from the Black Sea: Stanka Koleva & Eda Emirdağ

Stanka Koleva is a Bulgarian born photographer currently living and working in Berlin, Germany. She was born and raised in the town of Bourgas and in the year 2000 she took up photography, with Borislav Penkov as her tutor.

Working with film, medium format cameras and printing the images herself using the gelatin silver process, Stanka creates provocative and multi layered images. In her own words she explains the concepts in her work: "I believe Art is the purest way to understanding and depicting our inner selves as well as the aspects of Cosmic Life. Human nature and mutual relations are aspects on which I rely to do my work, along with intuition, which is the most important part of an artistic act."

You can find more of Stanka's  photographs in her portfolio and on flickr.

Stanka Koleva has presented her works in individual and group exhibitions in Bulgaria and other countries in Europe. In 2005, she won the special jury prize “Burgas through the lens'.

Eda Emirdağ is a Turkish photographer born in Istanbul and like many photographers, Eda began her photographic journey with a parent giving her a camera as a gift and since that time Eda has been taking photographs.

After a period of studying international realations, Eda moved back to the Istanbul and now studies Photography and Film at the university of Bahçeşehir. She has also had photography articles published in the Turkish photo magazine, TUBITAK and has been exhibited many times.

Working with a variety of tools, and in both digital and analogue, Eda creates dream-like images often inspired by music, art and poetry. She describes them herself as fictions and fairy-tales. Eda has also recently made a series of photographs inspired by the recent protests in Istanbul, adding her own surreal dreamlike twist to what otherwise seem like documentary photographs.

You can see more of Eda's photographs on her page and facebook.