Street Beauty: Capturing the Ephemeral with Hannah Judah & ATMA
Written by T.K. Mills
Photos supplied by Hannah Judah
If a tree falls in the woods, but no one is around to hear it, does it make it a sound? Or rather, if a striking mural is painted, but no one is around to see it, can it truly be a masterpiece? While artists are the force that shape the walls, it is the eyes of the photographer that bring it to the world.
I first met street art photographer Hannah Judah by in 2023 at the Nuart Festival, though I’d been a fan of her work for some time beforehand. Among other things, one matter that struck me was her respect for the craft, and her dedication to getting the perfect shot, an art in its own right.
Recently, Hannah teamed up with artist and designer ATMA to create Street Beauty, a 300+ page collection of murals bound into an incredibly well-crafted coffee table book. As someone who creates printed street art publication, I was thoroughly impressed with the output, flipping through glossy pages of pieces spanning the globe and accumulated over several years.
To learn more, I spoke with Hannah & ATMA on their journey to create Street Beauty, and what about the world of urban art that captured them.
T.K. Mills: What is your background / How did you first get involved in street art?
Hannah Judah: I spent 12 years in the film industry, working with some of the best cinematographers in the UK and their work always inspired me. I later on worked as an interior designer which reflected my ability to dream and love of colour.
Outside of work, I started to see more and more street art popping up in various cities and started casually snapping it. The more I documented it, the better I wanted to be at it, the technical side of both that and post production. My love for cinematography and colour definitely influenced my photography. Getting paid to photograph street art festivals later on in my journey was the cherry on top. Going up in the lift with some of my favourite artists to capture them in process and to then feature some of those moments in the book is such a milestone.
ATMA: I grew up in the southwest of France in the 1980s, between Bordeaux and Toulouse. My first love was actually music—I was a drummer and a huge fan of hip-hop and jazz in the late ’90s. At the time, The Roots were the soundtrack of my life. It was through music that I first encountered graffiti. Playing in bands led me to a group of MCs who were also writers, and I immediately connected with the spirit of the movement—free to play, speak, paint, and act. It was a multidisciplinary world where words, movements, and styles merged seamlessly.
Toulouse was an influential graffiti city in France back then, with new pieces appearing everywhere. It was an electrifying time. When I stepped into this creative “playground,” I wanted to do something different. Instead of spraying letters, I started to paint large black-and-white portraits of hip-hop and jazz icons, alongside my graffiti-writing friends. The rush was exhilarating—spending countless nights painting, completely hooked on the adrenaline.
Everywhere, artists were pushing the boundaries of traditional graffiti, introducing new styles, new meanings, abstraction, symbolism, and calligraphy—using the power of an illegal medium to communicate with the public, tell stories, and make statements. Looking back, it was the birth of what we now call street art. It was no longer just about graffitti; a new form of artistic expression and social impact was unfolding before the world’s eyes.
At the time, I was studying communication and had a realization: Street art is going to become the new voice of the people.
T.K. Mills: What inspired you to create a book?
Hannah Judah: People had bugged me about creating an anthology for years, and shots of my work had been featured in a variety of books. When ATMA suggested us creating one together, the time felt right. I had a huge body of work to draw upon by that time and knew that ATMA and I would be a formidable team.
T.K. Mills: How did you select the photos that would be used? / What made you choose that particular cover?
Hannah Judah: There’s something so captivating and otherworldly about Dulk’s ‘The Guardian’ mural and I went to Grenoble specifically to capture it for the cover. I set my alarm at an ungodly hour over a few consecutive mornings to catch it in the right light, and it took three different shades of gold proofs to find the perfect one for the cover. We are thrilled that Dulk was so on board with it and we love what his work stands for. Aside the front cover, it was a case of ATMA curating the images from my archives and occasionally me chiming in to ensure that my favourite shots were included in the book.
T.K. Mills: ATMA, How did you decide on the order of photos?
ATMA: This was one of the toughest challenges I’ve ever taken on! First of all, imagine this—Hannah captured thousands upon thousands of street art pieces, each one beautiful, each one holding its own story. The sheer volume of images to work with was overwhelming, making the selection process both daunting and exhilarating.
The flow of the book, the choice and order of images, was in constant evolution—a process that stretched over nearly four years. During that time, Hannah kept shooting, continuously bringing in new material. The book spans a decade of murals across the UK, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and beyond. It was a delicate balancing act—integrating fresh images while ensuring meaningful relationships between them, all while respecting and honoring each artist’s vision.
At some point, we made a key decision: the final format of the book would be 320 pages—crafted as a beautiful object in its own right. Rather than dividing it into sections by region or year, I designed it as a continuous journey, an uninterrupted flow. It opens with Ed Posters’ meditative Sleeping Ice Queen, leading into a bold transition—My Dog Sighs’ iconic open eye, proudly and gracefully adorning a blue monochrome pub wall. Then, it moves on to Space Is the New Black—a striking, hidden paste-up by Phoebe New York.
Within just three spreads, you travel from Swinton to Glasgow, then London—moving from a meticulously crafted mural to a piece that boldly transforms a space, and finally to an unfiltered, spontaneous street intervention. These carefully considered shifts form the backbone of the book. The connections between works are endless: sometimes they are geographically linked, sometimes a colour flows seamlessly from one page to the next, and sometimes themes emerge organically. But never in a rigid, catalogue-like way—always as a curated experience, staying true to the artists’ intentions and putting the reader in the driver’s seat.
T.K. Mills: How does your experience as an artist influence your role as a designer?
ATMA: My experience as a street artist has been essential in shaping the design of this book. I know firsthand what it takes to create art in the streets—the energy, the risks, the spontaneity. Having painted in many of the countries featured, I’ve developed a deep understanding of their unique artistic communities and cultural nuances, which helped guide the book’s composition.
Hannah’s photography aligns perfectly with my artistic and design sensibilities—her shots capture brightness, boldness, and crispness, creating a high visual impact. This shared vision allowed us to craft a book that not only documents street art but truly celebrates it in its most powerful form.
As an artist, composition, contrast, and colour harmony are second nature to me—essential tools for conveying a vision. I applied these same principles to the book’s design, curating Hannah’s outstanding shots with the same care I bring to my own work.
Beyond the art itself, street art is about people—a vibrant community of artists, collaborators, movers, shakers, and storytellers. To capture this spirit, the book also includes intimate portraits of the legends behind the walls. Street art is not just an aesthetic movement; it’s a network, a living, breathing world. Both Hannah and I are deeply connected to it on a human level, and that connection is woven into every page of this book—from the artist, the designer, and the person that I am.
T.K. Mills: ATMA, what was your philosophy when curating the book?
ATMA: When we set out to make Street Beauty a reality with Hannah, our first goal was to create something truly iconic. Naturally, a book—one that would not only document and preserve the countless breathtaking pieces that appear and disappear but also serve as a lasting artistic celebration of this powerful form of expression.
Street art is incredibly diverse in its forms—murals, paste-ups, and more—its delivery, whether legal, illegal, hidden, or boldly prominent, and its intent, from pure aesthetics to storytelling and imagination. My vision was to embrace this global diversity and craft a journey for the reader—one that unfolds the richness of this world in a way that has never been done before.
At its core, Street Beauty is built on the idea that Hannah’s photographs are artworks in their own right. While they capture street art as their subject, they go beyond documentation, placing these pieces in their full context and celebrating them in a way that elevates their impact like never before.
T.K. Mills: Do you have a favorite photo in the book?
Hannah Judah: The shot of ‘St Mungo’ by Smug taken in Glasgow. It was impossible to catch that one without a car parked slap bang in front it and in the end I had to spend hours digitally removing it. The hyper realistic nature of Smug’s work made that a process a real headache.
ATMA: What a tough question! I spent so much time on this book, and every shot, page, and spread holds its own meaningful place—it feels almost impossible to choose just one. But…
One spread was created very early in the process and has remained untouched ever since—there’s just something magical about it.
Go to pages 64/65, and you’ll find two incredible pieces from the Street Art Fest Grenoble Alpes. On the left, Li-Hill’s mesmerizing Process of Acceleration, a work that beautifully captures movement and raw energy. On the right, Old Skin by Belgian artist Iota, a piece that feels almost frozen in time. There’s also a striking contrast in colour temperature between these two shots, adding another layer of depth.
Together, they create a dynamic composition reminiscent of jazz—one moment, the tempo is high, wild, and expressive; the next, silence takes over, like a moment of suspension. It’s a visual rhythm that still gives me chills.
T.K. Mills: What’s the best/funniest story you have associated with a photo?
Hannah Judah: I’m actually torn between two! One being having a killer hangover in Carlisle, trespassing into a field and finding an old wheelbarrow. I balanced a bucket on top of the wheelbarrow and held the camera as high as my arms would allow to shoot a Tymon de Laat mural. My equally hungover festival organizer friend was standing right by me to catch me if I fell. Which luckily I didn’t!
The other funny story was having to move a bag of brown sludge in front of a mural in Ghent. A godawful smell assaulted my nostrils halfway through slinging the bag. I realized the brown sludge was actually human excrement. Right after painting the mural, I hightailed it to a nearby Mercedes dealership and scrubbed my hands for about 10 minutes! I’m strangely grateful for the grim experience that has been immortalized in my book introduction.
T.K. Mills: The collection of photos span several years, cities, and countries – how did you narrow it down?
Hannah Judah: We were adamant that we wanted the images to be presented in a really unique way for ‘Street Beauty’ and for it not to be another street art atlas or chronology.
ATMA had a real job on his hands with the curation, there was so much to sift through. Not only that, but of course I kept travelling and adding to my archive during the evolution of ‘Street Beauty’. That’s also the reason that it’s such a beast of a book. Our publisher gave us the green light to do whatever we wanted and we were really fortunate there.
We love that the years, cities and countries have been intentionally jumbled up over the course of 320 pages. For me, there are so many memories associated with each shot and it’s so interesting to see my own personal street art journey through ATMA’s eyes.
T.K. Mills: What was something you learned in creating Street Beauty and what were some of the obstacles you overcame in creating the book?
Hannah Judah: Converting RBG images to CMYK was a total nightmare. It was like learning a whole new language, and some colours just wouldn’t convert well. I had to drop a bunch of images from the book because of it. I became a pretty reclusive during various stages of working on the book and abandoned my social life at times. My eyes were killing me from all that post-production work. I went from never needing reading glasses to seeing an optometrist every six months to switch up my prescriptions.
T.K. Mills: There is a symbiotic relationship between artists and photographers, particularly in the street art world, that can occasionally lead to conflict. How have you navigated the space between capturing an artist’s work, with your own artistic flair as a photographer?
Hannah Judah: When I’m working for festivals, my focus is on delivering solid shots of the murals as they are. When it comes to working on images for my own pleasure (and of course many ones in ‘Street Beauty’), that’s when I exercise my creative license, although I dial that down if the artist has come from a classical background and say paints with oils outside of their mural work. They tend to be purists and I respect that. Most artists love the way I interpret and contextualise their works, whether that be with or without my creative twist.
T.K. Mills: What’s your favorite street art memory?
Hannah Judah: Taking a detour to Málaga with my daughter en route to the airport so I could shoot a colossal D*Face and Shepard Fairey mural. The cab driver was in his 70s, and it was such a special moment when the three of us were standing under the scorching sun, all gazing at such an incredible mural. We were cutting it very fine with making it to the airport in time, but somehow the time pressure added to the intensity of that memory.
T.K. Mills: Is there anything you want people to know about you, your photography, or Street Beauty in particular?
Hannah Judah: Yes. It took a lot more time, perseverance and dedication than anyone could ever imagine!
T.K. Mills is the Editor-in-Chief of UP Magazine, a street art publication based in New York City. After receiving a Master’s Degree in Global Affairs, he discovered a love for graffiti while backpacking through Cuba and pursued life as a writer. Outside of UP, T.K. enjoys writing poetry, personal travel essays, and occasionally short stories. His work has been published in The Smart Set, The Vignette Review, Genre Urban Arts, and Eternal Remedy among others. Beyond art, T.K. loves reading and traveling.
