Spontaneity is the hallmark for great documentary and street photography where the moments of life, often ironic, poignant, emotionally charged, tragic or absurd are frozen. Photography provides the means to capture a moment but which moment makes all the difference.

Well known masters include Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith with recent discoveries such as Vivian Maier and Frank Oscar Larson adding to a long list of great photographers.

Many of the scenes captured by practitioners of this art, with the possible exception of war and extreme sports documentary, pass before us every day, but we do not see. This exhibit is dedicated to those who strive to see, realize and then manifest vision and moment into an image so that we can all see what is right in front of us or inaccessible in some other way. Showing us the remarkable moments that make up the, often unconscious, Human Experience.

Juror: Nikos Economopoulos

Nikos Economopoulos began his photography career inn 1988 with a long-term project in Greece and Turkey. He photographed whatever he came across on his daily walks: street scenes, public gatherings, solitary meanderers, or deserted landscapes. In 1990 After joining Magnum Economopoulos’ photographs began to appear in newspapers and magazines worldwide. In the same year he started to take photographs in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and the former Yugoslavia, investigating the territorial, ethnic and religious tensions of the region, as well as the endurance of traditional social and religious rites. This work earned him the Mother Jones Award in 1992.

Subsequent work includes lignite miners and the Muslim minority in Greece, people living along the Green Line dividing southern and northern Cyprus; illegal immigrants at the Greek-Albanian border; and young residents of Tokyo, mass emigration of ethnic Albanians fleeing Kosovo. He was given the Abdi Ipektsi Award for peace and friendship between Greece and Turkey in 2001. Nikos has published ten books and his work is in the permanent collections of Centre Méditerranéen de la Photographie and the Benaki Museum. He organizes a series of photography workshops in locations in eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.