Peter Machen is an artist and writer from Durban, South Africa. He has been working with photography for 25 years and  has in recent years also starting working with video images. He is more concerned with subjective modes of experience and the expressionist power of photography than with notions of objectivity and adherence to photorealism. As well as an arts writer and film critic, Peter was director of the Durban International Film Festival for several years and is the author of Durban: A Paradise and its people and Durban: A Return to Paradise. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.