Maika Elan (b.1986) is a Vietnamese photographer

Nguyen Thanh Hai (aka Maika Elan) is a Vietnamese photographer born in 1986.

After a BA in Sociology at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Maika started to use the camera, and then Lomo’s family cameras, to take pictures of her daily and private life in 2006. She turned to professional photography soon starting collaborations for editorial clients and fashion firms in Vietnam. 

In 2010 Maika moved to documentary photography and her first project called The Pink Choice, focused on personal life of gay couples in Vietnam, has been published in many magazines on print and online such as in USA, UK, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, China, India and Brazil. Maika Elan was double-awarded for the “best photo essay” and the “best single photo” in 2010 at Indochina Media Memorial Foundation and in 2012 The Pink Choice was finalist at Asian Women Photographers.

Her first solo exhibition has been hosted at Goethe Institut in Hanoi in 2012.

The Pink Choice won 1st prize stories, Contemporary Issues, at World Press Photo 2013.

Maika lives in Hanoi with her husband and son.

« The Pink Choice »

« Maika Elan didn’t know what to expect in 2010 when she knocked on doors at a popular hotel for gay and lesbian couples in Siem Reap, Cambodia where she had traveled to take a workshop with the photographer Antoine D’Agata. Maika was surprised when most of the guests – many of whom were foreigners – told her she was welcome to take their portraits.

Maika put the portrait project aside when she returned to her country, Vietnam. While she had gay friends, she wasn’t sure if she felt passionate about the subject to continue. But her feelings changed when she saw an exhibition in Hanoi about Vietnam’s LGBT community. None of the pictures she saw revealed the faces of their subjects. Many were shot from the back, and dome wore masks. They were stereotypical – even harsh – depictions of love.

They didn’t look like real people. Then she recalled the couples she had met in Cambodia. So she decided to tackle the subject herself. The result is a powerfully intimate look at love, shot mostly behind closed doors at home with gay Vietnamese couples.

Vietnam has historically been unwelcoming to same-sex relationships. But its Communist government is considering recognizing same-sex marriage – a move that would make it the first Asian country to do so, despite past human rights issues and a long-standing stigma. In August 2012, the country’s first public gay pride parade took place in Hanoi.

At the beginning, many of those Maika photographed were uncomfortable, and dramatized their situation when she pulled out her camera. “They were touching or they were caring”, Maika said. “But it’s not natural. It’s acting.” Most took some time to warm up to her. But after being around subjects for a few days, she got a sense of their routines at home. In fact, the idea of home became integral to the work. She sought private moments – where her subjects would be free from stares and criticism, and less inclined to dramatize their relationship. Moment when they forgot Maika was there.

Antoine D’Agata said that while Maika is talented, “what she has which is more important is to accept the risk to become a significant political voice. Step by step, image by image”. As photographer, D’Agata continued, “I believe she is strong enough to develop as a decisive force in current mutations in Vietnamese culture.” Text © Kerri MacDonald for The New York Times

http://www.mostartists.com/artists/maika-elan/

Donald McCullin (b.1935) is an internationally known British photojournalist

Donald McCullin, CBE Hon FRPS (born 9 October 1935, Finsbury Park, London, England) is an internationally known British photojournalist, particularly recognized for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and the impoverished.

Career

McCullin's period of National Service in the RAF saw him posted to the Canal Zone during the 1956 Suez Crisis, where he worked as a photographer's assistant. He failed to pass the written theory paper necessary to become a photographer in the RAF, and so spent his service in the darkroom. During this period McCullin bought his first camera, a Rolleicord. On return to Britain shortage of funds led to him pawning the camera. His mother used her own money to redeem the pledge.

In 1959, a photograph he took of a local London gang was published in The Observer. Between 1966 and 1984, he worked as an overseas correspondent for the Sunday Times Magazine, recording ecological and man-made catastrophes such as war-zones, amongst them Biafra, in 1968 and victims of the African AIDS epidemic. His hard-hitting coverage of the Vietnam War and the Northern Ireland conflict is particularly highly regarded.

He also took the photographs of Maryon Park in London which were used in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup.

In 1968, his Nikon camera stopped a bullet intended for him.

In 1982 the British Government refused to grant McCullin a press pass to cover the Falklands War. At the time he believed it was because the Thatcher government felt his images might be too disturbing politically. It later emerged that he was a victim of bureaucracy: he had been turned away simply because the Royal Navy had used up its quota of press passes.

He is the author of a number of books, including The Palestinians (with Jonathan Dimbleby, 1980), Beirut: A City in Crisis (1983), and Don McCullin in Africa (2005). His book, Shaped by War(2010), was published to accompany a major retrospective exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North, Salford, England in 2010 and then at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and the Imperial War Museum, London. His most recent publication is Southern Frontiers: A Journey Across the Roman Empire, a poetic and contemplative study of selected Roman and pre-Roman ruins in North Africa and the Middle East.

In later years, McCullin has turned to landscape and still-life works and taking commissioned portraits.

In 2012 a documentary film of his life, McCullin directed by David Morris and Jacqui Morris was released. The film was nominated for two BAFTA awards.

Selected awards

McCullin received the World Press Photo Award in 1964 for his coverage of the war in Cyprus. In the same year he was awarded the Warsaw Gold Medal. In 1977, he was made a Fellow of theRoyal Photographic Society, placing the letters 'FRPS' after his name. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford in 1993 and an honorary degree by the Open University in 1994.

He was granted the CBE in 1993, the first photojournalist to receive the honour.

McCullin was awarded the Cornell Capa Award in 2006.

McCullin was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Special 150th Anniversary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2003. He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal in 2007.

On 4 December 2008, McCullin was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Gloucestershire in recognition of his lifetime's achievement in photojournalism. In 2009 he received the Honorary Fellowship of Hereford College of Arts.

In 2011, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Arts) from the University of Bath.

Quotes

• "I grew up in total ignorance, poverty and bigotry, and this has been a burden for me throughout my life. There is still some poison that won't go away, as much as I try to drive it out."
• "I am a professed atheist, until I find myself in serious circumstances. Then I quickly fall on my knees, in my mind if not literally, and I say : 'Please God, save me from this.'"
• "I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: "I didn't kill that man on that photograph, I didn't starve that child." That's why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace."
• "Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McCullin)

Don McCullin is a household name in the photographic community, but as far as he is concerned, it’s for all the wrong reasons. In this incredibly poignant and thought-provoking interview, he shares his thoughts about an illustrious career that was spent photographing atrocities, and left him somewhat haunted.

We really can’t over-emphasize how much of a must-see interview this is (a problem not unique to our coverage of it…). In three and a half minutes he shares such a wealth of inspiration and experience that you’ll find yourself watching the whole thing over and over again — at least we did.

Interview of Don McCullin : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uixbVTdEJE

McCullin is famous for his piercing images of conflict, for a life spent ‘chasing haunting images‘ that have left him with memories he would rather not have. But they’ve also left him with invaluable insight into what is truly important in life.

He considers himself very fortunate — and not just because he was, at one point, saved from a sniper’s bullet by his Nikon F SLR. He now photographs the English landscape and hopes that this will be the legacy he leaves behind.

“When my time’s up on this Earth I want to leave a legacy behind of beautiful landscape pictures of Somerset,” says McCullin in closing. “I don’t want to be remembered as a war photographer… I hate that title.”

(http://petapixel.com/2014/01/29/incredible-must-see-interview-iconic-conflict-photographer-don-mccullin/)

http://www.contactpressimages.com/photographers/mccullin/mccullin_bio.html