Artdoc Photography Magazine

Artdoc is an international digital magazine dedicated to the world of photography. The name Artdoc refers to our vision of art photography and documentary photography. The two fields have merged, and contemporary photography is a blend of both. Artdoc brings photography as the visual storytelling medium of our time. Artdoc Photography Magazine publishes engaging and high-quality portfolios of established and emerging photographers. Moreover, Artdoc publishes critical essays about the theory of photography.

Quest for a better life

Geological layers as human history • Serene, mysterious and melancholy sheets are draped over ice in the Alpine mountains. The morbid scene seems like a graveyard for the last glaciers of the world, the final remnants of the Anthropocene. The shrouds are dramatically lit in the gloomy dusk emphasizing the eerie atmosphere. The project Shroud by the prolific British photographer Simon Norfolk emerges organically from his earlier works in which the passing of time, captured in an archaeological way, is the leading motive.

Country Mysteries

Why Art Photography? • Contemporary art photography is paradoxical. Anyone can look at it and form an opinion about what they see. Yet it usually represents aesthetic and theoretical positions that only a small minority of well-informed viewers can access. This introduction, taken from the book Why Art Photography, examines the different contexts in which photography operates as art. This text questions the purpose of art photography as described by critics and art historians. Although necessary for understanding the field, these issues are rarely discussed directly in texts on photography.

#Photo Books

Narrative Portraits • Portraits show, in a subjective way, how the photographer sees the person he photographed. But portraits can also contain an imagined story. In that case, the portrait is a self-expression of the photographer. The person in the image is a narrative object in the photographer’s story, as an actor in a movie set. The photographer projects his own story onto his model as a mirror. With a portrait, the photographer reveals his personal past, view of the world or most profound emotions. This exhibition shows Narrative Portraits of creative photographers from all around the world.

Mass graves in the Andes • In the 80s, Peru was the stage of a years-long battle between the government and the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), a communist guerrilla movement wanting to overthrow the government. Especially in the mountainous Ayacucho Region, in the south-central Andes, many battles were fought. Peruvian photojournalist Max Cabello Orcasitas read the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and decided to photograph in Chungui, resulting in an emotive series depicting the grief of the native people of the highlands of Peru.

Now is Always

Portraits of North Korean Defectors • For North Koreans, it is virtually impossible to escape the militant and brutal regime, but still, few people manage to cross the frozen river along the border with China. Most defectors finally end up in the neighbour country South Korea, after a long and hazardous journey across China and other countries. Photographer Tim Franco, based in Seoul, wrote down their chilling stories and made portraits of the ‘unpersons’.

Take me to Jermany • “I see only humans, not humanity.” This text is written on a pale polaroid photo of two young men dressed in warm jackets, caps on their heads, staring with a mixture of hope and despair at the camera. Underneath the image, on the white area that is usually a part of a Polaroid, we read: “We met in Turkey and we travelling both about 2 years.” On their jackets, we read the names of the boys: Dappy and Josh. The photo was taken in November 2015 in Eidomeni, at the Greek/North Macedonian border. German photographer...