Ashley Huggins | Cover | Ashley is a 29 year old photographer born and raised in the midwest. She fell in love with photography three years ago, and currently owns Phocus Creations with her partner/fiancé. Her journey in the industry began with boudoir, but she recently found a passion in high fashion and creative portraits. Her style tends to be a little more edgy, as she enjoys breaking the boundaries of what a portrait can be. She incorporates a lot of urban environments and other elements such as colored smoke into some of her work, which adds into her edgy style.

Leigh Ann Edmonds | Behind the chute | Leigh Ann Edmonds is an American documentary photographer, having received a degree in journalism and studio art from The University of Alabama. Her personal works predominently have a strong emphasis with her connection to the culture and people of the rural south in the states. She has over 24 years experience as a photographer and considers her photography more of a visual journey than a professional destination as she documents life in her small town of Alabama. Her belief is that through her photography, she has the ability to preserve life in an unaltered and observant way as she considers her photography a journal of her life and experiences.

Chloe Meynier | made in the shade | Chloe Meynier is a San Francisco based artist. Born and raised in France, she received her Bachelor in Science degree from Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (France), her Master’s degree and PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Université de Poitiers (France) and her Master of Fine Arts in Photography from Academy of Art University, San Francisco. Chloe’s practice focuses primarily on gender identity and women’s roles. Drawn from personal experience and through her own female gaze, the highly narrative photographs challenge female stereotypes, gender equality and societal norms. Her work has won multiple awards, has been exhibited nationally and internationally and her photographs are in several private collections as well as in the permanent collection of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.

Mikael Siirilä | Absence / Presence | Born in Helsinki in 1978, Mikael Siirilä learned the darkroom process early on in his childhood in an art-loving family. Since then photography has remained a persistent sideline in his life until eventually taking a more significant role in the 2010s. At the turn of the millennium, Mikael Siirilä was among the early adopters of digital photography. His enthusiastic foray into pixels and post-processing almost suffocated the passion entirely. That changed in 2010 when he began a personal project documenting the time of pregnancy leading to the birth of his daughter. Film seemed like the more intimate medium for capturing a life-changing time, and the final work felt meaningful and permanent. Over the next few years, Mikael assembled a darkroom first at home and then ambitiously in a dedicated basement space. He focused on cultivating his expression while developing practical skills in printmaking. Eventually, Mikael joined the international AllFormat Collective and found friendship and support from like-minded artists.

Peter Eleveld | Objects in the wet plate| Photography has always been a great passion of mine, but it was always in serving big companies. (Rijksmuseum, Amazon.com and others.) I did this for many years, with both mediums, film and digital. Now I was at that point where I could not feel the excitement/creativity anymore. How to find a new way? So, I decided to leave the corporate world behind in 2014 to fulfill a lifelong ambition of setting up my own freelance photography business.  In 2014 to opportunity came along to buy an old Postoffice, we transferred this to a Gallery/Photostudio and a place to live. I was always attracted to the old big wooden cameras and all the historic photographic processes. So, I decided to find myself an 8”x8” wooden camera and start working with the Wet Plate collodion process.

Kathryn Weinstein | Tenure | Kathryn Weinstein is an Associate Professor of Design at Queens College, CUNY. She lives in Brook- lyn, New York with her husband and two cats