anja epkes
Artist’s Statement
Having traveled the world extensively as a creative collaborator all my life, I’ve realized how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to do what I love most for a living, creating imagery through pictures or film of the way I see things, and then growing with the capture one frame at a time. Storytelling is one of the most rewarding aspects of photography to me if inspired by light, reflections, facial expression, gesture or being in that moment of spacetime that makes each shoot a unique one-in-a-lifetime experience and photograph every time.
I get excited about new projects, traveling and music. Through that lens I define my place in the world and keep an open eye to see new visions of what is possible to make the planet a more colorful and sustainable one. I love people and truly believe in community and teamwork. My little boy has taught me so much about being human, he is my greatest inspiration.
My goal is to always be as creative as possible and do my best what ever the current project I’m working on might be.
I thank my grandpa for introducing me to the magic of photography at such a young age. I’ll never forget the countless hours in the darkroom and the day we bought my first camera....
Bio
Anja Epkes is known as an innovative, artistic photographer and videographer who crosses the boundaries between commercial and fine art.
Her aesthetic is characterized by an international sense of fashion and lifestyle, striking color, composition, and the ability to shoot live performances or document life on the streets...in any given country. Whether working on commercial or personal projects, she loves to collaborate with other visual artists and with her subjects to create a unique statement.
Early in Anja’s career, she worked in the entertainment, music and fashion industries as a makeup artist/stylist, and later moved into photography, videography and works as the Director of Photography on resent film projects. She’s been active in the scene for nearly two decades, doing international tours, shows, catalogue work, editorial, commercials and ad campaigns.
Anja worked with talents such as Metallica, Third Eye Blind, N*Sync, Backstreet Boys, Alice Cooper, White Snake, Spearhead and India Arie. Her client roster in fashion and print includes Lecomte, Hugo Boss, Conleys, Yogi Toes, Paul Mitchell, Wella, Nexxus, Redkin, Bumble and Bumble, etc., and her work has been published in magazines like Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Yoga Journal and The Rolling Stone. She worked with celebrities such as Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Aniston, Bruce Willis, Lisa Kudrow and Gael Garcia Bernal.
In 2010 she shot the Behind the Scenes Documentary for the movie The Loneliest Planet in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, before embarking on a tour through the Middle East shooting portraits with her Canon 5D while traveling through Jordan, Syria, Israel, Turkey and Iraq.
Anja is the creator of the book Men in a Country of War, a collection of portraits shot in Iraq. Men in a Country of War is the first book of several volumes of photographs that manifested from this personal project.
Some of her latest fine art images where exhibited at Photo LA.
She has worked with Elevate, a group of LA media artists devoted to conscious media production. One of her current projects of love is photographing children in orphanages around the world.