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

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 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

We are on a mission to discover new photographers, and the most pictorial and interesting photo stories out there. SPOTLIGHT / SAYAN BISWAS Kolkata INDIA 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.

The Pictorial List is a global online magazine exploring the beauty and complexity of all things photography. CODE GIRL ART EXHIBITION May 30 to July 26 This exhibition positions GIRL as structure, as manifesto, and as blueprint. It moves beyond representation, unfolding as a system that shapes how work comes into being, finds its place, and is experienced. THE PULL OF THE EARTH This is more than a record of rural Bengal. It looks at the bond between Sayan Biswas and the place that shaped him, even after distance has changed that relationship. Latest features BOOK BETWEEN SEA AND SKY Through walking and flight, Massimo Lupidi reveals Cinque Terre as a landscape shaped by attention, endurance, and the intimate bond between land and human life. INTERVIEW MUTABLE MORPHOGENESIS By merging scientific methodologies with photographic experimentation, Emma Varga creates images that challenge fixed distinctions between human and non-human, visible and invisible. INTERVIEW THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chad Coombs’ Polaroids are small psychological scenes where identity, memory, culture, and belief push against each other. 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. INTERVIEW WHERE WE BELONG Community storytelling lies at the heart of The Pictorial List’s mission, and Marlon Ramos’ photographs reflects the spirit of the place we now call home. PICTORIAL STORY COLORS OF HUZUN 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. INTERVIEW GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. 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. THE VILLAGE A workers’ neighbourhood becomes a living archive as Virginia Cassano photographs the people, streets, and memories that continue to shape Villaggio Piaggio. New York, New York! PICTORIAL STORY NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASTION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy. INTERVIEW FABRIC OF NEW YORK VISUALS Elle Clarke lives NYC — snapping its heart and hustle with her smartphone, one real city moment at a time! INTERVIEW NOD OF RECOGNITION B Jane Levine’s portraits give a playful wink — inviting a nod of recognition to the hidden stories we all carry inside. INTERVIEW NEW YORK IMPROVISATIONS Fast-moving, off-kilter, witty, raw and classic film noir define Bill Lacey's photography. PICTORIAL STORY MERMAID MAGIC AJ Bernstein captures the magic of the Mermaid Parade—where fantasy, freedom, and community come together in a sea of color and joy. INTERVIEW GOTHAM MEMORIES Jeff Rothstein clicks, time unfolds — capturing the heart of the city in timeless frames, from 1969 to today. PICTORIAL STORY TAKING THE PLUNGE Carol Dronsfield takes the plunge with the Coney Island’s Polar Bears, capturing the chill, the thrill, and the heart. INTERVIEW THE AUTHENTIC GAZE Amy Horowitz says “Don’t Smile”— and in doing so, captures the real and wonderfully unscripted faces of New York City. VOLUME ONE- NEW YORK BUY NOW EXHIBITION CODE GIRL May 30 to July 26 2026 Opening Party May 30 @ 5pm This exhibition positions GIRL as structure, as manifesto, and as blueprint. It moves beyond representation, unfolding as a system that shapes how work comes into being, finds its place, and is experienced. MORE INFO © Woobie join the Pictorial Community >>> Follow us on Instagram #thepictoriallist @thepictorial.list Load More TÜRKIYE Rpnunyez offers a thoughtful portrait of a country shaped by history, culture, landscape, architecture, and everyday life. Interviews you may have missed REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE Camille J. Wheeler documents Austin's streets, with a particular focus on its homeless community. COMEDIANS Steve Best documents the British comedy scene, backstage and on stage, the highs and lows, and the joy of being a comedian. QUARANTINE IN QUEENS Neil Kramer's humorous and compassionate lockdown diary has gone viral. ENROUTE TO THE PINES Robert Sherman shares his documentary series about drag queens celebrating the 'Invasion of the Pines'. SERVICE INTERRUPTION Wojciech Karlinski documented Poland train stations during the pandemic, highlighting their formal and aesthetic side. VOICES OF THE NILE Voices of the Nile by Bastien Massa and Arthur Larie is a project documenting the relationship of Ethiopians with the Blue Nile. BREAKS FROM REALITY The magic only dreams are made of become reality for viewers as they engage in the poetic imagery of Mariëtte Aernoudts. BEYOND THE STORY Through her documentary photography, Christina Simons is compelled to tell the stories of those who are unable to do so themselves. © Russell Cobb Stay up to date Subscribing to The Pictorial List means joining a community that values visual storytelling. You will get exclusive content, inspiring pictorial stories, thoughtful interviews, book reviews, and more — delivered weekly to your inbox. Media Partners

PICTORIAL STORY THE PULL OF THE EARTH This is more than a record of rural Bengal. It looks at the bond between Sayan Biswas and the place that shaped him, even after distance has changed that relationship. July 12, 2026 PICTORIAL STORY PHOTOGRAPHY Sayan Biswas TEXT Sayan Biswas INTRODUCTION Melanie Meggs SHARE Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Sayan Biswas returns to rural Bengal not as an outsider, and not simply as a son of the place, but as someone pulled back by something older than memory. Maatir Taan (The Pull of the Earth) is a story about inheritance under pressure. It asks what happens to knowledge when the hands that hold it grow older, and when younger generations are drawn toward cities, work, and other futures. Sayan is part of that movement. He has left, and still he returns. His photographs stand inside that uneasy space between attachment and separation, inheritance and change. Sayan describes himself as a software engineer who happens to use a camera, drawn less to the identity of being a photographer than to the act of observing. That distinction is important. His photographs do not force meaning onto the people he photographs. They allow meaning to gather slowly. The camera becomes a way of looking at what might otherwise pass as ordinary, until it is no longer there. Sayan’s photographs have received five National Geographic Editor’s Choice selections, third prize at the Indian Portrait Prize 2024, and have been exhibited across India and internationally. Such recognition reflects the strength of his eye, but the work itself begins closer to home, in the pull of a place that continues to shape him. Maatir Taan is a record of return, but also a question about responsibility. What do we owe to the places that made us? What remains when the hands that carry knowledge begin to disappear? For Sayan, the answer begins with looking. There is a particular quality to the light in rural Bengal. It arrives softly at dawn over paddy fields, turns brutal at noon on tin rooftops and river surfaces, and at dusk transforms everything it touches into something that feels less like the present and more like a memory already being formed. To photograph in this light, among these people, is to understand why Bengali poets and painters have always returned obsessively to the land itself, not as backdrop, but as living character. Maatir Taan ( The Pull of the Earth ) is my ongoing documentary photography project set among the villages, riverbanks, festival grounds, and domestic interiors of rural West Bengal, India. It resists easy categorization. It is not journalism, though it documents. It is not anthropology, though it observes with care. It sits in the honest, complicated space between all of these things, which is perhaps the only space from which rural Bengal can be truly seen. I am not a full-time documentarian. I am a software engineer living and working in Bangalore, thousands of kilometres from the Bengal I grew up knowing. My home is Kolkata, and beyond Kolkata, the villages, the rivers, the festival grounds, the earthen courtyards of rural West Bengal that exist in an entirely different rhythm from the glass towers and startup culture of India's technology capital. The distance between these two worlds is not merely geographical. It is the distance between a life spent in front of screens and a life spent in conversation with soil, tradition, and the slow, unhurried passage of seasons. Every time I return — camera in hand, software engineer by profession, Bengali by everything else — I am attempting to cross that distance. Maatir Taan is what that crossing looks like. The project moves across the textures of village life without imposing hierarchy between the sacred and the mundane. I follow a Gomira mask carver working barefoot on an earthen floor, wood shavings falling like snow around a half-formed divine face. I photograph a Bohurupi performer costumed as a goddess walking through an open field while an ordinary woman passes behind him, neither particularly surprised by the other. Inside a bamboo home hung with painted masks, a mother tends a clay stove while her daughters study beside her. An elderly woman draws rice-paste figures at her doorstep with the ease of someone doing something her hands have always known. Fishermen spread great billowing nets of blue, green, and orange along the riverbank. A boy pushes his laughing face through a web of red yarn. Sky lanterns rise above Gomira performers standing in a green field at dusk. A grandmother holds a kerosene lamp aloft in a corn store and turns toward me with a smile of uncomplicated warmth. What holds these images together is not subject but tone, expressed through my refusal to rank one life above another, my insistence that the extraordinary and the everyday are, in rural Bengal, the same thing wearing different clothes. There is also an urgency beneath the beauty, one that I feel deeply and personally. The craftspeople I photograph are aging. Younger generations are leaving, many of them, like me, drawn toward India’s cities by opportunity and necessity. The knowledge held in a woodcarver’s hands, a ritual painter’s instinct, or a performer’s memory does not automatically survive. I cannot stop what is shifting, but I can look steadily and say that this existed, this was real, and it deserved to be seen. মাটির টান ( Maatir Taan) carries two meanings at once — the literal pull of soil underfoot, and the Bengali idiom for homesickness, the ache toward a place that shaped you. Both are true of this project. Both are true of me. And for a Bengali far from home, the camera has become the only honest way I know to go back. © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas © Sayan Biswas Maatir Taan is more than a record of rural Bengal. It looks at the bond between Sayan and the place that shaped him, even after distance has changed that relationship. This is what gives the work its complexity. The pull of the earth is sentimental, but not only sentimental. It carries obligation, distance, and the uneasy knowledge that belonging changes once departure has taken place. From this place of partial return, Sayan Biswas asks what can still be carried, what has already shifted, and what photography can hold when memory alone is no longer enough. view Sayan's portfolio 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 >>> THE PULL OF THE EARTH This is more than a record of rural Bengal. It looks at the bond between Sayan Biswas and the place that shaped him, even after distance has changed that relationship. 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.

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 THE PULL OF THE EARTH This is more than a record of rural Bengal. It looks at the bond between Sayan Biswas and the place that shaped him, even after distance has changed that relationship. 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.

Originally from India, I have lived in Boston, New York and Cape Town. Currently I am dividing my time between Zurich and Bombay. My love for photography began in the early 80s, when my Dad gifted me a red Olympus camera. I was down with chicken pox and was in home-quarantine, but I enthusiastically photographed everything in sight. Since then, a camera has been my constant companion over the years. The turning point came about a year and a half ago when I went on a photo tour to Masai Mara. It was in the vast open plains of Africa that I got bitten by the photography bug. I love photography because it has helped me find my voice. It has been a refuge for me during difficult times and a safe place to explore a multitude of emotions of motherhood, conflict, hope, love, isolation and resilience. ULKA CHAUHAN Originally from India, I have lived in Boston, New York and Cape Town. Currently I am dividing my time between Zurich and Bombay. My love for photography began in the early 80s, when my Dad gifted me a red Olympus camera. I was down with chicken pox and was in home-quarantine, but I enthusiastically photographed everything in sight. Since then, a camera has been my constant companion over the years. The turning point came about a year and a half ago when I went on a photo tour to Masai Mara. It was in the vast open plains of Africa that I got bitten by the photography bug. I love photography because it has helped me find my voice. It has been a refuge for me during difficult times and a safe place to explore a multitude of emotions of motherhood, conflict, hope, love, isolation and resilience. LOCATION Zurich SWITZERLAND CAMERA/S Leica M10R WEBSITE https://ulkachauhan.com @ULKACHAUHAN FEATURES // Mystic Voyage The Spirit of a Place

ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARADOXES Living in Nice, Annette Lang uses her camera to witness life beyond the postcard views and to celebrate the beauty of everyday people. ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARADOXES August 26, 2020 INTERVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY Annette Lang INTERVIEW Melanie Meggs Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link SHARE The Mediterranean coastal town of Nice, France, is known for its beautiful azure blue waters, white sand beaches, and breathtaking views. But local photographer Annette Lang has discovered a different kind of beauty that lies beneath the postcard view, one that she has documented through her lens in a series of captivating photographs. Through her work, Annette seeks to capture the stories and moments of people’s everyday lives in a vibrant and painterly style, using the color blue to symbolize the beauty of the region’s moniker, ‘Cote d’Azur.’ As long as she can remember, Annette has been captivated by the seemingly mundane moments of everyday life and the web of cultural and personal significations that she finds within them. From an early age, she could appreciate the unique landscape she would be dropped off in and then pick up from hours later. It was this fascination that led her to pursue anthropology and cultural linguistics and eventually to her current passion for photography. Now calling Nice home, Annette uses her camera to express the life beyond postcard views and to celebrate the ever-changing beauty of the town. She loves catching those tiny fleeting moments that tell larger stories and create larger meanings. In her latest series of photographs, Annette has explored the colour blue more intensively to reveal a depth of emotion and meaning that lies beneath its depiction as ‘Cote d’Azur’. Her work is whimsical and beautiful, inviting viewers to linger in the moment and allowing them to experience the majesty of an ordinary day in Nice, that just makes you crave summer or hope it never ends, depending on which hemisphere you live in. Annette Lang’s photography is a celebration of the ordinary, a reminder that beauty is everywhere if we are willing to take the time to notice it. Through her lens, we are invited to explore the hidden stories and feelings behind everyday life in Nice and to reflect on our own experiences. Come along as we delve into Annette Lang's work and uncover all that it has to offer. The real voyage of discovery does not consist in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing it with new eyes. - Marcel Proust “Photography is exactly that mental voyage of discovery. The viewfinder, making me see beauty where there was a concrete wall before. And seeing the world through other photographers' eyes is very eye opening and always a new ticket to a discovery trip. The last decades have shown that a lot of people travel, without mentally moving away from their standards, assumptions and expectations. It's often about seeking the milder climate, the bluer sky or the wilder ocean. If that travel doesn't occur in our minds, that we risk to ultimately reinforce our prejudices. It demands an effort to step back from what we want to see to really see. I am of course working on that myself.” IN CONVERSATION WITH ANNETTE LANG THE PICTORIAL LIST: Welcome to The List Annette. Please tell us about yourself. When did you start getting interested in photography? ANNETTE LANG: I was born in rural Germany. From that childhood, I keep among other memories that of people constantly observing each other, curious to know who was doing what and somehow eager to spot something exciting. I would never have thought it at that time, but it significantly influenced my gaze upon the world around me, doping my observation skills all while skipping the potentially judgmental streak. I also left me with a deep understanding how important a local community is and that membership involves both benefiting from and contributing to it. I left Germany on a study grant for Lyon, France. I immediately loved living in a big city discovering that different areas kept and thrived on their village character. After graduating in anthropology and cultural linguistics, I spent some years in lecturing and research before transiting into the corporate world. I was lucky to work in the video game and augmented reality sector as a consulting anthropologist and intercultural advisor at the beginning of the new millenium when the whole concept of a virtual world sounded like a substance fueled utopia. Ever since, I have been working both in higher education and the corporate world, travelling for both professional and personal reasons, constantly focused on my very fundamental interest - people and cultures. At the same time, I had my three boys within four years - my by far biggest source of happiness and most exciting trip, above all for myself. Raising them on my own, it has at times been a little sporty and bumpy, chaotic and creative, but a wonderful journey. Photography has been the one element allowing me to hyphenate it all. When on a field trip or otherwise abroad, I had photos of my boys with me. I brought the big wild world back home in pictures and used them during lectures to foster curiosity and to open minds. My first conscious use of photography was during a stay in Mumbai, using the lens as both a looking glass for better understanding and celebration and beauty, and as a shield for the heartbreaking sights. I seem to be twisting a lot in this immersion - distance dichotomy with my camera. TPL: Where do you find your inspiration? AL: This is where we sort of go full circle, back to my village childhood. I find my inspiration in the ordinary life around me, the seemingly unexciting scenes of everyday life. I recently described my street photographer self as that of a truffle pig happily roaming around in the undergrowth. Nobody would call a truffle beautiful when inside the forest, nobody would even give it a second look. Once on the table, it is then hailed as a delicacy. I often feel the same about my street photography. The scene looks boring everyday tasteless and tedious, but holds all the potential for an eyeful of flavours and spices. TPL: What do you want to express through your photography? And what are some of the elements you always try to include in your photographs? AL: My photography sets out to celebrate the beauty of real life and of real people in an iconic place known for its scenic views and often instagrammable places. I operate on a much trodden territory to deter the hidden visual gems of human life. As a village child, I always feel more like a member of a community than as a a mere inhabitant. With my camera, I try to act as the liaison agent or go-between between the community that surrounds me and the viewer of the picture in a relationship of visual ambassadorship. My street photography reflects my curiosity with regard to different life paths whose bends and curves make each personal history unique and precious. The moment I press the shutter, the subjects' and my own life path cross leaving a lasting imprint on mine. Street photography is the visual translation of a brief encounter into a mute and yet luminous visual language. My pictures often, but not exclusively, show single subjects allowing me to fully concentrate on every tiny expressive element when pressing the shutter. I put people centre stage without ever exposing them. Understanding life as an often unexpected and even improbable occurrence of co-existing elements, my photography intends to freeze these in an attempt to create a seemingly paradoxical archaeology of present times. Pressing the shutter button enables me to pause the passage of time for a split second I order to shine light on the seemingly mundane, yet poetic qualities of human encounters and emotions. Comparable to a film still, I try to spur the viewer’s curiosity, imagination and empathy through my photography as to the before and after naturally attached to each frame. My aim is to offer the viewer a glimpse into a stranger’s life inviting them to uncover - in their mind’s eye - what might have been and what might be once that split second has passed. I put particular attention on making sure people in my frames are free to walk their very own path again, without my photo putting a tripping stone on their way through unrespectful exposure. The subject of my frame is a person in real life and as such deserves respect and benevolent attention. I believe that the world would be a better place of we looked beyond big figures and representations of groups to concentrate on individual people. However analytical or seemingly accurate a collective or generalization is, every single person can transcend. Through my photography, I would want people to visually meet people and thus open mental passages. To a certain extent, I would want my photos to be a visual Esperanto, allowing people to relate to a place by understanding its human dimension. The central element in my pictures are people. I am currently trying to use larger frames to see people in a wider context. TPL: Do you have any favourite artists or photographers you would like to share with us, and the reason for their significance? AL: For reasons I ignore, I am often more inspired by humanly accessible people than by the true masters. I somehow feel too insignificant to claim inspiration by people like Henri Cartier Bresson, Dorothea Lange or Ruth Orkin. It feels like whistling in the street and claiming Bach as an inspiration. Instagram has been truly a treasure trop of inspiration, with so many talented people having each something to learn from. Adrian Whear for composing wider frames with people having an essential role of scale and meaning as well as his portraits, Iddo Pehdazur for color and color coordination, Anna Biret for horizontal layering and particular framing, Gisèle Duprez for life scenes, Vicki Windman for her eye for surprising or touching details, Bayéré Zouzoua for soul touching black and white, and many others…The problem here is omitting people…and I’m not mentioning any of The Pictorial List team members here not to sound 'fawning'. Talking about seizing life, I am deeply impressed by Hokusai and his manga art in the original meaning of impromptu pictures. He was one of the first to consider everyday life scenes as worthy to be recorded. I prefer his sketches to his ukiyo-e. I feel inspired by orchestra music by how every single voice is needed to create that overwhelming sound. It’s similar to how a frame needs to be composed, with the photographer being the conductor. My eye sometimes is mentally on music. TPL: Has your style of photographing changed since you first started? AL: I hope so. I think I have evolved on composing the frame beyond the central subject. Looking through my pictures, they seem to 'grow' like my children – going chubby, grow in height, go chubby again, stretch again. My frames were too close, then to wide, closing in, reaching out…I’m trying to progress every day. TPL: Where is your favourite place to photograph? AL: Definitely the street. Since I gave up travelling to finance my sons’ studies, I have chosen my direct neighborhood, declaring it my favorite place. My favorite place are the little alleys and surprising corners as well as the odd Promenade shot for a soul lifting dose of blue. My photography sets out to celebrate the beauty of real life and of real people in an iconic place known for its scenic views and often instagrammable places. TPL: How does the equipment you use help you in achieving your vision in your photography? Do you have a preferred lens/focal length? What would you say to someone wanting to start out in your genre of photography? AL: As a very spontaneous street shooter, I definitely need a very good autofocus. I still prefer shooting through the viewfinder sometimes crawling on the ground. It still feels more organic to me. My two preferred focal lengths in full frame measures are 35mm and 85mm, one for context, one for people. My advice for newcomers sounds quite paradoxical and certainly stems from my musical paths: Don’t care about technique and do care about technique. Photography is first of all about seeing for me. Seeing with your eyes and heart, hone your vision. I would suggest sitting in a street cafés for hours to see life flow by and spot the wonders. Become a truffle pig of sorts. Then put the camera to all auto and concentrate on the scene. I knows it’s deeply frowned upon among street photographers but I think it’s a walking aid to start with. At the same time, know your camera inside out. Understand how aperture, speed and ISO work together, dive into field and spot measurements. Embrace a musician’s or martial art discipline and practice your scales and kata. Beyond understanding how it works, it’s about your fingers doing their part without any of your mental energy taken away. In music, you must be able to hear the sound before you play it. It’s similar in photography. See the scene when it is about to happen. TPL: Do you prefer to photograph alone or with company? AL: I definitely am more of a lone photographer. I’m so tuned in to my environment I’m afraid conversation with me would be very dull. TPL: Have you ever been involved in the artistic world before photography? AL: I have spend a lot of time with and put a lot of passion into music. I played the flute and loved playing in the orchestra most. I never considered it as a career option, most certainly out of lack of talent. Many of my best friends are professional orchestra musicians and music played an important role in my sons' childhood, so I have the chance to spend a lot of time around music. TPL: What are some of your goals as an artist? Where do you see yourself or hope to see yourself in five years? AL: Operating within a strict legal frame on non-authorized pictures, street photography in France requires a high level of sensitivity and personal ethics. People in the streets are not a zoo you look at through the protective bars of a zoom lens, but a community that sustains street photographers as artists through their very existence. I would love to edit a picture book on people in Nice and to realize a project inspired by JR: printing people’s faces and expose them on the walls of the city. Give part of Nice back to the population and make the unnoticed and untouristy “hoi polloi” the stars again. TPL: Are there any special projects you are currently working on? AL: In addition to its sunny, glamorous side, Nice has a lot of homeless people. I regular engage with those in my neighborhood and am impressed by how observant they are. They are the invisible or the voluntarily overlooked, but they see us. I am thinking about a project that would equip them with cameras and have them document how they see us. It is only a budding idea right now. TPL: “When I am not out photographing, I (like to)... AL: Read. And cook. Sit in cafés and observe people. And listen to music." PORTFOLIO INSTAGRAM read more interviews >>> THE VILLAGE A workers’ neighbourhood becomes a living archive as Virginia Cassano photographs the people, streets, and memories that continue to shape Villaggio Piaggio. MUTABLE MORPHOGENESIS By merging scientific methodologies with photographic experimentation, Emma Varga creates images that challenge fixed distinctions between human and non-human, visible and invisible. THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS Chad Coombs’ Polaroids are small psychological scenes where identity, memory, culture, and belief push against each other. WHERE WE BELONG Community storytelling lies at the heart of The Pictorial List’s mission, and Marlon Ramos’ photographs reflects the spirit of the place we now call home. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details. VISUAL HEALING BEYOND THE DIAGNOSIS Betty Goh’s photography exemplifies the transformative power of visual storytelling, where personal adversity becomes a canvas for resilience, illuminating the connection between art, healing, and self-reclamation. EVERYDAY BLACKNESS Parvathi Kumar’s book is a profound tribute to the resilience, and contributions of incredible Black women from all walks of life, making it a vital addition to the conversation around International Women’s Month. A VOYAGE TO DISCOVERY Fanja Hubers’ journey in photography is one of continuous exploration, balancing documentation with artistic self-reflection.