Looking through ILL GANDER’s portfolio is a bit like looking into the future. Always on the go, this photographer has captured everyday life along the bustling railways of Jaipur, under the neon signs of Shanghai, and in the busy streets of Hanoi. He’s watched the sunsets over Puerto Vallarta and explored the mountain villages of Peru, and in many ways, he’s just getting started. Not only has he captured a melting pot of cultures, languages, flavors, and colors, but his interest in everything from old-school film to cutting-edge camera technology makes him a powerful voice for the modern age.

When the photographer set out to create a website, he did it with Squarespace, the all-in-one platform. Take a peek at his homepage, under the ILL GANDER, and you’ll find yourself transported into a universe of vibrant photos of dynamic videos. He’s also made some of his most popular images available for download as wallpapers for the device of your choosing.

Whether he’s traveling to the other side of the planet or simply hanging out with friends, the artist approaches everything he does with an infectious sense of curiosity. He’s not afraid to play around and experiment with new subjects, new materials, and new perspectives, and at the same time, he remains steadfastly focused on his business goals–a combination that’s resulted in campaigns for leading brands worldwide and publications in major magazines and newspapers. We asked him to tell us a bit about his journeys, his forward-thinking approach to photography, and his formidable online presence.

Torbjørn Rødland, The Song of the Wind and the Trees, 2016–18.
Courtesy the artist; Air de Paris; David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles;
Nils Stærk, Copenhagen; STANDARD (OSLO); and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich.

Lise Sarfati, oh man.phg9_08 2013 © the artist and courtesy Steidl.

Ilene Segalove, New Process Mail Order Wear, Then Send Back Polyester Clothes,
1973. Courtesy the artist.

Los Angeles is a prism, reflecting and refracting light upon an infinite stream of images flowing steadily, forever recreating itself in a landscape that has made its name and fortune off the infinite possibilities of imagination. It is a state of mind that understands the power of the words, “Lights! Camera! Action!” — whether on a Hollywood lot or cruising along its endless streets.

Los Angeles is like a hall of mirrors, turning image into reality and vice versa, it sometimes seems. Water seeks its own level, as the saying goes, so it’s not at all surprising that photography immediately found itself comfortably at home.

In a world of motion pictures, the still image is something all its own. Advertisement or experiment, document or art object, in Los Angeles the photograph is always free to reinvent itself time and time again. In Aperture’s “Los Angeles” issue, the City of Angels comes alive in the works of Awol Erizku, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Lise Sarfati, Catherine Opie, and Mona Kuhn, among many others.

Inge and Ernst Haas during their first reportage for Magnum Photos
Capri, Italy, 1949, photographer unknown.

Venice in the rain, 1954.

It was a rainy day in Venice back in November 1951. Inge Mörath was visiting the city with her then-husband Lionel, and was so struck by the quality of light that she phoned Robert Capa with an idea. He needed to send a Magnum photographer to capture the city as it was. Capa suggested Mörath take the pictures herself.

Mörath just so happened to take along her mother’s Contax camera, and had the store clerk load the film. Then she set a 1/50 exposure at f-stop 4, and posted up on a corner to watch the world unfold, a kaleidoscopic panorama of pedestrians and pigeons, stone streets and brick walls — and immediately knew she had found her calling.

Inge Mörath: Magnum Legacy – An Illustrated Biography by Linda Gordon (Magnum Foundation/Prestel) chronicles the illustrious photographer’s extraordinary life. Born in Austria in 1923 to a pair of traveling scientists, the family flourished under the Nazi regime, moving to Berlin in 1938. But then the war began, and nothing would ever be the same.

Rosalind Fox Solomon, ‘Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1976’ in Liberty Theater (2018). 

Rosalind Fox Solomon, ‘Hixson, Tennessee, 1975’ in Liberty Theater (2018). 

Rosalind Fox Solomon, ‘Scottsboro Alabama, 1976’ in Liberty Theater (2018).

Beginning in the mid-1970s, American artist Rosalind Fox Solomon traveled across the South creating a powerful series of photographs that reveal the state of the nation during the first decade following the Civil Rights Movement. It is here in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina that we are privy to the complex interconnection of life rooted in the triumphs, tragedies, and traumas of the past.

At the time Fox Solomon started making these images, she had begun taking trips to New York to study photography with Lisette Model, a master of the human psyche laid bare in silver gelatin. Fox Solomon’s work bears witness to the power of photography to cut to the quick, to go beyond the luxuries and limitations of language by focusing solely on action, gesture, and expression to tell us more than word could ever say in a single, fleeting moment.

Fox Solomon’s photographs resonate with quiet grandeur, visceral eccentricity, and profound depth of ineffable emotion. Over the next two decades, she traversed the deepest reaches of the South to create Liberty Theater (MACK), an exquisitely nuanced portrait of the profound interplay of race, class, and segregation.

The connection between a puppeteer and a puppet runs deep, and the Berlin-based photographer Benita Suchodrev has captured this mysterious relationship up-close. Her project Puppet Masters features students from the Academy of Dramatic Arts Ernst Busch, each accompanied by their own make-believe characters. Some might reign over a menagerie of beasts, and others have a single lonesome companion, but they all emerge from a background of pitch black.  

In an Adreinne Waheed photograph, you are fully in the mix, whether dancing on the streets of Bahia, Brazil, during Carnival, or fighting against the South African government’s tuition hike during the 2015 student-led protest Fees Must Fall. There is no middle distance: you are here now, in the heart of Black culture, through triumph and tragedy.

At the heart of Waheed’s practice is the love of community, whether that means making a photograph, book, or exhibition. In Black Joy and Resistance – The Exhibition at Betti Ono in Oakland opens to the public as part of a Black History Month celebration just in time for the Black Joy Parade. The opening reception will be held on March 1 to celebrate International Women’s Month.

Waheed says, “In the current politically charged climate reminiscent of days of old when people of color are being denied basic human and civil rights and forced to declare once again that Black Lives Matter, Black Joy & Resistance gives respite to the trails of the day and beautifully displays who we are, juxtapose to how we are sometimes made to feel.”

Images taken at opening night of the photography exhibition “Lieux-dits” by Elise Prudhomme at Studio Galerie B&B in Paris, France.

In 2018, our worldwide project The Print Swap toured the globe, with stops in NYC, LA, Sydney, London, Berlin, and Hyderabad. We’re thrilled to announce that submissions are now officially open for our next exhibition, opening this spring at Studio Galerie B&B in Paris. Photographers who participate in The Print Swap between now and March 31st will be considered by the photographer and gallery director Elise Prudhomme to be part of the show. As always, anyone can apply by tagging their best images #theprintswap on Instagram.

Under the leadership of photographers Prudhomme and Philippe Bachelier, Studio Galerie B&B is a hub for artists, providing a stunning gallery space in addition to its studio and darkroom facilities. Positioned between Canal Saint-Martin and Gare de ‘Est, the gallery’s windows face bustling street, where locals and tourists can pop in to see work from photographers from around the world. Prudhomme, who will be curating our show herself, has studied and worked as a photographer throughout the United States, Italy, and France. In addition to exhibiting her own work extensively, she’s kept her finger on the pulse of the international arts scene by working on the catalogue raisonné of the painter Francis Picabia and teaching at institutions like the Rhode Island School of Design and Speos Paris.

The final selection of exhibiting images will be announced shortly after the March 31st deadline, and in the meantime, you can stay updated by following along on Instagram at @theprintswap. All Print Swap participants give a photo and receive a photo from another inspiring artist somewhere in the world, regardless of whether or not they are selected for our offline exhibitions. It’s free to submit, and for just $40 per image, we’ll send you a stunning print in the mail. After they are selected by our team of editors, the prints are mailed out at random, meaning part of the fun is seeing where everyone’s photos end up. A photographer in Pakistan, for instance, could very well receive a print from a photographer in France.

This year, The Print Swap is will expand to include a photo book! Going forward, our founder Alison Zavos will choose 15-20 images each month from photographers who have participated in The Print Swap to include in our annual book, published at the end of the year. Learn more about The Print Swap over at our website.

Since we launched our international project The Print Swap in 2016, photographers around the world have taken part. Spanning six continents and all genres, they’ve inspired us with their unique points of view, so over the course of about two months, we invited all participating Print Swap photographers to pitch us the projects of their dreams. It was a limited-time opportunity, and we received an overwhelming number of inspiring ideas from artists and journalists all over the world. We ultimately selected three photographers to receive $500 each to bring their projects to life: Ashraful Arefin, Tori Gagne, and Julien McRoberts. Here’s a brief preview of what each of them has in store. All of the photos featured here are part of The Print Swap.

Pur·suit by Naima Green

Bklyn Boihood for Pur·suit by Naima Green

While working on her MFA thesis, All the black language, at the New York Public Library in 2017, Naima Green came upon Catherine Opie’s Dyke Deck, a set of poker cards that playfully looks into the lives and performances of ‘90s lesbians in the Bay Area.

“The deck felt both new and old, still radical and iconic. I knew it would find a place in my own work as I wanted to add to the ethos of queer cultures,” Green writes on her Kickstarter page.

With Opie’s blessing, Green reimages the Dyke Deck for the modern day as Pur·suit — a vital celebration of queer, trans, non-binary, and gender nonconforming communities for women of color.

Here, Green shares her journey in search of a missing data set, creating a space of love, respect, and visibility for groups that have largely been marginalized in the art world. Visit Kickstarter to support the project and earn some great rewards.