As every year, tradition at Beware! wants the new year to start with a look back at the best talent from the past year. 2022 has been rich in discoveries and rediscoveries. Here is our selection of the best photographers.
Teresa Freitas, escape into a pastel world
Teresa Freitas comes from Cascais, a Portuguese coastal village. The artist offers with his photographs a universe of his own, filled with dreams and sweetness. Teresa Freitas does not find these particular colors in Portuguese landscapes. The magic operates rather at the time of the retouching. She then brings amazing colors to her shots, resulting from a mixture of pastel shades and vibrant tones, transforming spaces into safe and quiet places for a moment of escape.
Chiron Duong celebrates the wealth of Vietnam
Vietnamese artist and fashion photographer Chiron Duong highlights the cultural and artistic richness of Vietnam, in particular thanks to the composition of its color palettes, the embodied symbols or the choice of its concepts. He conveys through his photographs the mystery of folklore, faith and religion in the lives of Asians.
His way of dealing with human emotions is striking. He never leaves the choice of pigments to chance. According to him, colors carry emotions with them.
" [En Grandissant], nous devenons tellement réalistes, cela nous vide. C’est pourquoi j’ai vraiment envie de rappeler cette atmosphère mystérieuse, onirique, fantaisiste, colorée comme l’expérimente un enfant, mais avec la vulnérabilité propre à l’adulte. “Chiron Duong
Considered one of the greatest landscape photographers, Tom Hegen has been surveying flora and fauna around the world for years. Possessing a very strong sensitivity for nature, he decided to expose the striking impact that human beings have on ecosystems.
Far too often forgotten by photographers because of its stretches of inhospitable dunes, Tom Hegen went to photograph Namibia, where mountains, sand and sea embrace each other seen from the sky. From his helicopter, the artist manages to transmit all the sensitivity of the health of our planet.
In my aerial photography, I focus on landscapes that have been heavily transformed by human intervention. I try to make the viewer aware of these topics by taking a look at the extraordinary forces that impact our environment. “
Tom Hegen
Andrew McCarthy, Connor Mathern and their timeless photographs
2022 was also a year marked by renewed interest in the Moon, with the Artemis space program in particular, to the delight ofAndrew McCarthy and Connor Matherntwo astrophotographers.
The two men met a few years ago on Reddit before discovering a common passion for astrophotography. They then decide to embark on a crazy project, to take a picture of the Moon like never before. More than nine months of work were needed to produce this series of shots.
Cody Cobb and his use of UV light
With the Spectral-series, Cody Cobb set out to explore the American West with his camera and UV light. Thanks to this lighting, he brings out the particular luminescence of the organic matter found in minerals and in plants, giving a supernatural side to American landscapes. The UV light then brings out bluish and orange tones.
Levon Biss, engaged macrophotographer
Levon Biss, 47, chose macro photography as a message for present and future generations. “When you look at something very close, it’s very different from when you just look at it with your eyes”. It is on this difference of point of view that Levon Biss relies to warn about the decline of insects.
For his photo series Extinct & Endangeredeach of these works was created from 10,000 individual photos taken under a microscope, or about three weeks of work per photo.
The macro photo is a window on the invisible world
Levon Biss
Ryan Schudethe photographer who mixes the arts
A photographer who graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute, Ryan Schud draws on all of these university teachings in compositions that seem to combine painting, cinema and photography. This unique and atypical mixture is used by the artist to stage everyday moments, which gives the viewer a feeling of “freeze frame”. The simplicity of the stories told there, mixed with the complexity of the realization, makes these photographs complex works.
Reuben Wu and Jenni Pasanen: a collaboration that shakes up the codes
Between photography and artificial intelligence, the work of Reuben Wu in collaboration with Jenni Pasanen has earned its place among the best photo creations of 2022. This year, the British photographer, director and producer has teamed up with digital painting specialist Jenni Pasanen.
Without ever meeting, the two artists created six works in six months. Series Shapeshifter depicts a post-apocalyptic world where only natural landscapes have remained. Reuben Wu’s mastery of photography combined with Jenni Pasanen’s classic aesthetic and futuristic techniques give this series an almost supernatural feel.
William Keo and his coverage of the war in Ukraine
Specialist in population movements, social exclusion and community intolerance, William Keo, 25, is a nominated member of Magnum Photos. In 2022, he covered the war in Ukraine for Releaseterritory he already knew since he had already photographed the Donbass war in 2018.
Photography is a medium that will always be subjective and therefore sometimes even often limited and perhaps not the most suitable medium for telling the “truth”. It will bring at least one look, as honest as possible on a subject.
William Keo for Beware!
Viktor Balaguer captures the Camargue in winter
The 32-year-old French architect and photographer Viktor Balaguer immortalized in January 2022 the cold and misty landscapes of the Camargue a winter morning.
In this series, the photographer takes the opposite view of the usual representations of this region. He explains “I am used to seeing this land called the Camargue burning in the summer sun”. Capturing this unusual moment makes him wonder: “What if the true beauty of the Camargue was hidden in these few winter days. »
junk and his world tour of abandoned places
Parisian photographer, Jonk published in March 2022 a book compiling the best photographs taken during his 1500 urban explorations. In Urbex World, Jonk conveys a message in favor of ecology to raise awareness of the hegemony of nature, including on the most solid constructions. Watching these objects of human activity decompose before his eyes, Jonk can’t help but think about the future and the global reclaiming of power by nature over the world.
Also find out who were the best photographers of the year 2021.