Peter van Agtmael
American/Dutch, b. 1981
Peter was born in Washington DC. He studied history at Yale, graduating with honors in 2003. After graduation, he received a Charles P. Howland grant to travel to China to document the social and environmental consequences of the Three Gorges Dam.
In 2005, he covered the Asian Tsunami, then relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa and photographed the AIDS epidemic by following the story of Holly Moyo, an HIV-positive Zimbabwean refugee. On assignment, he traveled throughout Africa.
In 2006, he traveled to Iraq twice, spending nearly half the year on embeds. In 2007 and 2008, he spent several months embedding in the remote American outposts of Eastern Afghanistan and working un-embedded in the north and Kabul. When not in Iraq and Afghanistan, van Agtmael photographed the war at home, following the recovery of wounded soldiers and the families of the fallen.
In 2008 he helped organize the book and exhibition Battlespace, a retrospective of largely unseen work of 22 photographers covering Iraq and Afghanistan.
Education
2003 Yale University, BA History
Awards
2008 Critical Mass Book Award
2008 World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass
2008 Luminous Landscape Grant
2007 World Press Photo, 2nd Place General News Stories
2006 Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, 25 under 25:
Up-and-Coming American Photographers
2003 Charles P. Howland Fellowship
Exhibitions
2008 Periscopio, American Wars
2008 Randall Scott Gallery, Iraq Raids
2008 Gallery FCB, Battlespace: Unrealities of War
2007 World Press Photo, Iraq Raids
2006 Overload: Photographing the Iraq War