PICTORIAL STORY ARE THOSE WINDS Along Istanbul’s northern edge, Ci Demi photographs the last water buffalo herders as they keep working, remembering, and staying put while the city closes in. May 24, 2026 PICTORIAL STORY PHOTOGRAPHY Ci Demi STORY Ci Demi and Melanie Meggs SHARE Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Ci Demi did not arrive at photography through a formal route. Born in Istanbul in 1986, he studied Italian Literature at Istanbul University and came to photography at twenty-eight. The shift began during the Gezi Park uprising in 2013, when he found himself using his phone not casually, but with purpose. “I found myself not chanting slogans but photographing everything using my phone; it was instinctual,” he recalls. “Right then and there, I decided I wasn’t meant to be an escapist writer but a witness.” That distinction between escape and witness continues to shape his practice. Istanbul appears as a system of pressure, memory, disappearance, and response. His photographs ask what remains, what is being removed, and what forms of life continue under conditions of urban expansion. Although photography entered his life after literature, his earlier training remains present. “I have always been a storyteller in some form or another,” he says. “My literature background helped me write the stories first, then continue collecting images for them. While my work isn’t staged, I would say it’s constructed much like a novel.” This sense of construction is central to his method. His photographs accumulate through walking, returning, observing, and waiting until a structure begins to emerge. Demi’s debut photobook, Şehir Fikri (Notion of a City), published by Onagöre in 2022, presented Istanbul through absence. Inspired by Georges Perec’s La Disparition (A Void, 1969), the book removed people, animals, and language from the city. What remained was not emptiness, but a study of urban presence without human anchoring. In that work, Istanbul becomes a field of withheld information: seen but not explained. His ongoing project Are Those Winds marks a shift. Here, the human figure returns. Animals enter the frame. Labor becomes visible. The series documents the owners and herders of Istanbul’s last remaining water buffaloes in the city’s northern outskirts. First commissioned by Climavore x Jameel at RCA, the portraits were exhibited and used in campaigns for the September 2025 Water Buffalo Festival, or Manda Festivali. Demi has since developed the project independently, with the organization’s permission, expanding it from portraiture into a wider study of landscape, livelihood, and displacement. The work began before it had a fixed form. Demi first visited Istanbul’s northern outskirts in 2017, where he encountered a herd of water buffaloes walking along the road. At the time, the third bridge connecting Asia to Europe had recently been completed, despite public opposition. For Demi, this moment signaled a larger transformation. “There was certainly a story there,” he says. “That started the relentless expansion of the city. My ‘instinct’ was to document what was going on.” For years, he returned and made images without a resolved framework. The commission gave him access and clarified the stakes. “It was an incredible opportunity to embed myself in the landscape,” he explains. “My brief was to make portraits, for the most part, but during our visits to the north, I kept looking around, collecting bits and pieces of the landscape. The change was rapid and ruthless. I saw a complete erasure.” The communities Demi photographs practice mandacılık , the traditional rearing of water buffaloes. They produce milk, kaymak , and buffalo milk ice cream. These practices are not presented as folklore. They are forms of labour, economy, inheritance, and spatial knowledge. They hold a relationship between people, animals, wetlands, and land use that is increasingly incompatible with the city’s current direction. Mining pits, shopping malls, metro extensions, and development triggered by the new Istanbul Airport now press against these agricultural zones. Villages once positioned at the city’s edge have become contested terrain. Demi’s portraits place the herders beside the animals they care for. This is not simply a compositional decision. It is the conceptual center of the work. The photographs insist on interdependence. “The water buffaloes act much like distrusting stray cats,” he says. “They are very skittish, they just observe you, and in the end, they run away. You have to have a bond with them to get closer.” For Demi, the portraits become evidence of trust. “The pictures are about invisible things: visually, there is affection. Yes, I can safely say that those photographs document mutual affection. You see, their lives depend on each other, especially in the wake of this ongoing ecological disaster.” This attention to affection prevents the project from becoming only an account of loss. The political context remains unavoidable, but Demi does not reduce the herders or animals to symbols. He photographs them as participants in a way of life continuing under threat. The work is therefore less about nostalgia than dependency: between human and animal, wetland and livelihood, memory and survival. The title has also changed. The project was previously called Erasure, a title that named the violence directly. “One single command from a certain someone is enough to completely erase history,” Demi says. “Erasure came from that simple fact that we’ve had to accept. It was direct and, at the time, I thought the story needed a one-word title to shoulder the impact.” Yet as the work developed, the title began to feel too broad. Against the current political climate and the scale of violence across the region, Demi felt the word could no longer hold the specificity of this story. “My story was only a small part of what’s wrong,” he says. “I had to make it more personal.” Are Those Winds shifts the project away from declaration and toward uncertainty. The title is a question without a question mark. It refers to forces that cannot be fully seen but are felt through their effects. “It is plural because there are many intertwining variables that we cannot possibly see,” Demi explains. “We only feel the strong winds of the north.” This reframing matters. Erasure names the outcome. Are Those Winds attends to atmosphere, pressure, and perception. It allows the work to remain political while becoming more intimate in its address. Demi’s relationship to Istanbul is central here. He describes his work through psychogeography, a term he encountered when another writer used it in relation to his photographs. He adopted it because it described how he understands the city: “To me, it’s how people and I interact with the city, and how the city responds to us; which, in many ways, it does.” His practice begins with curiosity. He follows the story first, then the images emerge through walking over days, weeks, or months. “There is certainly a language to my pictures,” he says, “but how it comes to be is a complete mystery even to me.” Demi does not present himself as an external observer of Istanbul. He is connected to the city he photographs. “I would say I’m a documentary photographer who works mostly on the streets but, at the same time, points his camera at himself,” he says. “To my eyes, my presence, whilst being completely absent visually, is very apparent in my work.” In Are Those Winds , that absence is not withdrawal. It is position. The photographer is not pictured, but his relation to place structures the work. The urgency of the project is practical as much as conceptual. The land is changing quickly. Access narrows. Sites close. Construction zones appear where open space once existed. “The place gets smaller and smaller with each visit,” Demi says. “The spaces you can access get more limited by the day.” Once a construction site is established, entry often becomes impossible. “The security guards are often very aggressive,” he notes. “They act secretive because, deep down, every sensible person knows that what has been going on is ‘wrong.’ They are doing something wrong; this fact hangs in the air at all times.” Time, in this project, is not a neutral condition. It determines what can still be photographed. “Everything we see there today won’t be there as soon as tomorrow,” Demi says. “I had to accept this, which isn’t exactly the easiest thing.” This produces pressure throughout the series. The work is being made inside transformation, while the ground of the story continues to shift. “I feel a constant urgency,” he says. “A panic, even.” Yet Demi is careful about the limits of photography. He does not overstate the power of the image to intervene. In relation to ecological justice and land use, he sees a gap between opposition and mobilization. Many people in Istanbul, including those close to him, only learned of the water buffaloes and the history of herding through this project. “The tradition will be erased, and we will have been mere helpless witnesses,” he says. “Will what I’ve been trying to show help? ‘At least there will be documents,’ I keep telling myself.” This sentence carries the burden of the work. Documentation becomes both insufficient and necessary. It may not halt development. It may not protect the wetlands. It may not secure the future of the herders or their animals. But it refuses the silence that often follows disappearance. It establishes a record where official narratives produce omission. As Are Those Winds continues, Demi’s attention is expanding. The first stage centered on portraits of water buffaloes and herders, shaped by the original brief. Now, he feels compelled to construct a broader portrait of place. “The landscape is ever-changing, and I’m currently focusing my efforts on documenting as much as possible,” he says. “The water buffalo and human portraits came first, but I feel the need to make a thorough portrait of the place, too.” The project’s future is tied to uncertainty. Demi is not working toward a predetermined narrative arc. Unlike his other personal projects, which he describes as being structured like novels, this work depends on unfolding history. “I’m looking for an ending, and a curiosity about whether I’ll be there to witness it,” he says. “This story hasn’t developed like my other personal stories did: I can’t shoot a novel with this, as it depends upon unfolding history. It’s purely documentarian, in that sense.” What remains unresolved is whether the communities he photographs can continue within fragments of land left behind by development. Demi does not pretend optimism. “I keep thinking about how long the herders and animals will be able to resist,” he says. “Can they exist in small pockets of land that the ‘powers’ will leave them with?” His final question is the one the work turns back toward its audience: “Will people even care?” © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi © Ci Demi Are Those Winds does not answer that question. It holds it open. Through portrait, landscape, colour, and return, Ci Demi constructs a record of a city remaking itself through loss. The work asks what it means to witness when the outcome may already be underway. It asks what photography can do when it cannot stop the forces it names. Most importantly, it refuses to let disappearance occur without being seen. view Ci Demi's portfolio website >>> instagram >>> The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author/s and are not necessarily shared by The Pictorial List. read more stories >>> ARE THOSE WINDS Along Istanbul’s northern edge, Ci Demi photographs the last water buffalo herders as they keep working, remembering, and staying put while the city closes in. COLORS OF HÜZÜN Through fragments and gestures, Pedro Vidal traces Istanbul as shared melancholy lingers in everyday life, the city unfolding slowly and refusing to settle into a single, definitive understanding. OUT OF PLAY An exploration of abandoned interiors in which Marco Lugli examines how objects, light, and space carry memory beyond human presence, establishing absence as a condition of material continuity rather than loss. REIMAGINING TALIESIN Form gives way to flux in Amy Newton-McConnel’s photographs, where architecture unfolds as a field of shifting relations and perception moves with light, geometry, and time. WHERE THE MUSIC BEGINS Before the strings, Jeevan Akash Jayavarthanan leaves the movement of the street for the rhythm of the workshop, where time holds, hands work, and each moment forms what will later be heard. LAND, LABOR, AND THE GOLDEN FIBER In West Bengal’s jute fields, Rajesh Dhar examines the systems of land and labor, tracing how a single material sustains communities and informs a changing ecological future. WITH GRATITUDE AND DEVOTION A quiet and intimate account of devotion in Zaraza, Venezuela, Rafael Ayala Páez reflects on faith, memory, and community through photographs and words that honor the enduring power of small gestures. SILVER AND BREATH Within this fragile space between looking and being seen, Eva Christina Nielsen has developed a practice that is both restrained and deeply attentive. RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. DELTA DUSK John Agather weaves image and text into a single current, tracing how music, memory, and daily life continue to move through the Mississippi Delta. SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. SOLITUDE UNDER A TECHNIFIED SUN Tracing the space between movement and stillness, Héctor Morón reveals a city that persists as human presence slips by. 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. THE PAINTED VILLAGE OF LABANDHAR Anjan Ghosh’s photographs carry us to Labandhar, where painting becomes language, tradition stays present, and art grows through shared ground. ORDINARY GRIEF What endures when everything else is uncertain? Through photography, Parisa Azadi asks us to see Iran not as story, but as feeling. THE EVERYMAN Eva Mallis uncovers the quiet strength of overlooked lives, capturing everyday encounters in Mumbai’s industrial districts as intimate portraits of labor and resilience. IN BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTER In Cairo’s City of the Dead, families carve out ordinary lives among centuries of tombs — Paola Ferrarotti traces the fragile line between memory and survival. UNFIGURED Nasos Karabelas transforms the human body into a site of emotional flux — where perception fractures and inner states become visible form. VISIONS OF ICELAND FROM ABOVE Massimo Lupidi takes flight above Iceland — capturing nature’s abstract brushstrokes where land, water, and sky blur into poetic visions beyond the ordinary eye. UNDER THE CLOUDS Giordano Simoncini presents a visual ethnography of the interconnectedness of indigenous cosmology, material life, and the ecological balance within the Quechua communities of the Peruvian Andes. NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy — strangers lost in thought in a world before digital distractions took hold. THE GHOST SELF Buku Sarkar stages her refusal to vanish. Her photographs are unflinching, lyrical acts of documentation, mapping a body in flux and a mind grappling with the epistemic dissonance of chronic illness. WHISPERS On Mother’s Day, Regina Melo's story asks us to pause. To remember. To feel. It honors the profound, often quiet sacrifices that mothers make, and the invisible threads that bind us to them. BEYOND THE MASK By stepping beyond the scripted world of professional wrestling and into the raw terrain of mental health, Matteo Bergami and Fabio Giarratano challenge long-held myths about masculinity, endurance, and heroism. FRAGMENTS OF TIME Each of jfk's diptychs functions as a microcosm of the city, allowing viewers to experience urban life as constant fragmented glimpses, mirroring the unpredictable nature of human interactions.

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We are on a mission to discover new photographers, and the most pictorial and interesting photo stories out there. SPOTLIGHT / CI DEMI Istanbul TÜRKIYE AARON RUBINO ABBIE BRIGGS ABDULLA SHINOSE CK ABHAY PATEL ABHISHEK SINGH ADAM SINCLAIR ADESH GAUR ADRIAN PELEGRIN ADRIAN TAN ADRIAN WHEAR AGATA LO MONACO AHMET HOJAMYRADOV AJ BERNSTEIN ALAN THEXTON ALEJANDRO DAVILA ALESSANDRO GIUGNI ALEX FRAYNE ALEX GOTTFRIED BONDER ALEX RUTHERFORD ALEXANDRA AVLONITIS ALEXANDROS ZILOS ALEXEY STRECHEN ALICIA HABER AMY HOROWITZ AMY NEWTON McCONNEL GET ON THE LIST © John St.

Presenting the work of visual storytellers from around the world. ARE THOSE WINDS Along Istanbul’s northern edge, Ci Demi photographs the last water buffalo herders as they keep working, remembering, and staying put while the city closes in. PICTORIAL STORY ARE THOSE WINDS Along Istanbul’s northern edge, Ci Demi photographs the last water buffalo herders as they keep working, remembering, and staying put while the city closes in. PICTORIAL STORY COLORS OF HÜZÜN Through fragments and gestures, Pedro Vidal traces Istanbul as shared melancholy lingers in everyday life, the city unfolding slowly and refusing to settle into a single, definitive understanding. PICTORIAL STORY OUT OF PLAY An exploration of abandoned interiors in which Marco Lugli examines how objects, light, and space carry memory beyond human presence, establishing absence as a condition of material continuity rather than loss. PICTORIAL STORY REIMAGINING TALIESIN Form gives way to flux in Amy Newton-McConnel’s photographs, where architecture unfolds as a field of shifting relations and perception moves with light, geometry, and time. PICTORIAL STORY WHERE THE MUSIC BEGINS Before the strings, Jeevan Akash Jayavarthanan leaves the movement of the street for the rhythm of the workshop, where time holds, hands work, and each moment forms what will later be heard. PICTORIAL STORY LAND, LABOR, AND THE GOLDEN FIBER In West Bengal’s jute fields, Rajesh Dhar examines the systems of land and labor, tracing how a single material sustains communities and informs a changing ecological future. PICTORIAL STORY WITH GRATITUDE AND DEVOTION A quiet and intimate account of devotion in Zaraza, Venezuela, Rafael Ayala Páez reflects on faith, memory, and community through photographs and words that honor the enduring power of small gestures. PICTORIAL STORY SILVER AND BREATH Within this fragile space between looking and being seen, Eva Christina Nielsen has developed a practice that is both restrained and deeply attentive. PICTORIAL STORY RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. PICTORIAL STORY DELTA DUSK John Agather weaves image and text into a single current, tracing how music, memory, and daily life continue to move through the Mississippi Delta. PICTORIAL STORY SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. PICTORIAL STORY SOLITUDE UNDER A TECHNIFIED SUN Tracing the space between movement and stillness, Héctor Morón reveals a city that persists as human presence slips by. PICTORIAL STORY 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. PICTORIAL STORY THE PAINTED VILLAGE OF LABANDHAR Anjan Ghosh’s photographs carry us to Labandhar, where painting becomes language, tradition stays present, and art grows through shared ground. PICTORIAL STORY ORDINARY GRIEF What endures when everything else is uncertain? Through photography, Parisa Azadi asks us to see Iran not as story, but as feeling. PICTORIAL STORY THE EVERYMAN Eva Mallis uncovers the quiet strength of overlooked lives, capturing everyday encounters in Mumbai’s industrial districts as intimate portraits of labor and resilience. PICTORIAL STORY IN BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTER In Cairo’s City of the Dead, families carve out ordinary lives among centuries of tombs — Paola Ferrarotti traces the fragile line between memory and survival. PICTORIAL STORY UNFIGURED Nasos Karabelas transforms the human body into a site of emotional flux — where perception fractures and inner states become visible form. PICTORIAL STORY VISIONS OF ICELAND FROM ABOVE Massimo Lupidi takes flight above Iceland — capturing nature’s abstract brushstrokes where land, water, and sky blur into poetic visions beyond the ordinary eye. PICTORIAL STORY UNDER THE CLOUDS Giordano Simoncini presents a visual ethnography of the interconnectedness of indigenous cosmology, material life, and the ecological balance within the Quechua communities of the Peruvian Andes. PICTORIAL STORY NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy — strangers lost in thought in a world before digital distractions took hold. PICTORIAL STORY THE GHOST SELF Buku Sarkar stages her refusal to vanish. Her photographs are unflinching, lyrical acts of documentation, mapping a body in flux and a mind grappling with the epistemic dissonance of chronic illness. PICTORIAL STORY WHISPERS On Mother’s Day, Regina Melo's story asks us to pause. To remember. To feel. It honors the profound, often quiet sacrifices that mothers make, and the invisible threads that bind us to them. PICTORIAL STORY BEYOND THE MASK By stepping beyond the scripted world of professional wrestling and into the raw terrain of mental health, Matteo Bergami and Fabio Giarratano challenge long-held myths about masculinity, endurance, and heroism. PICTORIAL STORY FRAGMENTS OF TIME Each of jfk's diptychs functions as a microcosm of the city, allowing viewers to experience urban life as constant fragmented glimpses, mirroring the unpredictable nature of human interactions.

CI DEMI My path to this medium wasn’t traditional; I studied Italian Literature at Istanbul University and only discovered photography at the age of 28. That background continues to shape how I construct images. I approach photography through story, structure, absence, and return, allowing each project to develop through observation rather than staging. My personal work explores the psychogeography of Istanbul. I am interested in how the city holds memory, pressure, transformation, and loss, and how intimate experience becomes embedded within the landscape. Working through a documentarian approach, I use unstaged images, colour, and quiet tension to examine the relationship between place and lived experience. In 2022, Onagöre published my debut photobook, Şehir Fikri (Notion of a City), an eerie portrayal of Istanbul marked by the absence of people, animals, and language. Inspired by Georges Perec’s La Disparition (A Void, 1969), the book considers the city through what is withheld. My photographs have been featured in Foam Magazine and the British Journal of Photography, and exhibited at Les Rencontres d’Arles, Pera Museum, and Mudec. Alongside my personal projects, I work as a documentary photographer, with work published in The New York Times, Financial Times, and Der Spiegel. LOCATION Istanbul TÜRKIYE CAMERA/S Fujifilm X-M5 WEBSITE https://cidemi.fyi/ @CI_DEMI FEATURES // Are Those Winds

Be inspired by the photographers on the 2020 List. 2020 PHOTOGRAPHERS © Abbie Briggs ABBIE BRIGGS Wisconsin USA ABHAY PATEL Delhi INDIA ABHISHEK SINGH New Delhi INDIA ADAM SINCLAIR Melbourne AUSTRALIA ADESH GAUR Uttar Pradesh INDIA ADRIAN TAN SINGAPORE ADRIAN WHEAR Melbourne AUSTRALIA AHMET HOJAMYRADOV Minsk BELARUS ALEX FRAYNE Adelaide AUSTRALIA ALEXANDRA AVLONITIS New York ALEXEY STRECHEN RUSSIA ALICIA HABER Montevideo URAGUAY ANEEKA MANKU England UNITED KINGDOM ANGEL CARNICER Zaragoza SPAIN ANNA MARCHIOLI FRANCE ANNETTE LANG Nice FRANCE ANTONIS GIAKOUMAKIS Athens GREECE ANWAR SADAT Nairobi KENYA ARTURO CAÑEDO Lima PERU ASHISH PATEL Delhi INDIA ASSIA STARKE RUSSIA/AUSTRIA ASTRID NEUNDLINGER Vienna AUSTRIA B JANE LEVINE New York USA BELINDA CORNEY London UNITED KINGDOM BENNY VAN DEN BULKE BELGIUM

Be inspired by the photographers on the 2022 List. 2022 PHOTOGRAPHERS © Adrian Pelegrin ADRIAN PELEGRIN Playa del Carmen MEXICO AHSANUL HAQUE FAHIM Dhaka, BANGLADESH AJ BERNSTEIN New York UNITED STATES ANWAR EHTESHAM Dhaka BANGLADESH ASEN GEORGIEV Sofia BULGARIA ASLI GONEN Eskisehir TURKEY BRIAN DOUGLAS Ontario CANADA CAHLEEN HUDSON New Taipei City TAIWAN CHETAN VERMA Gurgaon INDIA DEAN GOLDBERG New York UNITED STATES ELIZABETH PAOLETTI UNITED STATES EMIR SEVIM Istanbul TURKEY EMY MAIKE Baden Württemberg GERMANY FRANCESCA TIBONI Cagliari ITALY GABRIEL MIELES GUZMÁN Guayaquil ECUADOR GABRIELE GENTILE Parma ITALY GIANLUCA MORTAROTTI London UNITED KINGDOM GIORGIO GERARDI Venice ITALY JAN ENKELMANN London UNITED KINGDOM JEAN ROSS New York UNITED STATES JELISA PETERSON Texas UNITED STATES JENS F. KRUSE Mallorca SPAIN JONAS WELTEN Salzburg AUSTRIA LAINE MULLALLY Stockholm SWEDEN LELE BISSOLI Vercelli ITALY

Be inspired by the photographers on the 2025 List. 2025 PHOTOGRAPHERS © Stephanie Duprie Routh ABDULLA SHINOSE CK Malabar INDIA ALEJANDRO DAVILA Pachuca MEXICO ANTON BOU Montreal CANADA AYANAVA SIL Kolkata INDIA BETTY GOH SINGAPORE BUKU SARKAR Paris FRANCE CYNTHIA KARALLA New York UNITED STATES DAVID GRAY New York UNITED STATES EVA MALLIS New York UNITED STATES FANJA HUBERS Utrecht THE NETHERLANDS FUTURE HACKNEY London UNITED KINGDOM GIORDANO SIMONCINI Rome ITALY GUILLERMO FRANCO Córdoba ARGENTINA HIROYUKI ITO New York UNITED STATES JAY HSU Yilan City TAIWAN KAT PUCHOWSKA Barcelona SPAIN LAETITIA HEISLER Berlin GERMANY LUISA MONTAGNA Parma ITALY MASSIMO LUPIDI ITALY MATTEO BERGAMI Bologna ITALY MEERA NERURKAR Düsseldorf GERMANY NASOS KARABELAS Greece ATHENS NICOLA CAPPELLARI Vicenza ITALY PARISA AZADI IRAN & DUBAI PARVATHI KUMAR New Jersey UNITED STATES

Be inspired by the photographers on the 2023 List. 2023 PHOTOGRAPHERS © Ypatia Kornarou AARON RUBINO San Francisco UNITED STATES ALESSANDRO GIUGNI Milan ITALY ALEX GOTTFRIED BONDER Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA AMY NEWTON McCONNEL Arizona UNITED STATES ANASTASIYA PENTYUKHINA Moscow RUSSIA ANDREE THORPE Ontario CANADA BARBARA PEACOCK Portland UNITED STATES BRANDEN MAY Atlanta, UNITED STATES DARREN SACKS London UNITED KINGDOM DOUG WINTER California UNITED STATES ELSA ARRAIS Leiria PORTUGAL FABIO CATANZARO Venice ITALY GILES ISBELL Chiang Mai, THAILAND IDA DI PASQUALE Rome ITALY JAN PONNET Antwerp BELGIUM JAYESH KUMAR SHARMA Varanasi INDIA JEFF ROTHSTEIN New York UNITED STATES JUAN BARTE Madrid SPAIN JUAN SOSTRE California UNITED STATES KONRAD HELLFEUER Görlitz GERMANY LEANNE STAPLES New York UNITED STATES MENA SAMBIASI Madrid SPAIN MONIKA JURGA POLAND NAIMA HALL New York UNITED STATES NSIRIES Bologna ITALY

Be inspired by the photographers on the 2024 List. 2024 PHOTOGRAPHERS © Anna Tut ALEXANDROS ZILOS Athens GREECE AMY HOROWITZ New York UNITED STATES ANA-MARIA ALB Bukovina ROMANIA ANN PETRUCKEVITCH UNITED KINGDOM ANNA TUT Krasnogorsk City RUSSIA CARMEN SOLANA CIRES Madrid SPAIN CATIA MONTAGNA SCOTLAND/ITALY DASHA DARVAJ UMRIGAR Karachi PAKISTAN DEDIPYA BASAK Kolkata INDIA EDWIN CARUNGAY San Francisco UNITED STATES FRANCE LECLERC Chicago UNITED STATES ISABELLE COORDES Münster GERMANY JOHN KAYACAN Los Angeles UNITED STATES JUSTINE GEORGET Lyon FRANCE MARIETTE PATHY ALLEN New York UNITED STATES MATTHIAS GÖDDE Beckum GERMANY MEI SEVA New York UNITED STATES MIA DEPAOLA Washington D.C UNITED STATES NAZANIN DAVARI Tehran IRAN PAUL COOKLIN UNITED KINGDOM PEDRO VIDAL Barcelona SPAIN RAFA ROJAS São Paulo BRAZIL ROMAIN COUDRIER Marseille FRANCE ROWELL B. TIMOTEO La Union PHILIPPINES SASHA IVANOV St. Petersburg RUSSIA

Be inspired by the photographers on the 2021 List. 2021 PHOTOGRAPHERS © Meryl Meisler AGATA LO MONACO ITALY ALAN THEXTON Melbourne AUSTRALIA ALEX RUTHERFORD Surrey UNITED KINGDOM ANDRES GONZALEZ Porto PORTUGAL ANDREW ROVENKO Melbourne AUSTRALIA ANDRÉ LOBÃO London UNITED KINGDOM AURÉLIEN BOMY Nantes FRANCE BARRY BOTTOMLEY London UNITED KINGDOM BASTIAN PETER Basel SWITZERLAND BEN ALLAN London UNITED KINGDOM BETTY MANOUSOS Athens GREECE CAMILLE WHEELER Texas USA CARLA HENOUD Beirut LEBANON CAROL DRONSFIELD New York UNITED STATES CHICHEK BAYRAMLY Baku AZERBAIJAN CHRISTINA SIMONS Melbourne AUSTRALIA DAMIEN GORET FRANCE DANIEL GOLDENBERG Buenos Aires ARGENTINA DANIELA PEREIRA Montevideo URUGUAY DANNY JACKSON Essex UNITED KINGDOM DAVID KUGELMAS New York UNITED STATES DAVID LAWLESS Winnipeg CANADA DAVID SHORTLAND London UNITED KINGDOM DREW KELLEY California USA EDUARDO ORTIZ Valparaiso CHILE

Celebrating together the book launch of VOLUME ONE – NEW YORK! The photographers have captured the very essence of New York. THE PICTORIAL LIST VOLUME ONE - NEW YORK BOOK LAUNCH EVENT 10.19.2024 explore the event There may be no better way to communicate what we have done than through photography. Can you believe it?! We finally did it! It was with great excitement and pride that we got to celebrate together the book launch of VOLUME ONE – NEW YORK! When we officially started The Pictorial List in January 2020, it was a passion project born from our collective love of photography. We wanted to create something meaningful for photographers — a global, inclusive community that would inspire and support visual storytellers from all walks of life. This beautiful 276-page hardcover volume is more than just a book. It’s the embodiment of our mission to honor the past while propelling the future of contemporary photography. The photographers in this book have captured the very essence of New York — its vibrancy, its contradictions, its soul. They are all a testament to the power of photography to reveal, to provoke, and to inspire. Thank you to every one of you. You guys were our guinea pigs in this journey, and we are so thankful for your patience, graciousness, and the help you extended to us as we found our way. Your trust and collaboration made this publication possible, and we couldn’t have done it without your understanding and willingness to grow alongside us. Your work, your stories, and your passion are at the heart of VOLUME ONE – NEW YORK, and we are deeply grateful for your contributions. Thank you to Karen Ghostlaw Pomarico, my remarkable co-author, whose dedication, vision, and expertise was always instrumental in bringing this book to life. Karen’s passion for the project and her keen insight has enriched every page, adding depth and warmth to our story. I am deeply grateful for her hard work, creativity, and partnership throughout this journey. Thank you, Karen, for your invaluable contributions and unwavering commitment to making this book truly special. Here’s to many more creative adventures, new stories, and all the fun along the way! Special thanks to Meryl Meisler for her wonderful personal foreword and for welcoming our managing director and co-author, Karen Ghostlaw Pomarico, and our editor, Bill Lacey, into her and Patti’s home, giving us an intimate glimpse into Meryl’s creative process. Your generosity and openness have truly enriched this project, and we are so grateful for your contribution. A heartfelt appreciation goes out to the incredible Pictorial team — Karen Ghostlaw Pomarico, Karin Svadlenak Gomez, Bill Lacey, Ibi Gowon and John St. — who dedicate their time and energy every day. Their unwavering dedication is invaluable. The collective efforts in writing, editing, and curating daily have transformed The Pictorial List into a vibrant and creative platform. You write, edit, and curate daily, and it’s because of your hard work that The Pictorial List has become such a vibrant and creative platform. An immense and abundant thank you goes out to Karen Ghostlaw Pomarico and her husband, Michael Pomarico, whose dedication and tireless work behind the scenes brought this event to life. Their warmth and generosity were endless, hosting me with such care, treating me to wonderful experiences, and making me feel right at home. Beyond the unforgettable event, they shared the magic of New York City and the spectacular autumn colors of upstate New York with me — moments that will forever hold a special place in my heart. We would also like to express our gratitude to the wonderful Newburgh community. You have been so gracious in donating what we saw on the day. A very special thank you goes to Ted Doering and Shirley Noto, who generously allowed us to use this magnificent old bank to hold our event. Your kindness and support mean the world to us, and we couldn’t have asked for a more stunning venue to showcase this book. A big thank you to Michelangelo for filling the day with such beautiful music, and to Jessica for her warm and attentive hospitality. Your contributions made the event truly special! For over two centuries, the question has been asked: “Is photography truly an art?” At The Pictorial List, we believe the answer is a resounding yes. This volume stands as proof that photography is a vital expression of self — a medium capable of capturing both the extraordinary and the everyday in a way no other art form can. Thank you all for being part of this journey, and thank you for helping us celebrate the launch of VOLUME ONE – NEW YORK. We hope this book inspires you as much as it has inspired us. Here’s to the beauty, complexity, and endless possibilities of photography. Thank you 💖 Melanie Meggs Founder and Creative Director THE PICTORIAL LIST VOLUME ONE- NEW YORK BUY NOW