Acknowledgments & contributor biographies
THANK YOU
For Josh—who reminds me to believe in at least six impossible things before breakfast
This book would never have been possible without the generosity and creativity of the contributing photographers as well as the support of the Ilex team—Tara Gallagher, Adam Juniper, Natalia Price-Cabrera, and the supremely talented designers—and that of my regular crew of counselors, cajolers, and cheerleaders. Thank you.
Thanks are also due to the following for their kind permission to include images: Apple Europe, Canon UK, Haje Jan Kamps, Nokia, Olympus UK, Pentax UK, Photojojo, Samsung UK, and Sony Europe, as well as Olympus UK and Pentax UK for the loan of equipment.
ADRIAN SOMMELING
Adrian is a photographer based in the Netherlands.
AMY WEBER
Amy is an artist and teacher. She graduated from Western Washington University and majored in art education; from there she continued her art education by getting a master’s degree through Lesley University in Curriculum and Instruction in the Arts, and later received a National Board Certification in Early Adolescent Young Adult Art. She has taught in secondary schools for 16 years and has been creating art since she can remember.
ANDRII BONDART
Andrii was born 22 years ago in a country that does not exist anymore. His hometown is a charming old European town with a glorious past, but with a not so beautiful present.
In 2005 he won the Elworthy scholarship, which enabled him to study in England for two years. Among five other A-levels he took Art and Design at Chigwell School—a place that became his personal Hogwarts. He really wanted to stay in the UK and was accepted into six different universities, however for financial reasons he could not accept any of these offers and moved back to the Ukraine.
He currently lives in Kyiv, Ukraine and after obtaining his master’s degree in Dutch at the National Linguistic University, he works as a photographer and an illustrator.
BETHANY DE FOREST
During art school (Utrecht, the Netherlands) one of Bethany’s main activities was creating settings, which she then photographed. Her objective was to create a “realistic” imaginary world. With an ordinary camera the images remained too distant … but with a pinhole camera she was able to capture this feeling.
Her inspiration stems from objects she finds or materials that appeal to her. Often her ideas contain elements from fairytales. The story is neither conventional nor predictable though, and the images can be interpreted in many ways. Being a pinhole photographer, her view of the world is quite deformed. She looks at her everyday surroundings with a pinhole eye. Sugar cubes are like bricks and chicken feet are tree-trunks.
CHRISTOPHE KICIAK
Christophe is 34 years old and lives with his wife in a small, lost between a river and a forest, to the west of Paris. He works in IT security in a large city. While this has nothing to do with photography, creativity is often required to hack into applications and systems; perhaps this kind of “out-of-the-box” thinking shows in his images.
Christophe found photography in June 2009; before then, he didn’t have a camera, any post-production skills, or general knowledge about the creation of an image. The attraction lay in the ability to satisfy his thirst for technical perfection, but simultaneously create something beautiful.
www.1x.com/artist/christophekiciak
DARIUSZ KLIMCZAK
Dariusz Klimczak, was born in 1967 in Sieradz, Poland. He’s an independent journalist, painter, and aphorist (Grand Prix winner of the seventh edition of Aphoristic Contest in Nowy Targ, 2005). For the past 25 years, photography has been an important part of his life, but it became his true passion a few years ago. He is currently a freelance photographer. He prefers square frames and black-and-white pictures, but doesn’t shun color. In his photomanipulative work, he seeks out moods, jokes, and universal symbols, which can make the viewer stop and contemplate, or laugh.
EVE LIVESEY
A former retail IT Consultant, Eve decided to pursue photography in 2008 and since then her photos have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and websites. She currently works as a freelance photographer and digital artist in Madrid, Spain providing free stock photos on DeviantArt and SurrealPSD, and sells her photos on Getty Images and Dreamstime.
GWLADYS ROSE
Born in 1988 in Orleans, France, Gwladys began to practice photography at 17 years old, always on a self-taught basis. She has never attended photography, infographic, or drawing courses. But when she discovered the power of artistic creation, she was immediately eager to improve her technique. As a longtime fan of surreal art, she trained herself on Photoshop CS3, mixing different images to create imaginative worlds. Many of Gwladys’ creations express a sense of melancholy and its beauty, which she believes is a reflection of her personality. Zlidlaw Beksinski is a major inspiration. Looking towards the future, she would love to improve her digital painting skills to enable her to combine them with photographic elements.
JANINE GRAF
Janine likes belly dancing, cappuccinos, the smell of old books, comedy, the color orange, and movies about gladiators. Her camera and tool of choice is the iPhone 5, as it’s a camera and darkroom all in one. As for subject matter, she tends to gravitate toward subjects that allow for whimsy; she likes to have fun! Her photography has been exhibited in art galleries across the United States and in Europe and featured on various websites.
www.flickr.com/photos/janine1968
JESS RIGLEY
Jess has been photographing since she was a child, and has recently finished her first year of studying Editorial and Advertising In Photography at university. Initially fashion photography appealed to her, but nowadays she continuously plans and shoots both personal and commercial projects, covering fashion, wedding, family, portrait and commercial photography.
JON JACOBSEN
Jon is a fine-art photographer and designer from Quintero, Chile. He took up photography at the age of 15, and is now known for his surreal and narrative style projected in different graphical contexts like fashion editorials, reports, interviews, and his authorial work in self-portraits and conceptual portraits. He currently resides in Santiago de Chile.
JULIE DE WAROQUIER
Julie is a French photographer born in 1989 and also a student of philosophy. She creates surreal and dreamy pictures to explore the inner realities of the human mind.
KRISHAN GUNGAH
Kris is based in Surrey. He graduated from Surrey University in 2010 and it was during his time there that he developed his photography skills, having joined the photography club as well as many online art communities. He started shooting with a mobile phone, shooting everything and anything that caught his attention. After graduating to a digital camera he started exploring macro photography before finally settling down with monochrome photography. He hasn’t looked back! His interest in surreal photography is a relatively recent addition, with his inspiration derived from various supernatural TV shows, movies, and music as well as nightmares!
www.lostknightkg.deviantart.com
LISA KARLSSON
Lisa’s interest in photography began when she got her first camera at age seven. Her interest grew as she started taking photography classes in 2009, and sharing her work at DeviantArt and Flickr. She is currently studying photography at Gothenburg Vocational University in Sweden.
www.cargocollective.com/lisacarolina
MARC WARD
Marc left his native Central Florida in the early 1970s and moved to East Tennessee, where he earned his Bachelor of Studio Arts degree.
During his college years, he bought a camera to shoot his three- and two-dimensional artwork and became the photographer for the college newspaper. Marc’s first forays into the darkroom were to put students’ heads onto babies’ bodies, have tanks attacking the library, and put administration bigwigs into compromising positions. This was a time before the PC and Photoshop, and meant hours spent in the darkroom, airbrushing and rephotographing cut-out images, developing and making prints.
A few decades later, he’s still creating composites, but now with the help of Photoshop. Some of these have won national and international awards and have been featured in numerous publications and books. Marc and his wife own the Spirit of the Hand Gallery in Dandridge, Tennessee.
MARIA KAIMAKI
Maria is a teacher, a perpetual student in all things that interest her and (for the last four years) a landscape photographer by passion. Photography has opened a door to a whole new reality for her, a new way of seeing and appreciating the world, a new philosophy and way of life. In photography you learn to focus on what’s significant excluding from your frame insignificant or ugly elements. That’s something photography has taught her about life.
MEGAN WILSON
Megan is an aspiring young photographer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
www.flickr.com/photos/m-wizzal
MISS ANIELA (aka Natalie Dybisz)
Natalie “Miss Aniela” Dybisz is a fine-art photographer based in London, UK. Her work has been exhibited worldwide, with six solo shows to date. Her photography career began while still at University, when she was sought to speak in the US for Microsoft and at Photokina, and offered gallery shows in London and Madrid. As well as constantly producing her own personal work, she runs the international “Fashion Shoot Experience” and is the author of two books.
NIKOLAI GORSKI
Nikolai is a Russian photographer, who currently works in Paris. Among his favorite themes are portraiture and architecture, especially staircases.
www.endegor.deviantart.com/gallery
PAULA COBLEIGH
Paula Cobleigh is a Pacific Northwest photographer who enjoys all aspects of the photography world. She can be found shooting everything from waterfalls and animals to infrared and high-speed studio work. Paula was intrigued with IR photography and has used many different cameras and techniques to achieve images that are surreal and unique. The main theme throughout her gallery is images that are full of color.
SAROLTA BÁN
Sarolta is a photographer from from Budapest, Hungary. She began her career as a jewellery designer, but later discovered digital image manipulation and realised this was where her passion lay. She enjoys using ordinary elements and by combining them, creates narratives.
SHON E. RICHARDS
Shon E. Richards is founder and lead photographer for The Richard Nohs Perspective. Though currently based in Long Island, NY, Shon travels both locally and abroad capturing people, places, and things in his own unique way.
STELLA SIDIROPOULOU
Stella Sidiropoulou is an instrument and automation technician in the chemical industry as well as a freelance photographer. She lives in Thessaloniki, Greece. She started photographing in 2006 and especially enjoys taking images with an emotional impact.
www.fotoblur.com/people/stellsi
TRACY MUNSON
Tracy Munson is a punk-rock listening, animal sheltering, book reading, nature loving, zombie killing, picture taking, red wine drinking, bunny hugging uber-goddess! She’s a former English major, current Veterinary Technician, aspiring iPhoneographer, and blogger living in Toronto with a large man and a small dog.
VANESSA PAXTON
Vanessa Paxton is a professional photographer currently living in Toronto, Canada. During her off hours she likes to get back to what really drew her in to photography: image manipulation and the surreal.