Utah native Brian Shumway  is a photographer currently based out of Brooklyn, New York. Shumway attended Utah University, and studied photography briefly at The Academy of Art San Francisco. Shumway's works range from portrait, editorial, to fine art photography.

Jesse Marlow is a photographer based out of Melbourne, Austraila. For the last 17 years, Jesse has worked with local and international magazines, newspapers and commercial clients.

Kim Thue is originally from Grindsted, a tiny Danish town that sits upon the moors of Jutland. Eventually leaving the wind swept moors, he move to the UK where he graduated from Brighton University studying Editorial photography.

The mysterious Chris Poppos is a photographer who originally hails from the United Kingdom.

Andrea Buia is a self taught film photographer from Lecce, Italy. His images primarily focus on the diversity of the feminine form, whilst he also manages to catch some beautifully honest expressions which span across a variety of emotions; from longing and passion to comfort and interest.

When we see photographs by the Belgian artist Dirk Braeckman installed in museums, we seem to be looking at photographs that aspire to the condition of painting. They are large — he likes them to be life-size. They are unglazed— he wants no interruption to the eye. They demand as slow an act of looking as any painting. They have the same richness and variety of tones of grey as works by Richter or Celmins.

Cia De Foto is a photo collective based in Sao Paulo, Brazil that was founded in 2003. What I admire the most about these photos is the simple, real, and raw nature of them all.

The elusive fine art photographer Yung Cheng Lin is Tainan, Taiwan based. His deliberately placed subjects and their unhinged poses leave you questioning what mysterious scenario is being played out. All his photos give you the sense that they are scenes from an abstract horror film. That's what I love the most about his photos. They don't seem to relate to each other, but once you look through them a story starts to emerge.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are a married couple who have been collaborating for about 20 years creating fine art photographs. Robert is originally from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Shana is from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They now both live and work out of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Their work narrows in on the relationship between Humans and the Environment which surrounds them. Pillaged landscapes scarred by human excess are portrayed in ParkeHarrisons photogravure, collaged and printed works. The realisticy unreal photographs are brilliant interpretations of how human behavior has a direct effect on the environment.

Ivan Peretz is a Russian photographer who is currently living in St. Petersburg. Ivan is a completely self-taught photographer without a formal background from an art school.

Yani Clarke is an Australian photographer who is based in Bangkok, Thailand. Her photographs of smiling children jumping off into cool blue waters evokes the memories of childhood summers and the freedoms they held.

Russian photographer Pavel Samokhvalov spent Four years at the Institute of Cinematography where he developed discipline, focus, and his attention to the environment around him to create his suspenseful photographs.

Daniel González is a photographer based out of Medellín City, Colombia who captures everyday experiences in relation to nudity and space. As landscapes change with the notion of time passing, he explores the human body's fragility as it endures metamorphosis.

[Photo by: Shelbie Dimond] 939 is the magic number for EK in 2013. 939 only has 4 factors: 1, 3, 313, 939...which doesn't really have any significant meaning relating to our TOP 100. AMD made a CPU called the Socket 939 back in June 2004...but we're not sponsored by them nor any other computer tech company to supply us with the machines that we need to run EK. The year 939 in Roman numerals is CMXXXIX...which doesn't mean crap since none of us use Roman numerals anymore. According to HistoryOrb.com, 4 major events took place in year 939 that were documented: July 8th (The Major Occultation, or Ghaybat el-Kubra of Muhammad al-Mahdi), August 6th (Battle at Simancas - Spain beats Moors), October 2nd (Battle at Andernach: King Otto & Hermann of Zwaben beat Eberhard of France & Giselbert of Lutherans), October 27th (Edmund I succeeds Athelstan as King of England)...which all has nothing to do with EK. Nonetheless, 939 is the exact number of posts we had to sift through for 2013 in order to bring to all of you art-fiends our fourth annual EMPTY KINGDOM TOP 100 Artists of 2013!

New York based photographer Maxwell Snow presents his series entitled “The Lady of Shalott”. This project was showcased at Colette, Paris, inspired by Alfred Tennyson’s poem.

Photographer Akzidenz' work goes beyond composition by using various layers of images to create a literal and allegorical depth both visually and sequentially.  

Originally hailing from Germany, Zun Lee is a self-taught photographer who is currently based out of Toronto, Canada. In Lee's series, "Father Figure", he delves into a deep and personal journey documenting African-American fathers and their relationship with their children after he learned about a family secret that changed his life forever.