is a Mexican-Spanish photographer based in Barcelona, specializing in documentary and artistic photography. Her work blends digital and analog practices to explore the connection between light, emotion, and visual storytelling. With a keen sensitivity to detail and atmosphere, she captures authentic moments that evoke introspection, presence, and depth.

Trained at the Escuela Activa de Fotografía in Mexico and holding a postgraduate degree in Documentary and Artistic Photography from IDEP Barcelona, Mariana’s practice spans still photography for audiovisual productions, editorial collaborations, and international exhibitions. Her work has appeared in publications such as the British Journal of Photography and Women United Art Magazine, and has been exhibited in cities including Barcelona, Rome, and Havana. She has also contributed to collective photobooks and developed self-published photozines that extend her visual and narrative explorations.

Her photographic practice is deeply informed by her interest in visual anthropology, treating photography as a way to observe, understand, and reflect on how people relate to space, ritual, and everyday life. Beyond the street, her work expands into the darkroom, where analog processes become an extension of her sensibility—slower, tactile, and rooted in time. Through a balance of intuition and intention, Mariana seeks to tell visual stories that honor the poetry of the ordinary and the subtle beauty found in human presence.

IG: @maribasurtophotography

Artist Statement:

A city that never sleeps isn’t just noise and lights.
It’s an invisible choreography of strangers—unknown to each other—who briefly share space, time, and silence. This series, captured in Japan, builds a visual and emotional dialog with the tireless rhythm of New York City. It explores the daily pulse of those who inhabit and pass through it: locals, foreigners, familiar faces and anonymous silhouettes—each one part of the same urban tide.

As a photographer, my greatest strength isn’t just to observe—it’s to anticipate, connect, and tell. I'm driven by the search for honest moments that, even amidst urban chaos, reveal the quiet intimacy of human experience. Each image is born from that tension between anonymity and emotion, spontaneity and narrative depth.

Bio:

Mariana Basurto is a visual artist whose lens uncovers the hidden stories of the streets, transforming everyday life into narratives rich with emotion and depth. Originally from Mexico and now based in Charlotte, North Carolina, she captures the essence of life with a fresh, spontaneous, and honest perspective. Her work invites viewers to rediscover the world, finding beauty and meaning in what often goes unnoticed—moments filled with nuance and fascinating characters.

Her work has been exhibited internationally in cities such as New York, Rome, Paris, Hong Kong, Kolkata, Milan, Mexico City, and São Paulo, and featured in publications like All About Photo, Urban Photography, and Photographize.

Driven by a passion for new challenges and growth, Mariana firmly believes that life is full of moments waiting to be told. Street photography, more than a passion, is her way of connecting, interpreting the world, and telling stories through a distinct and personal lens. She explores the layers of urban life, revealing what happens when no one is watching.

IG @vita_flumen

Artist Statement:

I came to photography later than most—after a career change at forty. For the past ten years, I’ve been building a life around image-making, navigating a landscape that often reserves its opportunities for the very young or newly “emerging.” But I’ve learned that beginning again later in life offers something different: a sensitivity to nuance, to what hides in plain sight, to the quiet in-between moments that carry emotional weight. Street photography has taught me the value of intention. Over time, I’ve come to understand that even the most fleeting gesture can hold complexity—and that the depth of an image often lies in what seems, at first, superficial. My work is inspired by the notion of The Infraordinary, as described by Georges Perec: a call to notice what we usually ignore, to document what is habitual rather than exceptional. I’m drawn to fragments, to atmosphere, to the emotional charge of overlooked spaces and gestures. This project, Living in Neon Cuts, explores the fleeting, film-like moments in public urban spaces after dark. It focuses on the environments where nightlife unfolds—streets, doorways, subway platforms, diners, bars—places where the ordinary becomes atmospheric, and the line between fiction and reality begins to blur.

Bio:

Sandra Hernández (Vita Flumen) is a Mexican-Canadian street and documentary photographer based in Mexico. After working for nearly two decades in architecture, she changed careers at forty to pursue photography full-time—a shift that reshaped her way of seeing and deepened her attention to the everyday. Inspired by Georges Perec’s concept of The Infraordinary, her work is rooted in a quiet, deliberate observation of the world. She is drawn to emotional atmospheres—spaces charged with tension, tenderness, or mystery—and to the gestures that reveal the interior lives of strangers. Through photography, she seeks to translate what can’t be said directly: a lingering feeling, a shift in light, a moment of intimacy unfolding in public space. Sandra is the founder of Observadores Urbanos, a platform that supports Latin American photographers through community-building and publications, including the first street photography anthology in Mexico. Her images have appeared in The Guardian, La Vanguardia, Gatopardo, and L’Oeil de la Photographie, and she has exhibited internationally.

IG: @soniasimbolo

Artist Statement:

“Life is not what one has lived,” writes Gabriel García Márquez, “but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.”

For me, this is “nostos”: an endless arrival at unknown ports, places where I hope to be welcomed; eyes that capture my gaze; fleeting smiles, melancholy, waiting, hope, defeat. Stories to sense, to guess, to tell in the improbability of the moment.

“Nostos” is my elsewhere—sought everywhere, longed for always, shared with anyone with whom, even for just a moment, I can feel my present and perhaps my ‘yet to come’. Because I know I will always find my “nostos” again, in other spaces, in other encounters—completely different in its absolute uniqueness, yet always the same for that charge of nostalgia, tension, and unquenchable search that has guided me here.

But mine is never a final “here”: mine is a journey without arrivals, a road that runs through my entire story—the one I have lived and the one I tell with my photographs. Along this uninterrupted and sometimes labyrinthine inner path, every stage, every port is an opportunity for me to confront myself and to dialogue with others.

Organising an exhibition or entering a contest is not simply a challenge or competition for me, but rather a precious opportunity for dialogue with others, and questions to myself: Have I managed to tell a story, to express myself, to make myself understood? Will my photos be able to speak for me and about me? Will they be able to say all that is inside me, which words cannot contain?

Will this story of mine, pulsing in my soul, be able to tell other stories, other “nostoi”? That would be my true, authentic victory.

I have always thought and felt that “better” and “worse” are parallel lines that can meet at a point in infinity—where every distance disappears in the fullness of being and of finding oneself. Together.

Bio:

Born in Rome in 1985, Sonia Simbolo graduated in Literature and obtained a master's degree in Counseling. In 2014, she enrolled in a photography course and, unexpectedly, discovered her true passion. For almost 7 years, photography was her second job until 2022 when it became her only activity.

A professional photographer in her own right, she focuses on events and portraits. For two years, she will run a photography workshop for young people suffering from psychiatric disorders at the day centre “La fabbrica dei sogni”, producing a collective at the “Ro.Mens” Mental Health Festival.

A pupil of photographers of the calibre of Franco Fontana, Gustavo Minas, Susana Barbera, and Stefano Mirabella, she won numerous awards in national and international contests: 4 honorable mentions at the “Paris Street Photo Awards” (2023), finalist at the “Women Street Photographers” (2023/2024/2025), second place winner and honorable mention at the “Annual Photography Awards” (2023), third place winner at the “Black And White Photo Awards” (2024), semi-finalist at the “Urban Photo Awards” (2024), finalist at the “Rome Photo Lab” (2024/2025), second place winner at the “Street Avengers” contest (2024), finalist at the “B&W Awards” of Street Macadam (2025), third place winner at the “Franco Pontiggia Memorial - Street Portraits” (2025), second place winner at the “Oslo Street Photo Festival” (2025), finalist at the “ÈFestival Awards” (2025).

She is a member of the international collective, Women Street Photographers” the brainchild of photographer Gulnara Lyabib Samoilova, and is among the curators of the international streetphotography page @StreetAvengers.

She has two solo exhibitions to her credit: “Sonia non sognare” (2023) and “Verso Converso” (2023).

She was selected to take part in international group exhibitions: “100 Years 100 Women”, exhibited in Paris (2024) and at the “Mexico Street Photo Fest” (October 2025); “Seen By Her” exhibited in Jakarta (2025); “Fotografar Palavras” in Leiria (2025).

She was published in the magazine Best Selected (2023) and in the magazine Street Journey in Italy (2024).

IG: @susanne_bartels_photoartist

Artist Statement:

I am a photographic artist based in Munich, Germany, working at the intersection of street photography and conceptual narrative. My focus lies on human presence, emotional truth, and the quiet complexity of life as it unfolds in public. I photograph forgotten corners, raw edges, and gestures that often go unseen. My camera is a listener. I do not take photos—I create emotional translations of reality.

My submitted project, “Mundo Aparte,” was created in La Perla, Puerto Rico—a place that felt like another world, layered with pain, pride, music, resistance, and overwhelming beauty. What began as curiosity became a deep emotional connection. I climbed down from the old city wall of San Juan into this barrio and was struck by the poetry and power of what I found. People surviving with grace. Community built on rhythm and resilience. I returned eight weeks later and felt like I belonged. I photographed with love and presence, trying to do justice to this “mundo aparte”—a world apart.

Bio:

Susanne Bartels is a dedicated photographer and visual artist with international experience and a strong artistic vision. Her work is grounded in project-based and conceptual street photography, with a particular focus on human presence, identity, and emotional depth in public space.

She is the recipient of the latest PISPA Gold Award in the category Street and Children, and she works as a curator for the international photography platform @street_me_up, where she actively promotes emerging and established voices in street photography.

She is working on “The Unmasked Self – Between Reflection and Introspection”, a black-and-white portrait series created in Munich. The project explores identity, vulnerability, and self-perception through layered reflections and psychological depth. She has recently been selected as a finalist for the Rome PhotoLab and will present this series in Rome in September 2025.

IG: @ohsaskia

Artist Statement:

My belief in collective memory and shared experiences compels me to photograph strangers, a practice I’ve engaged in naturally since the age of fourteen. For the past decade, I’ve returned to the beaches of Brooklyn, New York, to create environmental portraits. My family’s displacement from a seaside town in Latvia during World War II shaped my fascination with the landscape. I photograph people on the beach as a way to savor a place that has offered respite and restoration to many New Yorkers. These portraits are made moments after encountering a stranger. I wait for a specific connection, however brief, that allows for a genuine and shared pause from the world outside the viewfinder.

Bio:

Saskia Kahn (b. New York, NY) is a photographer and educator interested in the impact our physical surroundings have on identity. She creates street portraits and works with experimental photographic printmaking. NYC Parks exhibited her portraits as an outdoor installation of seawater-damaged portraits, anticipating future climate disasters. Skatepark Baltimore was awarded Best Photography Thesis in the 2022 Global Design Graduate Show. She has led free photography workshops in Baltimore, MD; Hudson, NY; and Yaoundé, Cameroon, using collaborative tools like photovoice to invite participation from the people she photographs. Her photographs have appeared in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and BmoreArt. Kahn lives in Baltimore, MD, and teaches photography at Towson University and the Maryland Institute College of Art.

IG: @vanessa.abramowitz

Artist Statement:

“On the Doorstep” is a street photography series I shot in India, focused on the space where home meets the street. I was drawn to the everyday scenes that played out on doorsteps. People sitting, chatting, resting, or just watching the world go by. The colorful homes and clothing created a vibrant, layered visual environment, almost like a natural stage for daily life. What stood out to me most was the openness of how much of life happened outside, in view of neighbors and passersby. It felt very different from how people live in most Western cities, where daily life is often more private and contained.

Bio:

Vanessa Abramowitz is a Miami-based photographer with a degree in film from Boston University. After years of working in the film industry and exploring different career paths, she has found her passion for street photography. As a result of her frequent visits to the charming city of Cartagena in her home country of Colombia, she began developing both her vision and technique in this exciting realm of photography.

Artist Statement:

Photography is my way of capturing and sharing how I see the world. Street photography fascinates me, because it captures real, unposed moments of everyday life. These candid images, illuminated by natural light and framed by the city’s movement, allow me to document the true essence of my community. I love that street photography is spontaneous and honest—often, my subjects are unaware of my camera, allowing me to capture their genuine experiences and emotions.

Photography helps me express what I find difficult to say in words. Through my street photography, I tell stories with a single image. My work focuses on people, especially women and the interplay of light and shadow, capturing the timeless charm of everyday life. Each photo is like a piece of history, preserving the spirit of neighborhoods and the people in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My photography reflects the stories of daily life, capturing those moments that define a community.

Sehin Tewabe is a 27-year-old professional photographer based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A self-taught artist with a background in accounting, Sehin has always had a natural passion for photography. Growing up in a large family, she was surrounded by joyous moments that she felt needed to be preserved. This desire to capture the beauty of everyday life led her to pick up a camera and turn fleeting moments into lasting memories, deepening her love for photography in the process.

Photo by Ambient Teshone

Artist Statement:

Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated with the concept of communities. With the richness and diversity that manifests at every corner of the world, regardless of beliefs, ideology, politics, and borders. Communities, despite the overtake of a mainstream culture, manage to keep themselves authentic through the characters that inhabit these spaces, these streets.

Photography has been my language of choice to capture and share the beauty of diversity. Through my work, I’ve come to realize that we make sense of our surroundings by the sign of human life that we can identity within them. With my camera, I choose to capture the stories of characters from very different backgrounds that can turn the frame into a whole world.

I’ve been lucky enough to grow up in one of the most diverse countries of the world. Mexico is a country with too many sides, an hispanic and indigenous heritage that manages to survive despite the inevitable influences of mainstream western culture. The survival of these Pilars of the Mexican identity have become an essential part of my photography. In every new encounter, I find a richness that cannot be replicated or staged. I find truth.

It’s hard not to feel like an outsider when you are dedicating all your efforts to document authentically the life of others. But what I have found is a world full of gratitude and openness that feels like an immense sense of pride and responsibility when representing their cultures.

What I hope to achieve is that a single picture can tell a story that creates an emotional bond beyond the limits of the frame in spite of of what’s being portrayed in it.

Ana Joaquina Munoz de la Concha is a Mexican photographer from Puebla. For years, she has focused her career around the cultural richness and diversity of Mexico, specifically in how these factors make themselves present within the daily life of the characters involved that inhabit unique spaces intrinsically attached to their communities, traditions, activities and circumstances across different parts of the country.

Artist Statement:

“My Way” is a personal and intimate exploration of El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James), a Christian pilgrimage popular during the Middle Ages to expiate sins and ask pardon or miraculous conversion. In the last decade, the number of people walking along the Way has increased dramatically. Catholics, atheists, agnostics and curious travelers have shown more and more interest in doing the way of St. James. The journey is traditionally covered on foot, by bicycle or by horse, starting from different cities of Europe. In an historical period in which capitalistic materialism deeply imbues lifestyle, I started El Camino Santiago because I felt trapped in the routine, speed, and superficiality of my hectic life. This intimate and lyrical photographic story telling investigates my slow and intense experience of El Camino as an instinctual need of spiritual search and reconnection with my lost Self.

Artist Statement:

In days of old, a Bedouin’s reputation was his highest asset. A bad word spoken against one could lead to a sad end. The Bedouin consider eloquence to be a most important asset. Their oral tradition dispensed with the idea of ownership and possessions, such as books. What a man said and how he said it were absorbed into the utmost attention and esteem for the glib. This sense of tribal identity embodies in the status earned by exercising one’s poetic and singing talent led to a great creative genetic manifest embedded in Bedouin DNA. It seems no accident then that Bedouin are particularly attracted to cell phone usage, with the tribal nature of this global reach. Ironically, the opposite effect is the isolated staring into a screen even while sitting the company of others, something young Bedouin are not immune to. Before cell phones and computers, news had to be remembered over long distances of time and space. To make this easier, rhyming developed, and poetry came to express other forms of communication, such as affection or argument. Bedouin compared the size of their camels, wit of their tongue, beauty of their women, and knowledge of the desert’s secrets. Now, forced to settle in government housing, they compare their type of car, size of their house or land, strength of their business, and level of government encroachment into their lives. Competitiveness, bred by ownership of possessions, erodes the communality of their lifestyle. That, in turn, erodes their commune with nature supporting that lifestyle. At COP 27 in 2022, in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, Bedouin voiced their concerns and knowledge of the environment for the first time officially in a governmental setting. Their awareness of the importance of the environment has been at the forefront of their culture for centuries, the key to their survival, and everyone’s. A renewed awareness and appreciation of tribal living can be of great benefit to the world’s increasing populations struggling to cope with the world’s diminishing resources. Hopefully, the young Bedouin will continue to know their ancient tradition and not be too deterred by modern technology to preserve their past. I hope to build a museum of Bedouin Culture in Nueva. To that end, I wish to mount a major exhibition in NYC, as well as Paris, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Rome, and Amsterdam called “Going Bedouin.”

From the Grand Prize in NPCI to Best in Show in all-media “Art of the State” at the State Museum of PA, Laura Jean Zito’s photographs have won purchase prizes for prestigious museum collections. She was highly commended in the ‘24 and ‘23 Belfast Photo Festival Opens, honored in the 17th, 16th, and 15th International Color Awards, 17th B&W Spider Awards and in 2022, See/Me NYC exhibition 'True North” and ‘Edge of Humanity Magazine.’ In 2021, she was published by All About Photo magazine, Totally Dublin, Catamaran, and Street Photography Around the World a the LACP.

Artist Statement:

When I was younger, my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina was a landing pad. A port to rest before the next big adventure. Home had all the luxuries of the familiar: slow southern twang, sweet tea, and streets I could navigate with only by FM radio tuned in. Everything seemed ordinary. I was eager to learn about the outside world. I found my catalyst for creativity in foreign lands like India, Nepal, and China. After having a family of my own, however, Columbia has become a place of utter inspiration. Its people and streets are my canvas. My longterm project, Comet 701, highlights a bus route from my home into the city, The photographs show the daily lives of the people who frequently take the route. Though the Comet bus transports nearly 2.4 million people a year, this was my first time riding. The privilege of having a car never gave me the need to ride the bus, but I wanted to experience the route and learn more of the people in my hometown who use the bus as their main source of transport. As a self-taught female photographer, earning the spot as the next artist in residence would fulfill a life-long goal to have my own solo exhibition. Coming from a city of only 140,000, I would show other female photographers it’s possible to be successful even if you are not creating in a city with millions of people. Inspiration is unparalleled curiosity of the world. I come into new situations without judgement and with a desire to learn.

Artist Statement:

“Is Normality a Privilege?” is an exploration of everyday life in Venezuela between 2023 and 2024. While Venezuela has been frequently highlighted in global news for its severe political and economic crises, these reports often obscure the nuanced realities of daily life, reinforcing a one-dimensional view of the country. Such depictions make it challenging to grasp the country’s multifaceted nature and diverse stories.

Though I hail from a neighboring country, my understanding of Venezuela was limited until I moved there at the end of 2022. Photography has been my tool to navigate and unravel the layers of this unfamiliar and enigmatic place. Through my camera, I have wandered its streets, met its people, and experienced the dynamic pulse of its daily existence, which helped me answer some questions and asked hundreds of others.

Marina’s work focuses on projects that explore everyday human life intertwined with political, social, youth, and gender issues in Latin America.

Artist Statement:

A cult of Madonna del Camino is very strong in Naples, Italy. Every July 16th, the procession takes place, accompanied by a music band and large crowd of faithful followers. Each festival is relevant for its community, as it is connected with the construction of its identity. In a social system that tends to become hyper-complex, with this celebration you can create a moment in which the community is able to oppose the outside as a whole, taking root with renewed intensity in the territory and local memory.

Artist Statement:

As a Singaporean street photographer, my world is deeply rooted in capturing the essence of urban life through the unique lens of instant film. My experiences photographing the dynamic streets of Singapore and Tokyo have profoundly shaped my artistic vision.

The medium of instant film allows me to create physical records of fleeting moments, capturing the raw and spontaneous essence of street life. In Singapore and Tokyo, instant film has enabled me to document the unique interplay between tradition and modernity, creating images that resonate with both warmth and nostalgia. The charm and authenticity of instant photography not only provide a personal connection to the subject, but also serve as a bridge between the ephemeral and the permanent.

Ray Ong is motion graphics designer and passionate instant film street photographer. With a solid foundation in 2D animation from her college studies, Ray has long been adept at visual storytelling. Her journey into photography began in 2009 when she acquired her first film camera, sparking an enduring interest in capturing images.

In 2016, Ray deepened her engagement with street photography by adopting a modified Instax Wide camera fitted with a Mamiya Universal Press lens. This gear choice marked a significant turn in her photographic practice, allowing her to capture the vibrant, fleeting moments of urban life with a unique perspective.

Artist Statement

‘Framed’ is an ongoing street photography series that depicts people from around the world who are framed by their structural and physical environments. The series aims to expose how there is a symbiotic relationship between an individual and their broader contextual environment. On one hand, the subject accentuates elements of the context that may have otherwise been ignored without them. On the other, the structural elements in their environment shape them within the picture and expose particular elements and sensibilities within the person. The work is featured from Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

“Framed” was shown in video format at the Peel Street Projections Festival in Melbourne, Australia. It has also been featured in Frankie Magazine, Monster Children Magazine, Beginning Film, and Be Analogic.

Rose Hartley is a photographer and psychologist currently based on Ngunnawal Country (Canberra, Australia). Rose’s documentary photography has won her two international photo competitions for Monster Children and Frankie magazines. More recently, she was shortlisted for the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Humanity and the International Photography Awards. She was also featured as a finalist in the City of Sydney’s Australian Life photo competition. Her solo exhibitions include a one-month exhibition with Peel Street Projections, while her group exhibitions include shows at Brunswick Street Gallery, Collingwood Yards, and No Vacancy Gallery in Melbourne, Hyde Park in Sydney, and Photo Access in Canberra.

Artist Statement:

In the last few decades, we have witnessed increasing levels of political correctness and homogenization of culture in Australia. I believe street photography offers an important counter to these trends. As a street photographer, I capture authenticity, documenting people’s individuality and how they use their environments. I strive to represent our times with honesty.

Still images, when curated, can tell a very powerful story—speaking to different types of people and how we live in our streets. What I want to learn through this residency is the craft of developing an idea and the skill of curation to tell a story in a body of work that I’m proud of.

The series of images I have submitted, “All Creatures Great and Small” represents the evolution of my work at this point in time. I look to tell stories within images, sometimes simple moments and others with multiple layers. I’m drawn to color as I look for unexpected meats, carefully framing to allow the viewer to look into the moment and feel their way through the frame stirring their curiosity.

This series is my ode to the daily dance of life in India witnessing the unexpected and pragmatic juxtaposition of the domestic, devotional and work life, where resiliency in the face of adversity, joy in celebration and an integrated relationship with animals is a very present foundation for all life.

I aspire to becoming a street photographer recognized for making a significant contribution. My father reminded me of my dreams in one of our last conversations before his passing over a decade ago. He told me it was me that was holding me back when it came to realizing my photographic potential. I hold his thoughts close to me as I pursue my photographic journey.

Artist Statement:

Among the various topics I like to explore, religions and rituals are probably my favorites. Much of street photography involves explorations of different religions, cultures, holidays, costumes, traditional attire, and many more. I aim to highlight what is often hidden under this variance, our shared humanity. Deep down we share more similarities than differences. Our emotions, wishes, fears, and aspirations are all so intrinsically human. It is those shared experiences I hope to shed light on in my street photography.

In most of the religious events I photographed, however, something bothered me. It took me a while to figure it out. In almost all religions, the practice of religion and its rituals ar a right and obligation reserved mostly for the men in the community. Even today in our modern world, women’s presence in the major religious events is rather sparse. Women are often situated on the outer edge of the crowds, watching the kids while the men are praying, studying, or performing the ritual stages. In this on-going project, titled “Women of Valor,” I wanted to focus on the women’s place in these events, normalizing their part in the religious public space by giving them visibility. Sometimes they are secluded, and at times they insist on taking amore active part, but they are always persistent, insisting on showing their own version of devotion, spreading their faith and hope.

Sharon Eilon is a street and documentary photographer based in Israel. She started learning and practicing photography a few years ago, following a health crisis that led her to find treatment in India. it was a life-changing healing journey that not only brought her back home healthy and safe, but also shifted her whole perspective on life, as major challenges often do. Appreciating being alive was more than just empty words. It became an inner motivation to pursue the things she really loves: traveling, studying Eastern philosophies, dancing, and photography are only a few of the things she decided to actively incorporate into her daily life.

Fascinated by the variations and the underlying similarities in the human experiences, she aims to document the wide spectrum of life—its marvels and well as its challenges. She is always fascinated by the triable of emotions and sensations a photograph can weave between the photographer, her protagonists, and the viewer.

Her work was recognized and awarded internationally and exhibited in galleries worldwide, including Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona, Athens, Milan, and more.

Artist Statement:

After the lockdowns caused by the Covid 19 pandemic, I was finally able to return to Morocco, my father’s homeland, and reconnect with photography. During those years, I felt paralyzed, as though deprived of my tool for expression, since my inspiration comes from traveling and exploration, I needed to test whether I could still photograph, and to reinvent myself, I set a challenge: to create a new photographic language.

I imposed two rules on myself: long exposures to absorb everything that had escaped me during the lockdown, and a free hand to play with the newfound freedom. This resulted in blurred and overexposed images, which I later reworked to exaggerate the exposure and colors. This process allowed me to create a vision on the border between reality and fantasy, revealing a new visual universe. My goal is to gather images from ten cities and compile them into a book.

Sonia Hamza is a French-Moroccan fine art photographer who has developed a unique artistic language combining photography and textiles. Her photographic universe is imbued with her atypical background, creating an original and evocative body of work that tends to blue the boundaries between artistic disciplines.

A graduate of ENSAA Duperré in Paris (1995), she completed her training as a fashion designer at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design in London.

Artist Statement:

My photographic practice is founded on the serendipity of capturing life as it unfolds in front of my camera. My work is primarily street photography and creating photographic essays as a flaneur wandering around public places to find, discover, and capture dreamlike moments with a camera.

The proposed project, ”Metopolis: New York,” is a street photography project capturing the essence of life on the streets of New York. The mantra is: “Real life is like a theater when you wander the same streets every day. The scenes change in the blink of an eye as reality blends with my memories and dreams.”

The series will use medium format black-and-white film and a similar stylistic approach to form the 3rd stand-alone chapter of my trilogy of global street photography from a female gaze on the theme of metropolis. The aim is to find serendipitous, dreamlike moments that reflect the energetic, vibrant, bustling streets of New York, showcasing the mood and atmosphere of the city, people, light, and daily life while also tapping into my own subconscious behind the camera.

Dr. Tamara Voninski is a photographer, filmmaker, visual editor, educational, and writer. She is based in Sydney, Australia. Her photographic essays and street photography have won international awards and residencies including: International Pictures of the Year Awards, Art Gallery of NSW residency at City Internationale des Arts in Paris, and the inaugural Alexia Foundation Photography for World Peace grant. Her world has been exhibited internationally.

Debrani Das is a Kolkata based street photographer ,Fuji X Ambassador and co-founder of Unexposed SouthAsia. She was a co-curator of a special exhibition of Indian female street photographers by Women Street Photographers at the prestigious Indian Photo Festival in 2022 .

Debrani was a winner in the single image category of Bakustreet Photo Festival 2021. She was acclaimed as the winner of “Artist Residency 2020” in NYC by Women Street photographers. Her photographs have been exhibited worldwide. Her works have been part of many prestigious books and magazines such as: Women Street Photographers, Reclaim The Street, FujiLove Magazine, Eyeshot Magazine, Street Sweeper Magazine.

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2024 SOLO EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK CITY.

“STATEN ISLAND FERRY”

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Debrani Das submission to win the Artist Residency:

I am a photographer from Kolkata, India—a homemaker with a passion for street photography.  It has been my dream to delve deeper into the craft and take photographs in New York City:  the bright-blue sky, the shadow light play through the sky scrapers, the hustle and bustle of the the city, the mood at different street corners, everything.  My sole objective in my practice is to live every moment when I’m walking the streets and not miss a single moment that can offer me a decisive moment to capture.  The camera always allows me to be myself.

I have been honored to have Nina Welch Kling as my mentor.  She has helped me to grow as an artist and to hone my skills as a street photographer.

Born in the North of France, Valérie studied Chinese and spent many years traveling the cities of China and other countries before turning to photography. It was not until 2012 that she bought her first camera and discovered the joys of creation. Very quickly, she participated in workshops with renowned photographers and understood her visceral need to be outside, especially in the streets. This is where she finds inspiration and the material with which to compose her images: passers-by, small ephemeral scenes, projections of her emotions, and questionings about the world we live in. Sensitive and enigmatic images calling for narration.

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SOLO EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK CITY, 2019