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

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 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

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.

In mid-2019, it hit me - I am getting older. If I don’t do anything now, I never will. So, I bought my first camera in November 2019. Initially, I did not know what to shoot and how to shoot. So, I started learning photography from YouTube, online journals and researching famous photographers. Initially I was very interested about landscape photography. But soon, realised that it was not my cup of tea. I discovered that street photography is the best fit for me, even though I was extremely shy and nervous. So, initially I used long telephoto lenses so I could take photos from a distance. But then in early 2020, the world was plagued with COVID-19. Everybody started wearing masks. And that was the game changer for me. Since, the people I shot wore masks and so did I, our identities were not disclosed. That gave me the comfort of getting close to people. In the meantime, I formed a small group of like-minded and enthusiastic street photographers. This has helped me to shoot confidently on the streets, exploring new places of the city and exchange different thoughts about photography. For my photography, humans are the most important element. Different environments provoke different emotions, different emotions provoke different moods and different moods provoke different behavior. In short, environment determines the mood. Most of the time, it is the humans in a photo that catch my eye. It is this combination of moments, environment and the people in it that draws me to preserve them in a frame. ANWAR EHTESHAM In mid-2019, it hit me - I am getting older. If I don’t do anything now, I never will. So, I bought my first camera in November 2019. Initially, I did not know what to shoot and how to shoot. So, I started learning photography from YouTube, online journals and researching famous photographers. Initially I was very interested about landscape photography. But soon, realised that it was not my cup of tea. I discovered that street photography is the best fit for me, even though I was extremely shy and nervous. So, initially I used long telephoto lenses so I could take photos from a distance. But then in early 2020, the world was plagued with COVID-19. Everybody started wearing masks. And that was the game changer for me. Since, the people I shot wore masks and so did I, our identities were not disclosed. That gave me the comfort of getting close to people. In the meantime, I formed a small group of like-minded and enthusiastic street photographers. This has helped me to shoot confidently on the streets, exploring new places of the city and exchange different thoughts about photography. For my photography, humans are the most important element. Different environments provoke different emotions, different emotions provoke different moods and different moods provoke different behavior. In short, environment determines the mood. Most of the time, it is the humans in a photo that catch my eye. It is this combination of moments, environment and the people in it that draws me to preserve them in a frame. LOCATION Dhaka BANGLADESH CAMERA/S Fujifilm X-T30 WEBSITE https://anwarehtesham.com/ @EHTESHAM_DIGITAL FEATURES // People And Their Environment The Stranded Pakistanis Beyond The Bricks

I am a comedian and a photographer. I am a twin. My twin brother is ten minutes older than me. Time, I'm told, for my mum to have a cup of tea in-between deliveries. One year at senior school I received an A for effort and attainment in every single subject on my end-of-year school report. I then became obsessed with magic and performing and ended up getting an O level grade for my French A level. Merde! On a positive note I was a finalist in the Young Magician of the Year in 1985. I also passed Grade 8 on the flute. My dad was mayor of Epsom & Ewell 1990/91. I started stand-up in 1992. I am conversational in the Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin languages. I saved my father-in-law from drowning in the sea off the Montenegrin coast in 2007 with the help of my twin brother. I have had two operations in the last several years to combat my snoring. The first was an Uvulopalatoplasty (a surgical procedure in which a laser is used to remove most of the uvula at the rear of the mouth). I'm not a baby, but that bloody hurt. It kind of worked (but not enough according to my wife). The second was a Radio-Frequency Ablation or Somnoplasty (the inner tissue is heated to 85 degrees Celsius, resulting in the tissue beneath the skin being scarred). This operation was not as painful. It did not really work either. It does however require the patient to undergo several sessions. I never went back for more. I am still married, but tend to sleep in the lower bunk of my son's bunk bed, who on occasion is known to shout at me to stop bloody snoring (so I'm told). I have never played Candy Crush. For the last 10 years or so I've been documenting my scene, the comedy scene: backstage and on stage, the highs and the lows, the camaraderie and the competition, the loneliness and the isolation, and the outright joy of being a stand-up comedian. STEVE BEST I am a comedian and a photographer. I am a twin. My twin brother is ten minutes older than me. Time, I'm told, for my mum to have a cup of tea in-between deliveries. One year at senior school I received an A for effort and attainment in every single subject on my end-of-year school report. I then became obsessed with magic and performing and ended up getting an O level grade for my French A level. Merde! On a positive note I was a finalist in the Young Magician of the Year in 1985. I also passed Grade 8 on the flute. My dad was mayor of Epsom & Ewell 1990/91. I started stand-up in 1992. I am conversational in the Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin languages. I saved my father-in-law from drowning in the sea off the Montenegrin coast in 2007 with the help of my twin brother. I have had two operations in the last several years to combat my snoring. The first was an Uvulopalatoplasty (a surgical procedure in which a laser is used to remove most of the uvula at the rear of the mouth). I'm not a baby, but that bloody hurt. It kind of worked (but not enough according to my wife). The second was a Radio-Frequency Ablation or Somnoplasty (the inner tissue is heated to 85 degrees Celsius, resulting in the tissue beneath the skin being scarred). This operation was not as painful. It did not really work either. It does however require the patient to undergo several sessions. I never went back for more. I am still married, but tend to sleep in the lower bunk of my son's bunk bed, who on occasion is known to shout at me to stop bloody snoring (so I'm told). I have never played Candy Crush. For the last 10 years or so I've been documenting my scene, the comedy scene: backstage and on stage, the highs and the lows, the camaraderie and the competition, the loneliness and the isolation, and the outright joy of being a stand-up comedian. LOCATION London UNITED KINGDOM CAMERA/S Fujifilm X-series, Leica Q WEBSITE https://www.stevebest.com/ @STEVEBESTPICS @STEVEBESTPICS FEATURES // Comedians