Per-Anders Pettersson was born in Sweden in 1967. He began his professional photographic career in the late eighties working for a local newspaper in his hometown after studying business. In 1990 he moved to New York and have covered major news and feature stories in over 50 countries, most recently Congo, South Africa, Ethiopia Uganda and Chad. He works regularly on assignments for STERN, GEO, Newsweek and many other international publications. He has published books of his work and exhibited his study of a South African police unit entitled “Flying Squad”. He has won and been short listed for numerous prizes including in NPPA, the 2006 CARE International Grand Prix and World Press Photo 2007. Some of his most widely discussed work is an essay of the black elite of South Africa which he did for STERN. Most recently he was nominated for the Henri Nannen Preis, Germany’s biggest journalism awards in May 2008.

He presently resides in Cape Town

Guy Tillim is one of South Africa’s foremost photographers with an oeuvre that belies a degree in commerce from UCT. Engaged as a photojournalist during South Africa’s apartheid era *Tillim worked for Reuters and various foreign press until well into democracy. Since 1996 he has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in almost every continent in the world as well as being included in several publications and winning many awards including the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography from the Peabody Museum at Harvard. Tillim’s work, a far cry from traditional photojournalism, avoids the pressure of portraying the sensational “Event” and dislocates himself and the audience from the precious position of right and wrong in favour of a view of the seemingly banal and overlooked. A consideration of composition as well as content reveals a poetic relief of motifs in his imagery.

Tillim works and lives in Cape Town, South Africa

Martin Parr was born in Epsom, Surrey. As a boy, his interest in photography was encouraged by his grandfather, himself a keen amateur photographer. Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970 to 1973. To support his career as a freelance photographer he took on various teaching assignments. At the beginning of the 1980’s his work aimed to mirror the lifestyle of ordinary British people, reflecting the social decline and distress of the working class in during the Thatcher years. He earned an international reputation for his oblique approach to social documentary and for innovative imagery. In 1994 he became a member of the prestigious Magnum. in 2002 Phaidon published the Martin Parr monograph and in 2004 he was appointed Professor of Photography at the university of Wales and was guest creative director for Recontres d’Arles in the same year. Martin Parr’s latest exhibition, Parrworld can be viewed at Haus Der Kunst in Munich from the 7th May – 17th Aug.

He remains in Britain

Born in Durban in 1954, Mark Lanning first picked up a camera at the age of 14. The camera was his father’s and from then on Lanning was hooked. Lanning produces both commercial and non-commercial work; his interests spanning fashion and food photography. Together with other collaborators, he produced the publication Life: Soweto Style featuring some of his most known images on everyday life in Soweto combining a light hearted curiosity of traditional African cuisine and Lanning’s own brand of documentary photography. His documentary work won him two Fujifilm awards in 2007.

Lanning lives and works in Johannesburg South Africa

One of South Africa’s most respected photographers, Jodi Bieber was selected to participate on a photographic training programme at The Star newspaper in 1993 after completing three photographic courses at the Market Theatre Photography Workshop in Johannesburg. In 1996 she was chosen to participate in the World Press Master class held in Holland and started working on assignments for New York Times, GEO and Stern magazine. Focusing on South African youth living on the fringes of society Bieber has produced the book “Between Dogs and Wolves – Growing up with South Africa” published in five countries. She has won eight World Press awards, was short listed for the Amnesty Media award 2006 and received a gold for a series on the Ebola crisis in Uganda for the New York Times in 2001 in addition to exhibiting world wide. She has also taught at many tertiary institutions around the globe.

Bieber lives and works in South Africa

Caroline Suzman studied photography at Rhodes University and forged her early photographic career at The Star, The Sunday Times and The Mail & Guardian. Currently she works as a freelancer for local and international newspapers and magazines. Her work has been published in numerous publications including The Boston Globe, Liberation, Marie Claire, Elle, The Sunday Telegraph, Time, The Guardian and The London Times. Her work is featured in local publications such as The South African journal of Photography, Taxi – Steven Cohen, Portfolio South Africa, Women by Women: 50 Years of Women’s Photography in South Africa and Moving in Time – images of life in a democratic South Africa.

Suzman lives and works in Johannesburg

Red Baklava was born in California and raised in San Antonio. He sold his first image at the age of fifteen – an event that led him to adopt the title of the image as his own name. His work has shown in galleries and sold privately in several countries around the world. Some of his more recent work includes a private showing for “Amnesty International’s” partner organisation “Artists for Amnesty” in Los Angeles. He is the official photographer for the “Dancing4Kids” (D4K) Organisation, based in Tokyo, Japan aimed at helping children around the globe. Recently this work has taken him to Tokyo, Hong Kong and South Africa to produce images for the international festival “Foto-Septiembre” in San Antonio and he has an additional solo show in Tokyo later this year. On his trip to South Africa he visited the Two Sisters Orphanage as part of the D4K initiative. An image from this body of work is his contribution to this issue.

Red Baklava lives and works in the USA