Bil Zelman is an American photographer and director known for his powerful, candid portraiture and spontaneous, photojournalistic style. Zelman developed a highly stylized form of hard-flash

street photography Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and ca ...

while in art school and

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

art critic Leah Ollman compares the "psychological density"Ollman, Leah
In `No Single Truth,' Humanity's Potential for Good and Bad
''Los Angeles Times''. 16 November 2001. of his work to the likes of

Garry Winogrand Garry Winogrand (January 14, 1928 – March 19, 1984) was an American street photographer, known for his portrayal of U.S. life and its social issues, in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Wino ...

Larry Fink Laurence Douglas Fink (born November 2, 1952) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, an American multinational investment management corporation. BlackRock is the largest money-management firm in the w ...

Diane Arbus Diane Arbus (; née Nemerov; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971
" The New York ...

and William Klein- photographers that are "purposely getting it wrong in one way so as to get it right in another, disrupting visual order to ignite a kind of visceral disorder". In 2020 Daylight Books published ''And Here We Are- Stories From the Sixth Extinction'', a collection of noir landscapes and writings about the current extinction crisis with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist

E. O. Wilson Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, entomologist and writer. According to David Attenborough, Wilson was the world's leading expert in his specialty of myrmecology, the study of an ...

. "Equally striking as it is meaningful, this powerful work is a critical reminder that the alarms are not ringing loudly enough for many of us to hear" stated

Alexandra Cousteau Alexandra Marguerite Clémentine Cousteau (born March 21, 1976) is a filmmaker, sustainability keynote speaker and an environmental activist. Cousteau continues the work of her grandfather Jacques-Yves Cousteau and father Philippe Cousteau. Cous ...

. The monograph was awarded the

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

Deeper Perspectives Award. Zelman published ''Isolated Gesture'' in 2013, a collection of highly stylized black and white street photography. The book was chosen for an Art Directors Club award by Albert Watson, ''Artweek'' portrays ''Isolated Gesture'' as "a cross between S. E. Hinton's ''The Outsiders'' and Dutch genre painting".Duford, Daniel. "Bil Zelman and Kirk Thompson at Oregon Center for Photography" Artweek. Feb 2008 Referencing Zelman's distinctive style, ''

'' proclaims that Zelman's guiding principle is having an intense proximity to his subject, "He doesn't shoot in a war zone but in the realm of ordinary life--on the street, at parties, in restaurants and stores. Working aggressively close to his subjects, and rapidly, intensifies whatever is in front of the camera". Zelman has photographed and directed myriad campaigns for clients ranging from

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...

to Levi's and is ranked Top 200 Photographers Worldwide by

Lürzer's Archive ''Lürzer's Archive'' (also known as ''Luerzer’s Archive'') is a bi-monthly magazine for the advertising industry which features advertising campaigns for print and TV from around the world. The magazine was founded in 1984 and has a global circu ...

Selected exhibitions and permanent collections

* 2022 ''And Here We Are'', Interactive Installation, PhEST, Monopoli, Italy * 2021 ''And Here We Are'', Multi-Media show, Cortona On the Move, Italy * 2021 ''A Nature Story'', Deeper Perspectives Award, Lucie Awards * 2020 ''And Here We Are'', Awarded Bronze for Books, Prix de’ la’ Photographie, Paris * 2016 ''American Sand'', Lucie Foundation, Month of Photography * 2015 ''Isolated Gesture'', Sparks Gallery, San Diego, California * 2010 ''Dusk'', Lucie Foundation, Los Angeles, California * 2010

Museum of Photographic Arts The Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA) is a museum in San Diego's Balboa Park. First founded in 1974, MOPA opened in 1983.San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

, California * 2008

Portland Museum of Art The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S. state of Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine. ...

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

* 2007 ''Isolated Gesture'' at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Oregon * 2007 FCMOA "Interactions" Exhibit, Ft. Collins, Colorado * 2007 Newspace Center for Photography, Portland, Oregon * 2006 ''Isolated Gesture'' Voice 1156 Gallery, Los Angeles * 2005 Center for Photographic Arts, Carmel, California * 2005

Museum of Photographic Arts The Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA) is a museum in San Diego's Balboa Park. First founded in 1974, MOPA opened in 1983.University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, California * 2001 ''Street Work'' Nicole Dintamin Gallery, Los Angeles, California

Selected exhibitions and permanent collections

References

External links