documentary photography

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Fred Lonidier’s Unrepentant Focus on Workers’ Rights

How did the former union president, Peace Corps volunteer, and Vietnam War resister disrupt the documentary tradition?
Sabiha Çimen, Quran School students having fun with a pink smoke bomb at a picnic event, Istanbul, Turkey, 2017

A New Digital Platform Asks What Truth Means in Photography

With issues of truth more pressing than ever, Alan Govenar started an online space for critical discussion about the role of images in contemporary life. Here, he speaks about projects from Istanbul to the Bronx.
Gregory Halpern, Untitled, 2016

The Post-Documentary Photographers Who Care about the World

For a prophetic group exhibition about American life, Paul Graham considers images of tenderness and melancholy.

Introducing: Natalie Keyssar

In Venezuela, a photographer finds spontaneous grief and joy in everyday life.

In a World of Loneliness, One Photographer's Search for Community

Eli Durst speaks about team-building exercises, suburban Americana, and why his photographs resist interpretation.

Dorothea Lange and the Afterlife of Photographs

A new exhibition reveals how Lange’s concern for the dispossessed has never been more relevant.

All That Glitters is Fool's Gold

From the gold rush to e-waste, Lisa Barnard’s new photobook offers a visual biography of a precious commodity.

What Can Photographs Tell Us About the History of Redlining in the US?

Zora J Murff reflects on the intertwined legacies of segregation and violence in Black communities.

Introducing: Steven Molina Contreras

Between Long Island, El Salvador, and Peru, an American Family’s Emotional Reunion.

Max Pinckers is Raising the Stakes

In his latest book, the photographer asks how news media grapple with fiction and lies in the “post-truth” era.

Introducing: Karolina Karlic

For the second installment of our new series “Introducing,” Aperture speaks with a photographer tracing the globalization of rubber from the Amazon to Ohio.

How to Capture an Intimate History

For Jane Evelyn Atwood, who has photographed sex workers and prisoners, it’s all about the balance between intuition and occasion.

2019 Portfolio Prize Runner-Up: Jack Latham

In the age of fake news, Jack Latham investigates the secret society that has inspired conspiracy theories, protests, and attacks since its founding days in 1872.

California on Fire

Carolyn Drake’s photographs of the 2018 wildfires point to the human role in creating a new, terrifying normal.

Foreigners in a Foreign Land

Arguiñe Escandón and Yann Gross travel to Peru in search of connections to nature.

Three Women Photographers Reclaim the American Landscape

Susan Lipper, Kristine Potter, and Justine Kurland deconstruct the mythology of the Wild West.

Along the Shores of the Caspian

From Russia to Turkmenistan, Chloe Dewe Mathews photographed the rituals and resources of a much-coveted territory.
Walker Evans, Resort Photographer at Work, 1941

Walker Evans, Hero of the Vernacular Style

A landmark exhibition argues that the photographer’s approach to image making goes far beyond documentary.
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Aperture No. 257

Aperture presents “Image Worlds to Come: Photography & AI,” a timely and urgent issue that explores how artificial intelligence is quickly transforming the field of photography and our broader culture of images.

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