The July 13, 2010 cover of The Times of London’s Body & Soul health supplement features a portrait of Carlos Leon taken by Aurora photographer Katja Heinemann.

Of the shoot, Katja says, “Interestingly, photographing Carlos Leon I had expected him to be media savvy and photogenic.  Instead, aside from the intial posed portrait that he graciously obliged to, I encountered someone so used to being hounded by paparazzi that he instinctively shields himself from the camera at every opportunity, resulting in a bizarre dance of me following him around the room trying to get a action shots of him teaching his class, catching a moment here and there where he wasn’t turning away from me……”

To see more Katja’s assignment portfolio, click here.

To see Katja Heinemann’s stock imagery, click here.

Aurora Select photographer Katja Heinemann went on assignment for the July/August 2010 Anniversary double issue of Smithsonian Magazine. Katja photographed MIT scientist John Ochsendorf in conjunction with his installation of an ancient vault building technique at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City.  The shoot had to take place in Boston, as the installation wasn’t completed in time for the magazine deadline, and it turns out that the Boston Public Library had several historic rooms that feature traditional vaulted ceilings, so she had a great fall-back location.

To see more work by Katja Heinemann, visit Aurora Photos.

Aurora Select photographer Katja Heinemann traveled to Los Angeles, Wyoming and Long Island to produce portraits of teenagers who had undergone elective plastic surgeries for the current issue of People Magazine. Says’ Heinemann; “The main challenge for me was to come up with compelling portraits that showed off the kids’ surgeries… In the end, subtlety won out in the editing process!” The entire article can be seen in the April 5, 2010 edition of People Magazine.

To see more work by Katja Heinemann, visit Aurora Select. Read the rest of this entry »

Aurora photographer Katja Heinemann’s portraits of Denis Dutton, a philosopher of art and the author of The Art Instinct, have been published in the fall 2009 issue of Mercedes Magazine, which talks about the philosopher’s belief that all mankind is born with an innate instinct for beauty and art. “I photographed Professor Dutton on The High Line in Chelsea, a new park created from a disused stretch of elevated railway which offers great urban views and backgrounds as well as being a landscaped oasis,” says Heinemann.

To see more work by Katja Heinemann, visit Aurora Photos.

Read the rest of this entry »

Aurora Select photographer Katja Heinemann photographed survivor and activist Holly Dunn Pendleton for the June 29, 2009 issue of People magazine.

Pendelton survived a brutal attack when she was a student and has made it her mission to educate communities around the Midwest about the prevalence and dangers of sexual violence. To that end, she founded Holly’s House, a rape crisis center for women and children. Holly’s House provides a haven for women and children to come to and report the violence and rape that has affected their lives.  Taking sexual violence prevention and education outside of the police stations into a safe, non-threatening environment is a very basic concept, yet only very few of these types of centers exist around the country.  “I am hoping that getting this story out into a mass circulation magazine will inspire people to create similar initiatives in their own communities,” Katja said. “Working on these types of ‘every day hero’ stories is a great way to draw attention to the fact that individuals are making a difference in their communities by acting according to their passions and convictions.”

Aurora Select photographer Katja Heinemann acted as HBO’s unit stills photographer for “The Alzheimer’s Project” which investigated the impact the disease has on Americans and how scientists around the nation are working on break-through new approaches to find a cure.

The multi-platform series consists of a four-part documentary series, 15 short supplemental films, a Web site and a companion book.  Katja traveled with the crew around the country documenting a wide range of people who are affected by this disease and those who are working on curing it. A few of the subjects covered include a Harvard scientist testing nasal spray vaccines on mice, a San Francisco pharmaceutical industry research lab, newly diagnosed patients at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, two women in St. Louis, Missouri, dealing with taking care of their mothers in advanced stages of the disease, spokespeople at the NIH and FDA in Bethesda, Maryland, a couple in Racine, Wisconsin, “celebrating” their 50th wedding anniversary with the husband unable to recognize his wife and family and a widower in Orange County, California, volunteering in the local nursing home together with his new wife.

To learn more about “The Alzheimer’s Project” visit HBO’s Web site and to view more work by Katja please view her portfolio on the Aurora Select Web site.

Aurora photographers contributed to an Inauguration project that was published in Sette, the Sunday magazine of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest newspaper.  Carl D. Walsh, Beth Rooney, Justin Maxon, Rhea Anna, Katja Heinemann, Rafal Gerszak, Michael Bonfigli, Todd Bigelow and Robert Gallagher reported from around the globe on Inauguration Day.  From the eight US cities to Afghanistan and Mexico, these Aurora photographers captured a moment in time that touched the world.

Also contributing to the project were Aurora photographers David Stubbs, Elyse Butler, Trevor Clark, Blake Gordon, Matt Eich, Jaime Rose, Michael Hanson, Robert Benson, Clay McLachlan, Andrew Kornylak, Logan Mock-Bunting, Matt Mallams and Ryan Donnell.

View Aurora’s complete coverage of the Obama Presidential Inauguration here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Aurora Select photographer Katja Heinemann spent a few days this fall exploring Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland for the 2008 Winter issue of Volkswagen Magazin to document local color, historic places and the brand new Passat CC.

Volkswagen recently moved their US headquarters from Detroit to suburban Washington and wanted to acquaint their German readers with the region through a travel essay.  “I got to drive around the area for some 700 miles, location scouting and shooting simultaneously,” Katja said.  “Photographing the car in a tobacco barn in MD, on a horse farm in VA, circling in front the capitol, or on a cobblestone street in Annapolis – and just about wherever else looked good to me or the assistant I was traveling with.”

Aurora Select photographer Katja Heinemann’s photos were featured in the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law 2007 Annual Report. To document the Law Center’s work, Katja and art director Cliff Questel traveled all over Chicago to photograph local individuals and organizations that had received assistance from The Shriver Center to illustrate policy issues such as fair housing, child care, immigration, health care and economic security.

“The project evolved in a process that began with a fairly abstract concept of The Shriver Center’s policy priorities and through brainstorming and research resulted in a photo driven final publication that portrays individuals that are involved at the heart of these issues,” Katja said. “Photo shoots documented the SEED program teaching children how to save for college, The Grove Parc housing development’s resident leadership team, the Carole Robertson Center for Learning’s Child Care and Youth Initiatives, Access Community Health Network’s community health center, and the Jane Addams Senior Caucus initiative for affordable senior buildings.”

AIDS is no longer a disease of just the young. About 24 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS are 50 and older, up from 17 percent in 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Why are the numbers increasing? People are getting older. Through medical advances, AIDS has become a treatable chronic condition, which has made it possible for many HIV-infected persons to live longer.

Select photographer Katja Heinemann’s multimedia piece documenting people aging with AIDS was recently featured on the AARP Web site. http://assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org_/articles/bulletin/photogalleries/grayingofaids/index.html