Primal dreams: the world’s wildest winter masquerades – in pictures

Photographer Jason Gardner travelled for more than 15 years documenting carnival traditions across the world, capturing the costumes and traditions that link participants to ancestral folklore Continue reading…

Photographer Jason Gardner travelled for more than 15 years documenting carnival traditions across the world, capturing the costumes and traditions that link participants to ancestral folklore

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Sunshine returns to St Petersburg: Claudine Doury’s best photograph

‘This was taken during the city’s White Nights festival. There were girls standing in the streets, eyes closed, arms outstretched. Others were singing, dancing and drinking champagne. This girl didn’t move for a long time’It was 21 June 2012, the longe…

‘This was taken during the city’s White Nights festival. There were girls standing in the streets, eyes closed, arms outstretched. Others were singing, dancing and drinking champagne. This girl didn’t move for a long time’

It was 21 June 2012, the longest day of the year, and around a million people were in St Petersburg for the White Nights festival. This annual city-wide event celebrates the brief period when skies reach twilight but never darkness. In most of western Europe – including France, where I’m from – pagan sun celebrations have largely been forgotten, although there are gatherings at Stonehenge in Britain and the midsummer celebrations in Sweden. However, in the northern regions of eastern Europe, the rituals remain, steeped in centuries of tradition. In these places, there is little-to-no sun for many months of the year. So when it comes, everyone worships it.

This image is part of Solstice, an ongoing body of work documenting pagan summer rituals. In over a decade, I’ve travelled through Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland studying how different communities celebrate the summer solstice, marking the return of light after so many months in near-complete darkness.

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‘From the counterculture to high society’: Larry Fink’s career in pictures

Whether shooting civil rights marches or Studio 54 style icons, the politically conscious photographer – who died last month – cast a critical eye on the American class system Continue reading…

Whether shooting civil rights marches or Studio 54 style icons, the politically conscious photographer – who died last month – cast a critical eye on the American class system

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‘From the counterculture to high society’: Larry Fink’s career in pictures

Whether shooting civil rights marches or Studio 54 style icons, the politically conscious photographer – who died last month – cast a critical eye on the American class system Continue reading…

Whether shooting civil rights marches or Studio 54 style icons, the politically conscious photographer – who died last month – cast a critical eye on the American class system

Continue reading...

Royal Society Publishing photography competition 2023 – in pictures

The microscopic world hidden within an autumn leaf has won the Royal Society Publishing photography competition 2023. Overall winner Irina Petrova Adamatzky researches the electrical activity of fungi, slime moulds and other micro-organisms, at Unconve…

The microscopic world hidden within an autumn leaf has won the Royal Society Publishing photography competition 2023. Overall winner Irina Petrova Adamatzky researches the electrical activity of fungi, slime moulds and other micro-organisms, at Unconventional Computing Lab, UWE Bristol.

‘I unintentionally captured this scene while collecting samples of slime moulds in a field near my home in Somerset, noticed them the evening before and had intended to gather samples to measure their electrical activity for our research. However, my attention was diverted by a simple autumn leaf that, although seemingly ordinary, held something intriguing within. I gathered it, along with my samples, and the following day I was amazed to discover what appeared to be another world within the confines of that unassuming leaf’

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Royal Society Publishing photography competition 2023 – in pictures

The microscopic world hidden within an autumn leaf has won the Royal Society Publishing photography competition 2023. Overall winner Irina Petrova Adamatzky researches the electrical activity of fungi, slime moulds and other micro-organisms, at Unconve…

The microscopic world hidden within an autumn leaf has won the Royal Society Publishing photography competition 2023. Overall winner Irina Petrova Adamatzky researches the electrical activity of fungi, slime moulds and other micro-organisms, at Unconventional Computing Lab, UWE Bristol.

‘I unintentionally captured this scene while collecting samples of slime moulds in a field near my home in Somerset, noticed them the evening before and had intended to gather samples to measure their electrical activity for our research. However, my attention was diverted by a simple autumn leaf that, although seemingly ordinary, held something intriguing within. I gathered it, along with my samples, and the following day I was amazed to discover what appeared to be another world within the confines of that unassuming leaf’

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Women behind the lens: ‘I’ve photographed more than 2,000 people in my mobile studio’

The world is in a terrible state but travelling the world taking beautiful, fun portraits helps spread good energy I took this photo of Lia Samantha, an Afro-Colombian fashion designer, outside the National Museum of Colombia in Bogota in 2021. It is …

The world is in a terrible state but travelling the world taking beautiful, fun portraits helps spread good energy

I took this photo of Lia Samantha, an Afro-Colombian fashion designer, outside the National Museum of Colombia in Bogota in 2021. It is one of thousands of portraits I’ve taken in my mobile photo studio that goes all around the world.

My idea for the studio was inspired by the images and work of west African photographers such as Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keïta and Youssouf Sogodogo. I wanted to pay homage to those artists, as well as breathe life into the concept of mobile studios and portrait photography, which were so popular in Africa in the 50s and 60s.

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