For 20 years, LensCulture has celebrated photography as a universal language, connecting a global community across 160 countries. Together, we’ve discovered remarkable photographers, shared powerful stories, and opened new perspectives.
Through awards, exhibitions, screenings, books, and resources, we’ve worked to inspire and support photographers at every stage of their journey. To celebrate 20 years, we want to highlight 20+ exceptional photographers we’ve had the privilege of featuring over the years below.
We hope you take some time to explore their work. To all these photographers, and our LensCulture community, thank you for being a part of our journey. Cheers to another two decades of visionary discoveries!
California — John Chiara
Using huge, hand-built cameras, and printing directly from life onto photo paper, John Chiara creates unique sculptural images that are stunningly beautiful and surprisingly intimate.
Images by John Chiara
Interview by Jim Casper
Splicing and rearranging the subjects depicted in vintage flea market finds, photographer Kensuke Koike reformats discarded memories into intriguing and precise abstract works.
Photographs by Kensuke Koike
Interview by Cat Lachowskyj
Maysa — Luisa Door
A kind, 11-year-old girl entrenched in the poverty and trauma of one of Sao Paulo’s worst slums. Her possible way out? The “Young Miss Brazil” beauty pageant.
Photographs and text by Luisa Dorr
Sometimes cruel, sometimes seductive, but always buzzing with vitality and humanity, Japan’s capital city is viewed here through a photographer’s lens.
Photographs and text by Tatsuo Suzuki
Behind Glass — Lisa Sorgini
A sensual document of these trying times, Lisa Sorgini’s series of portraits taken during the pandemic render the complex experience of motherhood in shifting shades of light and darkness.
Photographs by Lisa Sorgini
Essay by Cat Lachowskyj
Impossible Installations — Synchrodogs
Fueling their artistic practice with a deep commitment to innovation, Ukrainian duo Synchrodogs’ latest project takes their dreamlike aesthetic to new terrain through a collaboration with Artificial Intelligence.
Photographs by Synchrodogs (Tania Shcheglova and Roman Noven)
Interview by Joanna L. Cresswell
Batismo — Gleeson Paulino
In Gleeson Paulino’s dreamlike series, water serves as an immersive reconnection to his native Brazil, acting as a catalyst of renewal, forgiveness, encounter, and play.
Photographs by Gleeson Paulino
Essay by Magali Duzant
La Famille — Alain Laboile
An intimate family album documents the freedoms of childhood among six siblings “at the edge of the world” in rural France.
Photographs and text by Alain Laboile
Positive Disintegration — Tania Franco Klein
Philosopher Byung-Chul Han says we live in an era of exhaustion and fatigue, caused by an incessant compulsion to make our lives ‘perfect’ — here is a visual response to those ideas.
Photobook by Tania Franco Klein
Interview by Jim Casper
Another America — Phillip Toledano
Phil Toledano has often pushed the boundaries of photography to imagine the future; now he’s tapping into AI to create alternative histories, challenging our belief in any images at all.
AI-generated images by Phillip Toledano
Interview by Jim Casper
Experimental Relationship — Pixy Liao
Pixy Liao started using her boyfriend as a “prop” in her photos, but that evolved into an ongoing 12-year project documenting their unconventional relationship, resulting in some eye-opening images.
Photographs by Pixy Liao
Interview by Cat Lachowskyj
New York Noir — Giacomo Brunelli
Moody, cinematic, timeless — these black and white photos of New York evoke another era and a noirish sensibility, but they were all made within the past two years.
Photographs by Giacomo Brunelli
Interview by Jim Casper
Looking Out From Within — Julia Fullerton-Batten
Peeking in from outside her neighbors’ windows, London photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten creates elaborate, cinematic tableaux, voicing their stories from a distance.
Photographs by Julia Fullerton-Batten
Text by Liz Sales
The Walks — Laura Pannack
“It’s kind of like train roulette: you shouldn’t know where you’re going to go, only shoot in daylight hours, always shoot on film…” These are The Walks, one photographer’s attempt to escape daily life in search of beautiful, truthful, direct experience.
Video interview with Laura Pannack
Stranger Fruit — Jon Henry
These portraits were created in response to the murders of African American men, due to police violence. The mothers in these photos have not lost their sons, but understand that their son could be next.
Photographs and text by Jon Henry
Infinite Tenderness — Peyton Fulford
Drawing on the author’s personal experience of growing up in a religious household in the American South, a series that creates an accepting space for America’s queer youth—while offering a visual diary of youth experience across the USA.
Photographs and text by Peyton Fulford
North Korea: Setting the Stage — Eddo Hartmann
A Dutch photographer visited North Korea four times on official projects—and shares his personal view of the ever-mysterious capital city Pyongyang through super-detailed photos, video, sound, and a secret weapon.
Photographs by Eddo Hartmann
Text by Jim Casper
See You At Home — Vikesh Kapoor
A poetic, melancholy photo story — What does it look like (and feel like) to age and grow old as immigrants in America?
Photographs by Vikesh Kapoor
Text by Corey Keller, Curator, SFMoMA
Stars — Ellie Davies
Combining images of the Milky Way and other celestial phenomena with “mature and ancient” forest landscapes, a series that ruminates on our connection to (or detachment from) the natural world.
Photographs by Ellie Davies
Text by Coralie Kraft
Re: Touch, the Arithmetics of Distance — Amanda Marchand
Artistic experiments using antique photo retouching inks and old slide film shimmer with serendipity and new meaning years after they were created and stored away.
Photographs and text by Amanda Marchand
We will be featuring more great photography and photographers from the first 20 years of LensCulture, but if you can’t wait, be sure to check these from the archives:
Diana Markosian / Jacob Aue Sobol / Roger Ballen / Viviane Sassen / Jeff Cowen / Cristina De Middel / Paul Cupido / Thomas Sauvin / Tariq Zaidi / Abelardo Morell / Jorge de la Torriente / Jess T. Dugan / Alia Ali / Pietro Baroni / Francisco Gomez de Villaboa / Alice Mann / Lebohang Kganye / Amy Friend / Bambi No Muere / Namsa Leuba / Bertien van Manen / Sandra Pereznieto / Juul Kraijer / David Maisel / Nina Röder / Oleg Tolstoy / Agnieszka Sosnowska / Karen Navarro / Tan Kraipuk / Janelle Lynch / Kenta Nakamura / Emma Livingston / Krijn van Noordwijk / Michael Magers / Thomas Freteur / Michael Wolf / Peter Franck / Tabitha Barnard / Daniel Szalai / Enayat Asadi / Michael Young / Tamaki Yoshida / M L Casteel / Heidi Kirkpatrick / Martin Roemers / Cate Wnek / Rima Maroun/ Julie Hamel
