Martin Amis

New York has an intensity and vibrancy that's hard to match. Around every corner there is something that grabs your attention; the avalanche of stimulus takes your breath away. This series was taken over 2003, and was intended to portray something of the spirit of the streets of New York - a chronicle of the times.

I currently live in Bath, England, but spend a great deal of time in NYC. I work in education and freelance photography. I try to create simple images that tell a story with a nod to the great street photographers of the 1950's. Prints of my work are available in various real world and online galleries.

Life Shots

Shakun Batra

Camera - An apparatus for taking pictures. I'm sure that to each and every one of us who has submitted his work to Revolver it means much more than that.

I am a 20 year old art student from India. When I started taking pictures, I had no pre-defined subject in mind, but after a while I started focusing on faces and emotions because I knew they would speak not only themselves but also on my behalf. Now I've moved even futher, and I look beyond the face and search for The Story behind it.

Ulrik Jantzen

Ulrik Jantzen was born in Odense, Denmark in 1976. He studied photojournalism at the Danish School of Journalism from 1999 to 2002 and between 2000 and 2002 worked at "Berlingske Tidende", Danish national newspaper.

In 2002 he won a number of prestigious awards: - 2. Prize AGFA/Das Bildforum prize für Jungen Bildjournalismus
- Fuji film "travel" winner of the year
- Fuji film Feature/Reportage winner of the year in his native country
- PDN's 2002 photography Annual, winner in 2 different Categories
- selected for the "Joop Swart Masterclass" by the World Press Photo Committee

In this issue of Revolver, we're presenting a collection of his photographs on victims of acid attacks in Bangladesh. When a woman refuses to marry or her family are not able to pay for her marriage, the prospective husband or his family will seek revenge by drenching the woman with acid and branding her for life.

Ulrik Jantzen

Konrad Konstantynowicz

Throughout my 6 years as a journalist (I started in a regional daily somewhere in Poland and finally moved to the Polish edition of Newsweek magazine) I've always had a photocamera at hand. Sometimes I took pictures to acompany my articles but more often than not I did it to preserve memories.

Last May I felt so fed up with corporate journalism I decided to turn my professional life upside down and changed a pen (or Mac actually) for a camera. Since then I've been working as a freelance photographer shooting mainly for one of the Polish weeklies, a sports daily and a couple of monthly mags.

I started to photograph those 10-years-old boys four months ago when I came across a tiny advertisement in a newsparer - Polonia FC from Warsaw was looking for new players to join their children's team. I contacted the coach and started to photograph them during games and trainings, in cloakrooms and on their way to the club... I still do it as the project is not finished yet.

Zero Jeden

Andreas Muhme

Capoeira originated in Brazil approximately 400 years ago as a martial art. Its unique style brings together beauty and power, developing mental balance, physical conditioning, self-defence and music all at once. But the fluid, dance like movements done close to the ground combined with playing the traditional bowinstrument "Berimbau" and singing Capoeira lyrics are more than a martial art: Capoeira is a social event filled with tradition and history.

Created by African slaves it was originally a weapon against enslavement. When the oppressors eventually realised its power they outlawed Capoeira and death was the penalty paid by anyone caught practising it during the slavery years. Only in the 1930's did it become legal to teach and practice this Brazilian martial art. In the following decades "Academias" opened up all over the world and Capoeira became a microcosm bringing together people regardless of their social, national or financial background. "Bem vindo a nossa familia" - "Welcome to our family," anyone new in a group is being told. A family, where young uneducated Brazilians have the chance to get away from the favelas (slums) and become teachers. But also a family giving every member the freedom to find out what he is looking for in Capoeira as well as in life.

"Capoeira e tudo que a boca come"
Mestre Pastinha

Capoeira is everything that comforts you. (free translation)

For the last three years I have been travelling to Capoeira workshops to meet people who dedicted themselves to Capoeira. In my interviews preceding the photo shootings they told me about their own unique understanding of what Capoeira constituted in their lives. I came to find out that thir reasons tend to be very emotional and as seemingly inconsistent as life appears to be. Friendship and support are important aspects as well as respect, pride and the interplay of cunning and mystery, which is a typical description of what Capoeira is all about.

Some practise Capoeira with a great deal of ambition, others look at it as a mystic dialogue between two bodies. Some consider it a way to gain self-confidence, others seek a break from stressful everyday life. Playing Capoeira they are all equal. This equality and individuality at the same time is the theme of my photo series. The speciality of this series is the picture of the two Gran Mestres João Grande & João Pequenho, students of Gran Mestre Pastinha, who devoted their whole life to Capoeira. Their names are to Capoeira what Muhammad Ali is to boxing: living legends.

Andreas Muhme