Karolina Trapp is a Polish-Australian street photographer currently based in Seattle, USA. She has a PhD in English literature and in her professional life she has mostly focused on teaching as well as perpetrating occasional literary, academic, and journalistic pieces of writing. Her interest in street photography was born at the turn of 2015 and 2016 when she moved across the ocean and started exploring her new city. Since that time, her images have garnered recognition at prestigious photography competitions and been shown at exhibitions in the USA, Europe and Australia.

Most recently, Karolina spoke of her story in a short film produced by Women Street Photographers, as the first of their new Inspirational Films series. Her work has been published in photography albums such as Women Street Photographers or World Street Photography, features on prestigious photography websites including UP Photographers and Street Photographers, as well as appearing in numerous magazines from Eyeshot Magazine, All About Photo, through Digital Camera. The latest book by the renowned Turkish writer Mustafa Kutlu has one of her images on its cover. 

Contact: karolinatrapp@gmail.com

Awards:

2020 Bronze Medal PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, Street Photography category

2020 Finalist London Street Photography Festival

2020 Finalist Siena International Photo Awards

2020 Finalist Italian Street Photo Awards (series)

2019 1st place Paris Street Photography Awards, Black and White series category

2019 1st place Paris Street Photography Awards, Shadows singles category

2019 2nd place Paris Street Photography Awards, Urbex series category

2019 Honorable Mention Chromatic Photography Awards, Amateur Street category

2019  2nd place IPA One Shot Street Photo Awards

2018 Honorable Mention Amateur Street category Chromatic Photography Awards 

2017 3rd place Amateur Street category Chromatic Photography Awards 

2017 Honorable Mention Amateur Street category Monochromatic Awards 

2017 2nd place Streetwise Photography Competition

2016 Street Projections competition laureate (European Month of Photography, Berlin)

Selected Exhibitions:

2020, Aug-Sep. Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival exhibition

2020, May. Double Trouble Exhibition at Head On Festival, Sydney, Australia

2019/2020 (Dec 12 - Jan 2). Women Street Photographers annual exhibition, New York

2019, Oct 19-20. Street Photography Italy Exhibition, Florence

2019, Jul 11-31. World Street Photography 6, Hamburg

2019, Jun 26 - Jul 10. Art on a Postcard, London

2019, Jun 1-30. Children's Stories, Moscow

2019, May 17-19. Streets Sans Frontiers,  Paris

2017 Fragments of the World (solo exhibition), Gdansk, Poland

2016 Street Projections, Berlin 

Selected Press, Talks etc:

Apr 2021 Mustafa Kutlu Akintiya Karsi, Dergah Publishing

Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Akintiya-Karsi-Mustafa-Kutlu/dp/625766005X/

Mar 2021 Women Street Photographers, ed. Gulnara Samoilova, Prestel Publishing

Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Women-Street-Photographers-Gulnara-Samoilova/dp/3791387405/

Aug 2020 Interview UP Photographers                      https://upphotographers.com/interviews/interview-with-karolina-trapp

Aug 2020 Chiiz Magazine No 41

Aug 2020 Karolina Trapp: Past in a Flash. Women Street Photographers Inspirational Films      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL4LLqaNY3E&feature=youtu.be

May 2020 Unexposed Collective and Women in Street Artist Talk, Head On Photo Festival, Sydney, Australia

Apr 2020 Street Photographers Foundation          https://streetphotographersfoundation.com/karolina-trapp/ 

Apr 2020 Street Sweeper Magazine                                   https://streetsweepermagazine.com/karolina-trapp/

Mar 2020 Street Photo Poland                                                      https://www.streetphotopoland.com/p/karolina-trapp.html

Feb 2020 121 clicks                                                                    https://121clicks.com/showcases/karolina-trapp-street-photographer

Feb 2020 The Inspired Eye No 78

Jul 2019 All About Photo Awards: The Mind's Eye. 

Jun 2019 World Street Photography 6

Jun 2018 Link Lens Magazine

Mar 2018 Chromatic Photography Awards Book 

Jan 2018 Photo Mania Poland

Jul 2017  Women Street Photographers You Should Follow on the Web by Spyros Papaspyropoulos (Street Hunters)

May 2017 The Inspired Eye No 45

Jan 2017 Shades of Grey No 7

VISION STATEMENT:

Maybe because my background is in literature, what I like most about street photography is that it captures human stories. Having always lived in big cities, my tales are of urban life and I feel I come closest to it by capturing candid moments. My pictures are hardly ever staged but at the same time I’m interested in the imaginative more than the documentary side of things. I’m convinced the human condition is as fascinating as it is impossible to fully grasp and I revel in the mystery, enjoying my own totally subjective interpretations of what I see. Internalities, dream-like moments and scenes of strongly evocative character are all great fodder for the imagination. Light and shadow, young and old, static and dynamic – as a photographer, I try to put them all into a meaningful frame, imaginatively coming to terms with the beauty of such indispensable tensions. Their appearances in life are ordinary and yet, at the same time, totally amazing!