Projects

Farid Laid is a self-taught photographer based in Zurich whose work is centered on the collodion wet plate process, a photographic technique dating back to 1851. In The Flora and Fauna of Farid Laid, he uses antique wooden cameras, brass lenses, and hand-prepared plates to create striking images of plants, animals, and organic forms.

The process transforms the natural world in unexpected ways: ultraviolet-sensitive emulsions invert tones, turning flowers, fur, and fruit into luminous monochrome studies where texture and surface take precedence over color. Each plate is handcrafted, sealed, and preserved through traditional materials such as shellac and liquid asphalt, giving the final works a strong physical presence and sense of permanence.

Working exclusively in this method since 2019, Laid creates photographs that feel both archival and deeply tactile, bridging historical process with contemporary image-making.

Phil Penman is a British-born, New York-based photographer known for his black-and-white street photography and long-term documentation of urban life.

In Tokyo — A State of Mind (2025), he turns his attention to Tokyo, capturing fleeting street moments where light, shadow, and movement define the city’s rhythm. Working in his signature monochrome style, Penman relies on timing and natural composition to reveal dense urban scenes without staging or intervention.

The series continues his broader exploration of how people inhabit and move through large cities, presenting not fixed narratives but a continuous flow of observed moments.

The Nature of Hope is a collaborative photography project that brings together global image-makers to explore humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Released between Jane Goodall’s birthday and Earth Day, it features work spanning wildlife, landscapes, and ecosystems, highlighting both fragility and resilience across the planet.

Contributors include photographers such as Michael “Nick” Nichols, Cristina Mittermeier, Steve Winter, and Ami Vitale. The project emphasizes continuity over loss, using photography as a tool for awareness, connection, and ongoing conservation dialogue.

Giovanna Aryafara’s The Body as Language explores body painting within Ethiopia’s Surma community as a powerful form of cultural and personal expression. Created over a decade of close engagement, the work captures ephemeral designs made from natural materials, emphasizing gesture, identity, and the deep connection between individuals and their environment.

Seb Agnew is a Hamburg-based photo artist who explores the human psyche through carefully constructed, often surreal environments. His series CUBES III expands on earlier work set within a fictional space station, Helios-9, where nine interconnected rooms form a closed system reflecting the evolving relationship between humans and technology.

Agnew builds each scene as a handcrafted miniature set using traditional techniques alongside tools like 3D printing and laser cutting. After photographing the sets, he composites separately photographed human subjects into the images, blending physical construction with digital post-production. The resulting works use space as both stage and metaphor, questioning control, agency, and responsibility in a technology-shaped world.

His work has been exhibited internationally and recognized by awards including the Chromatic Photo Awards, with nominations for the Aesthetica Art Prize and Photolucida Critical Mass.

Sandra Ventura is a Portuguese photographer whose work explores aging, memory, and the passage of time. In Lines of Time, she portrays older adults across Portugal with quiet intimacy, focusing on presence, dignity, and the subtle marks that define a life lived.

Working closely with institutionalized elderly communities, Ventura avoids sentimentality, instead emphasizing individuality and care. Each portrait becomes an encounter—an invitation to recognize the histories etched into posture, expression, and gaze. Her work has been widely exhibited and has received international recognition, including honors from the Black & White Spider Awards and the World Cup Photographic Awards.

Jeff Lipsky is a Los Angeles–based photographer known for a restrained approach that favors natural light and minimal direction. Working across celebrity portraiture, lifestyle, and advertising, he creates images that feel observed rather than staged. Whether photographing actors like Eva Mendes, Tessa Thompson, and Jeff Bridges or cultural figures such as Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa, and Mark Hamill, his portraits share a quiet directness, often set against open landscapes where environment and identity meet organically.

Drawing on his early years as a fly-fishing guide and snowboarder, Jeff brings patience, timing, and instinct to his work—allowing moments to unfold without interference. Even within structured productions, his images feel unforced, prioritizing presence over polish. Published in Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire, and Men's Journal, his body of work is built not only on access, but on earned trust.

Amy Lombard creates bold, color-saturated images that capture the quirks of American life. In Pawdicure, she turns her lens on canine nail art, transforming her rescue dog Shelle’s polished paws into vivid, fashion-inspired portraits. What begins as a playful concept becomes a thoughtful blend of humor and care, blurring the line between affection and spectacle.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and she has collaborated with brands including Google and HBO.

Tim Flach is renowned for his stylized animal portraits that draw on the visual language of human studio photography to foster empathy for non-human life. By isolating animals from narrative context and presenting them as individuals, his work challenges how animals are seen and understood. Rooted in a deep commitment to biodiversity and conservation, these portraits invite a slower, more attentive way of looking—one grounded in presence, individuality, and shared vulnerability.

For more than thirty years, cinematographer Dan Martland has transformed the New York City skyline into his personal stage. Known for his viral lightning and moon-rise photographs, Martland blends technical precision with patient planning, often tracking storms or celestial alignments to capture rare moments over Manhattan. In 2024, his persistence delivered a remarkable shot: a single exposure showing lightning striking the Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, and a Park Avenue crane. Through storms, haze, and long-distance lenses, Martland reveals that even the world’s most photographed city still holds unexpected wonders.

For Serge Najjar, the city is not a backdrop but a living geometry of light and form. Born in Beirut in 1973 and trained in law in Paris, Najjar brings the discipline of logic to the poetics of the lens. His photographs transform the urban landscape into a dialogue between structure and life — where architecture and the human figure meet in fleeting, deliberate alignments.

“Everyone is surrounded by the amount of magic that they are able to see.” For photographer Kristina Makeeva, this isn’t just a metaphor — it’s her method. Known for her global project Simple Magic Things, Makeeva transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, capturing dreamlike scenes from fleeting moments: a snowfall, a reflection, a shaft of light. “I’m a seeker of magic in the ordinary,” she says. Her work, crafted over 14 years of global travel and collaboration, invites us to look closer — and discover wonder in the everyday.

In NOT AN EXIT, Austin Irving transforms ordinary doorways, corridors, and stairwells into surreal meditations on space and perception. Shot on 4x5 color negative film with a Toyo Field camera, the series presents exits that lead nowhere and hallways that collapse into themselves. Irving’s images, created across multiple countries, turn familiar architecture into unsettling metaphors of absurdity, confinement, and the surreal—inviting viewers to reconsider the built environment as a theater of containment, humor, and quiet strangeness.

UK-based photographer Mike Chudley has built a career rooted in curiosity, community, and storytelling. From brand collaborations to personal projects, photo books, and a thriving YouTube channel, his work transforms everyday moments into lasting narratives. Through workshops, films, and publications, he shares not just images but a way of seeing — where photography becomes connection and a way of life.

For 20 years, the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) has harnessed the power of visual storytelling to protect our planet. In celebration of its 20th Anniversary Print Sale, four featured photographers—Keith Ellenbogen, Lana Tannir, Scott Trageser, and Tom Vierus—showcase work that spans the ocean depths, Arctic frontiers, and hidden lives of wildlife. Their images, blending science and art, serve as powerful calls to action—reminding us that beauty, when seen through a lens of purpose, can inspire real change.

Belfast-born photographer Paul Killeen captures landscapes where mood and atmosphere take center stage — fleeting light over the Irish coast, mist-filled valleys, and horizons suspended in silence. A purist, he strives to perfect each frame in-camera, a discipline that has earned him international recognition, including UK Landscape Photographer of the Year and World Landscape Photographer. Beyond his own work, Killeen mentors others through workshops, guiding them to refine their craft and discover new ways of seeing. His images are less about place than about feeling — meditations that invite stillness and reflection.

Marzia Chenyao is a philosopher and artist exploring symbolic design, relational sovereignty, and the tension between fatalism and agency. In her series Memento Amicas, she tells the mirrored story of two sisters—one who vanishes, one who arrives—through surreal, cinematic tableaux. With animal masks, fashion noir aesthetics, and post-structural influences, Chenyao turns identity into allegory and routine into ritual. Her work captures girls mid-transformation, inhabiting a world where visibility is always in flux.

Mustafah Abdulaziz (b. 1986, NYC) is a photographer and director based in Berlin and London. For over thirteen years, he has documented the human impact of climate change through global large-scale installations. A Leica Oskar Barnack Award winner and National Geographic grantee, he contributes to The New York Times, TIME, and Der Spiegel. His work is held by the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Apple, and the National Portrait Gallery. His first short film, Women Are Beautiful, premiered in Berlin in 2025.

This World Photography Day, COOPH spotlights three remarkable women from the Girls Who Click network – each using photography to tell powerful stories of conservation and our connection with nature. Girls Who Click empowers the next generation of women in conservation photography. These three voices remind us of the urgent need to protect our planet — and of photography’s power to inspire awareness and action.

Tommaso Vecchii is a European-based documentary photographer known for capturing vanishing traditions and remote cultures through authentic, analog imagery. His work, shaped by natural light and immersive storytelling, spans from Ethiopia to Vietnam and Peru, portraying human resilience with intimacy and cinematic depth. Through global exhibitions and ongoing projects, he uses photography as a tool for empathy and cultural connection.

Jonathan Hodder is a British–Filipino street photographer whose lens captures more than moments—it documents movements. Based in Myanmar, where he leads digital transformation initiatives for the United Nations, Jonathan uses photography to translate urgency into empathy. His work—featured in Vogue, The Independent, and more—reveals the emotional duality of hardship and hope, struggle and strength. Each image is a meditation on resilience, underscoring the dignity that persists even in fractured settings