Smoking Chefs

January 30, 2022

Jan Enkelmann lives and works in London where he spends his time observing people. Many would think that photographers, especially street photographers, go to the street, take countless images and that’s it, job done. I would argue that it takes much more than that — many image-makers would spend more

Recent Stories

Hasankeyf
Hasankeyf is an ancient town in Southeastern Turkey, located along the Tigris river in the Batman province. It was established in the 18th century BC and in 1981, almost 3600 years later, it was declared a natural conservation area by Turkey. In spite of this, it’s been regularly flooded as part of a dam-building project, regardless of the concerns raised by the local population and the international community. Hussain Ali is a British-Iraqi documentary photographer who is interested in capturi
Hussain Ali
While I Was Sleeping
While I Was Sleeping is the third part of a trilogy of projects that came out of that shift (the other two being After the Fact and Endless Plain). These projects, by and large, use documentary techniques and the resulting images look like documentary photographs, but they are not intended to document an event.
Tony Fouhse
Submerged Landscapes
According to the Climate Central app, Thanet, the UK is likely to become an island again within the next decade. In this ongoing project, King documented the affected areas before they are submerged, using the materiality of the sea within the production of the work.
Melanie King
Merlion Memories
Darren O’Brien’s project takes this fragile idea of the nature of memory as its starting point. He accompanied his partner on her return to Singapore, where she spent six years as a child, eighteen years later.
Darren O'Brien
The Invisible Wall
Paco Poyato brings us back a few decades to the times when the Berlin Wall divided Berlin and, subsequently, Germany into two parts — East and West.
Paco Poyato
Presence in the Absence
The story takes desolated buildings and structures as its starting point. Devoid of human presence, albeit designed and constructed by humans, these are places that were once the product of a utopian vision.
Karin van de Wiel
Separation
The European Union, or the Council of Europe as it was known when it was founded in 1949, brought in tremendous change to society permeating its very core. The benefits were of economic, cultural and security nature but some also argued that it erased their national identity. One of the biggest improvements, though, was that one could travel, live and study in a place different from one’s birth country unhindered — it has never been this easy to meet, fall in love with and settle in with people
Laura Pannack
Black Eyed Dog
The author opens up about his own struggles with Black Eyed Dog — A Photographic Healing Process. It was born out of a breakdown, a complete shutdown of his nervous system which made him find himself in a dark, gloomy place, one which he has never visited before.
Benedict Stenning
Missed Care
The referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU was one of the most divisive moments in modern history — back in 2016 and ever since then, the country felt more polarised than ever before with a clearly growing sense of “us” and “them”. People were either unable to or would refuse to see some of the good points that the other side was making. The Remain side was branded “Project Fear” as they were providing predictions of what would happen. Some of these didn’t happen, but others, unfortunately,
Gianluca Urdiroz
Cinematic Decline
With Cinematic Decline — a continuation of Butler's 2019 series and book Odeon Relics — the author traces the remnants of what once were brand-new, purpose-built cinema venues, incongruous with their surroundings back then, and some of them are still so even now. The key point of difference here though, is that none of these buildings continue to screen films, instead they showcase the cinematic afterlife bingo, pubs, churches and dereliction.
Philip Butler

mnngful Originals

mnngful Members

Francesca Cao
IT
,
Milano

Francesca Cao has been published and exposed in Europe and United States. In her personal work constantly looks for new ways of telling stories to stimulate the aesthetic reflection on photography, and emotionally move the viewer. Her first book Temporary Life is published by Postcart in 2020.

David Lintern
UK
,
Kingussie

Photojournalist and writer working across the outdoor and environmental sectors, with over a decade of experience creating stories for organisations and magazines including National Trust for Scotland, Visit Cairngorms, John Muir Trust, BBC, the Guardian, Slow Ways as well as most of the UK outdoor press. I’m particularly interested in the links between place and people, and between natural and cultural history. David also works privately as a photo tutor and guide across the Highlands, and the author of The Big Rounds.

Darren O'Brien
UK
,
Sheffield

Documentary and editorial photographer based in Sheffield, UK. He graduated in 2019 with an MA Photography from Falmouth University. Darren's Work has regularly featured in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Sunday Mirror, Big Issue North, Schweitzer illustrate, Vice Magazine and many others.

Jim Mortram
UK
,

Social Documentary Photographer and the creator of these photo stories: Small Town Inertia.

Gianluca Urdiroz
UK
,
London

Image maker and researcher based in London, UK. Whether it’s fathers & sons, humans & nature, or lockdown and the psyche, my work explores the dynamics between two elements.

Fiona Neil
UK
,
Moreton In Marsh

When receiving an old fashioned Canon camera at 16 I realised the power of showing people different perspectives of the world, documenting them with photography. I am passionate and dedicated about producing emotional, resourceful content that can educate and document the world for people.

Marc Wilson
UK
,
Bath

Documentary photographer working on long-term documentary projects, such as his previous work, completed in 2014, ‘The Last Stand’ and his current work, ‘A wounded landscape’. Marc tells stories through his photography, focusing at times on the landscape itself, and the objects found on and within it, and sometimes combining landscape, documentary, portrait and still life, along with audio recordings of interviews and sounds, to portray the mass sprawling web of the histories and stories he is retelling.

Edward Thompson
UK
,

Documentary photographer focused on various subjects over the years covering environmental issues, socio-political movements, subcultures, everyday life and the consequences of war. He had a life-changing experience with an early apprenticeship with the Russian photographer Sergey Chilikov, whom he met at the Arles Photography Festival in 2001. That summer Ed stayed with Sergey in Paris and learnt the value of shooting everyday life, eating fried fat and drinking red wine. Sergeys friend Gueorgui Pinkhassov told him how photographing the everyday can allow you to touch at something great. And it did.

Max J
CY
,
Limassol

Documentary and street photographer from Cyprus. Founder of mnngful, The Phooks. Author of TheIslandArchive.com.

Sushavan Nandy
IN
,
Kolkata

Documentary photographer based in Kolkata, working primarily with Barcroft Media. His work focuses on issues of climate change, human crisis, society, and culture. His works have been published in various international publications which include The Guardian, Daily Mail, CNN among many. Sushavan lives in Naihati town in West Bengal, India and is currently working on long-term photographic works.

Ardelle Schneider
DE
,
Düsseldorf

Photographer based in Düsseldorf, Germany, born and raised in Hanover. Schneider is studying photography for a master's degree at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. In 2020 she completed her bachelor's degree in communication design at the Peter Behrens School of Arts (HSD/PSBA) in Düsseldorf. Her work "Familystories" can be seen in the group exhibition "Stopover" at Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany) until February 6th.

Stefanos Kouratzis
CY
,
Nicosia

Multidisciplinary photographer living and working in Cyprus since 2000. At the age of 13, he develops a strong interest in Photography when he was handed a Kodak Instamatic. He loved so much the way that light was captured on film that he decided he wants to be a photographer. Due to developing and printing costs, he starts drawing rough sketches, prior shooting, and experimenting with different medium sizes, cameras and techniques. His works can be found in books and private collections in Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Brazil.

Lewis Bush
UK
,

Photographer, educator and curator working across media and platforms to visualise the activities of powerful organisations, practices, and technologies. Since 2012 his practice has explored issues ranging from the aggressive redevelopment of London, to the systemic inequalities of the art world. Recent works include Shadows of the State, which examines the democratic deficit of intelligence gathering, and Wv.B which examines the dark histories of space exploration. He is currently working on a long-term project about computer vision which runs in parallel with an ESRC funded PhD at the London School of Economics. He is also course leader of the MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography (online) course at London College of Communication.

Laura Pannack
UK
,
London

London-based photographic artist. Renowned for her portraiture and social documentary work, she seeks to explore the complex relationship between subject and photographer. Her work has been extensively exhibited and published worldwide, including at The National Portrait Gallery, The Houses of Parliament, Somerset House and the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Daniel Hinks
CN
,

Documentary photographer constantly fascinated by the human condition. I take on stories that I genuinely believe in, something that can pique my interest and curiosity, turning that energy outwards into creating a substantial body of work and concentrating on the resilience of the human spirit. I have a profound belief that the still image can change people’s minds. Even in today’s forever changing, fast-paced world of now! Gaining access to my subjects is imperative as it helps to achieve clarity and provides me with an opportunity for creative freedom.

Stories worth seeing

mnngful is a platform supporting independent documentary photography & photojournalism.

Thanks to passionate storytellers, we learn about matters that otherwise stay neglected. Stories that matter, but have not been covered enough are captured and told by passion-driven photographers and journalists.

They create because they care about the world they live in and tell us about matters beyond our eyesight.Their work is often driven by pure enthusiasm, fuelled by own beliefs and dreams for a better world. That's why such independent work is worth special attention.

mnngful is here to support the meaningful stories they tell.

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