Inside the Minds of the Next Generation of Photographers

Photography as an artform is still somewhat young, despite resting on hundreds of years of history, innovation, development and disruption. Just as with paintings, sculpture and other forms of visual art, photography has a language – basic rules, rules we all preternaturally understand, rules that are often broken to powerful effect. And yet, changing technologies, rapidly-moving cultural modes and more make photography one of the more febrile disciplines in modern art. Leading the charge on that relative febrility is a new generation of photographers, together representing a bold commixture of curiosity, activism and emotional honesty. Their work isn’t just about capturing images; it’s about reshaping how we see the world, for better or for worse. And here is how they do it.

1. New Ways of Seeing
As with any new generation of artists, experimentation is front and centre. All a young, upcoming artist wants to do is play – with mode, with convention and with expectations. What this leads to is new subsets, new ways of seeing that challenge conventions set by the old guard. Young photographers experiment with form, light and narrative, as previous generations have done, to challenge traditional storytelling.

The most recent class, though, can be credited with something unique. Where previous generations bought into a sense of exceptionalism, both individual and national, today’s photographers want no part in recognised excellence. The era of exceptionalism is over (particularly in the US), and trailblazing artists are doing so with no expectation of reward. They’re doing it because they can.

2. Creativity Through Travel
Travel photography is as old as photography – and, as a more philosophical statement, are we ever not travelling when we take pictures? But today’s young-blood photographers are bringing that relaxed approach to developing form along with them on their trips abroad, whether using cheap holidays to find new angles on familiar resorts, or taking long-haul trips to find, recursively, new perspectives on new perspectives.

3. Technology as a Tool
It is impossible to talk about modern photography without acknowledging the artificial elephant in the room: AI. Photography is, today, a technological pursuit, even with a resurgence of film photography in younger generations. Smartphones democratised digital photography further than ever, and put more curative tools in photographers’ pockets than ever – including on-the-go visual editing suites. AI, though, is a fundamental shift.

AI image manipulation and generation has been a headline-grabbing technological disruption, ushering in a new era of fake news far beyond the expectations of early-21st century cultural theorists. Some young photographers are leaning into this tension to create impossible works that blend the real with the unreal; many, though, are muddying the waters in ways which could well harm the artform. The future can only tell.

*Collaborative post