Jane Evelyn Atwood was a self-confessed “obsessive photographer” before becoming a photojournalist. She has developed a surprising body of work, oscillating between documentary and artistic productions. She is fascinated by the figures of exclusion and penetrates worlds that others ignore or refuse to see, delivering images that are as empathetic as they are tough, without a hint of miserabilism. 

Born in 1947 in New York, she has lived in Paris since 1971. She found her path by producing her first report Nächtlicher Alltag (Daily Nightlife) in 1981, a series on the world of prostitution, which she has frequented since 1976. She only focuses on subjects that captivate her completely and immerses herself in these worlds, only emerging once she is certain to have understood their essence, and assured that her photos convey her vision. She sometimes devotes years to her projects: eighteen months for the Foreign Legion, which she followed to Beirut and Chad, from 1983 to 1985, ten years for her reports on the blind children of specialised schools in France, Australia, Japan, Israel and the United States (Extérieur nuit, 1998), or on life in women’s prisons in nine different countries (Trop de peines, 2000).

She has won many awards: in 1980, she received the First W. Eugene Smith Award, and more recently, in 2005, the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters.

http://www.janeevelynatwood.com