Appalachia. Mountaintops to Moonscapes

January 30, 2022

Appalachia, Virginia is mainly known for two reasons. The first is that it’s an incredibly resource-rich territory; it supplies two-thirds of the nation’s coal reserves. Coal is an outdated energy source, which is damaging to the environment as it’s slowly being phased throughout the whole world in

Recent Stories

London '82
Sunil Gupta enrolled at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London in the early 1980s. Having access to colour negative printing at the college, the young photographer began to roam the streets of the Big Smoke searching for the epicentres of queer life — Earl’s Court, King’s Road,
Sunil Gupta
Constructed Landscapes
Dafna Talmor’s Constructed Landscapes are the end result of many years of frustration caused by her own photographs. The images are taken in different countries, among which are Israel, Venezuela, the UK and the United States, but their initial purpose was nothing more than personal keepsakes. As Talmor accumulated a large archive, she became increasingly conscious that the photographs don’t show much about the places that they depict and they are just that — pictures of places she once visited. She decided to use them as her source material instead of photographs in their own right in order to create something new and this is how her ongoing series was born.
Dafna Talmor
End of Olympics
The biggest sports event on the planet turns into a mixture of political and public health disputes, yet not covered enough by the established media
Johan Brooks
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
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
Coastal Mammoth
The 2011 tsunami caused an unprecedented amount of damage, chaos and grief. Everyone in Japan was affected in one way or another. The Japanese government soon began to erect a gigantic wall at the cost of billions in the northeast region of the country after the earthquake that caused the tsunami.
Pengkuei Ben Huang
100 days before conscription
Young Cypriots at months before unavoidable military service. Do they come to celebrate the upcoming life milestone or to protest against forced consription?
Max J
Branches of a Tree in Winter
Zak Dimitrov moved to London in 2015 and by 2018 he had been on over 100 dates. The man he was going out with at the time, Reggie, turned out to be, as cliche as it sounds, his photographic muse, partially caused by practicalities as he had very little spare time, all of which was spent with Reggie, and he had to take pictures for his final MA project.
Zak Dimirtov
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
Fire Corps
The concept (and practice) of voluntary work brings out the best of people. Volunteers not only don’t get paid, they also give their time, passion and effort to a cause that they believe is worth fighting for. Johan Brooks presents us with the story of the Fire Corps — groups
Johan Brooks

mnngful Originals

mnngful Members

James Rudoni
UK
,
London

Photography allows me to express myself using the world around me. Things that I would have otherwise ignored take on a new weight and potential. With my curious eye, I am motivated to capture the chaos, weirdness and beauty of our lives.

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.

Marko Risovic
RS
,
Belgrade

Documentary photographer based in Belgrade. After working for years in traditional photojournalism outlets, he became a freelancer in 2010. Since then he has concentrated on long-term projects about youth, social (in)justice and distribution of power in the Balkans. Marko is interested in intimate narratives about vulnerable social groups and individuals that reflect a wider social discourse. He believes that the language of photography storytelling still can shape the perception of the wider population and decision-makers, thus contributing to the continuous search for a better, more equal and sustainable world. Marko was chosen as one of the participants in the World Press Photo Masterclass for young photographers from Southeastern Europe in 2010. He has been a regular contributor to National Geographic Serbia magazine since 2007, and a contributing photographer to The New York Times and Le Monde for years. Marko is founder of the Serbian photo collective Kamerades and a member of The Association of Serbian Applied Artists and Designers (ULUPUDS). He holds an MA degree in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the University of the Arts in London. Marko is currently in the Mentor Program of VII photo agency.

Zak Dimirtov
UK
,
London

Photographic artist, writer and educator Having successfully completed an MA in Photography Arts at the University of Westminster and a BA (Hons) Photography at the Arts University Bournemouth, he is now pursuing a PGCE in Art and Design at UCL Institute of Education. Zak’s practice is concerned with memory, mortality, loss, and time. He has worked at various art schools, universities, galleries and photo labs as well as contributed to written publications (ASX, Der Greif, Paper Journal, and others).

Isaac Kirby
UK
,
London

London based-photographer and copywriter originally from the Australian town of Snake Valley.

Verity Adriana
UK
,

Visual artist who uses light, installation and photography to investigate the phenomenology of the metaphysical and existential. She has been a practicing and exhibiting artist for over a decade. Adriana was born in Hull, UK, and grew up around the world wherever her mother found work, including Spain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Adriana returned to Hull independently at the age of 14 to see herself through her final years at school and went onto establish herself in the regional arts community.

Johan Brooks
JP
,
Tokyo

Documentary and street photographer based out of Tokyo, Japan. Born in the UK, he grew up in NYC, and eventually found his way to Japan where he has been living for over 10 years. He is a member of the VoidTokyo photography collective. His photography is on permanent display at the Crunchyroll HQ in San Francisco and was recently exhibited at Terranova House in Tokyo.

Bojan Fürst
CA
,
St. John's

I am a photographer, writer, radio maker and geographer based in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada with a passion for documentary work of all kind because "The things of this world exist, they are; you can't refuse them."

Benedict Stenning
FR
,

Documentary photographer whose work is primarily concerned with investigating peoples experiences with their proximal surroundings. Benedict is interested in the relationships we as human beings form with our environs and each other while seeking to subvert perspectives; identifying and capturing liminal spaces to form narratives and provoke an emotional response. Benedict was brought up with the arts from a young age and has an innate appreciation for the powers of story telling. His grandfather, Moran Caplat CBE, was General Manager at Glyndebourne opera house in the Sussex countryside for over 30 years and his father was a stage manager at the BBC and later an associate producer in film.

Pippa Healy
UK
,
London

Artist based in London Her practice responds to her personal history, to events which have impacted on her life. Her handmade ‘Zines’, raw and diaristic in style are central to her practice. Themes encompassing loss, longing, violence and grief are frequently referenced. Her work is held in private collections and has been exhibited in group and solo shows in the UK, France, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, Sardinia, Turkey and Italy. Her zines have been exhibited at numerous exhibitions and in 2019 at Les Rencontres Arles Photo text Award. The books are sold in The Photographers Gallery in London, Cent Quatre in Paris and The Library Project in Dublin. The zines are also held at The Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, The visual Library in New York and The Self publish Be Happy Library.

Nikita Ghate
UK
,
London

I’m a London based Architect turned photographer. My work, although not limited to, tends to heavily explore ‘place attachment’ between people and the built/un-built environment around them. I like to deeply observe and capture the brilliance of everyday life, that we sometimes tend to oversee.

Sabrina Jeblaoui
DE
,
Berlin

Documentary and street portrait photographer based in Berlin. Started discovering the role electronic and techno music played within the party scene in Berlin since she moved there in 2017 and has decided to take photographs of people in front of clubs. NachtClubsBerlin is Sabrina’s first complete photo project. It gathered more than 28K followers on its Instagram account and caught the attention of several magazines, newspapers, as well as TV channels such as ZDF MorgenMagazin, Tagesspiegel, Ze.tt, Mix Mag, Vice, and more.

Pengkuei Ben Huang
CA
,
Toronto

Documentarty photographer based in Toronto, Canada. His early interest in history and geopolitics inspired him to undertake international politics studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California in the US. Upon discovering photography as his passion, he relocated to San Francisco and earned his BFA at Academy of Art University. He was selected as one of the finalists for The Scotiabank Prize in 2007 at Magnum Workshop Toronto under the mentorship of the renowned photographer Larry Towell. Since then he has taken an interest in utilizing photography as a medium to form a visual narrative that explores the relationship between humans and their surrounding environments.

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.

Lewis Greener
UK
,
London

Geordie in London. Youth and community worker who takes photos and film. Mainly b&w just because thats what darkroom I've got access too.

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.

Read more