Justin Maxon (1983) was born in a small town in the woods of northern California.
While attending journalism school at San Francisco State, he began exploring projects that held greater social implications. His desire now is to reveal different variables of truth in humanities conflicted existence. Of recent though, his work shifted towards exploring more private issues; where his imagery became an abstract representation of his own life.
He has received numerous awards for his photography, from competitions like World Press Photo, UNICEF Images of the Year, and POYi. He won the Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year at the 2008 Lucie Awards; the same year he was named one of PDN’s 30 Photographers to Watch. He received the 2010 FotoVisura Photography Grant and the 2011 Cliff Edom “New America Award” from NPPA. He was selected to participate in World Press Photo’s 2010 Joop Swart Masterclass. He received a grant from the Magnum Emergency Fund, along with the 2012 Alexia Foundation Professional Grant for World Peace. He just was selected as one of Magenta’s 2012 Flash Forward Emerging Photographers.
He has worked on feature stories for publications such as TIME, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Mother Jones Magazine, Fader Magazine, The New York Times, and NPR.
He has lectured at the New York Photo Festival, the opening of the 2009 World Press Photo exhibition in Los Angeles, the Exposure Gallery in San Francisco, the School of Visual Arts in New York, and the New York Film Academy. He will be the keynote speaker and an instructor during the Momenta Workshops Project DC 2012: Working with Nonprofits, which takes place during the DC photo festival.
His work has been exhibited at the Chobi Mela Festival in Bangladesh, the Lodz Fotofestiwal in Poland, the New York Photo Festival in Dumbo, and the Fotopub Festival in Slovenia. His work has been screened at the LookBetween Festival in Charlottesville, the Photography Days in Istanbul, and the Bursa Photo Festival in Turkey.
