Author: Ellis Stevenson

Everyone believes they are familiar with a certain version of Tuscany. A vineyard in the distance, a row of cypress trees, and rolling hills bathed in golden afternoon light. The Italy of postcards, honeymoon itineraries, and movies that must convey “beauty” without doing much else is a real place, of course, but it has also evolved into a sort of shorthand. The Tuscany that doesn’t perform for anyone is more difficult to locate and more intriguing to consider. The one who just moves on. The hilltop towns of Tuscany have always been that version of the region. Among them, Volterra…

In most serious documentary photography exhibitions, there’s a moment when you can’t help but feel uneasy, as if the person in the picture didn’t really want to be there. The industry has endured this unease for many years, mostly in silence. This silence is starting to end—not in scholarly publications or editorial memos, but in the actual programming choices made by festivals that have determined that vulnerability is a duty to be carried rather than a resource to be exploited. In this sense, FOTODOKS in Munich, which held its 2025 edition in October, is something to be aware of. The…

Carrots move along a conveyor belt inside a sorting facility in North Yorkshire at a speed that makes it difficult to follow individual shapes. They are observed by a device known as Focus, which measures angles, scans contours, and makes snap judgments. A carrot is ejected from the belt by a jet of air if it curves a few degrees more than it should. Every day, thousands of vegetables are rejected in this manner—not because they are unfit for consumption, but rather because they don’t look quite right. When Tim Smyth first began giving this some serious thought, he was…

A picture of Sandra Mara Siqueira relaxing with her four grandchildren in a settlement outside of Curitiba, Brazil, has been circulating this spring. The picture doesn’t demand attention in any way. No building collapsing, no protest line, no fire. Just a grandmother, a few children, and the silent burden of ten years of waiting for land rights that no one seems eager to grant. A few years ago, this type of image might never have reached the desk of a Western editor. It contributed to the 11% increase in South American submissions to the World Press Photo Contest this year.…

The hallways of Xposure 2026’s recently unveiled Documentary Zone at Aljada this year were filled with a certain kind of silence that descends upon a room full of long-form documentary photography. Not the quiet of a museum. Something more substantial. Compared to the other halls, visitors moved more slowly, lingering in front of frames as people do at gravesites or old family albums, as if they were trying to read something beneath the picture instead of just staring at it. This year’s zone consisted of thirteen exhibitions, each the result of years rather than weeks, and this distinction was more…

Secretary Pete Hegseth’s staff prevented photojournalists from covering his updates on the Iran war twice this spring at the Pentagon, leaving only images approved by the government. Reports indicated that it was related to unfavorable photos from a previous session, but no one really explained why. Regardless of the true cause, the incident brought to light a more significant issue that has been developing for some time: a growing concern about who is in control of the image and whether it can be trusted after it is taken. What this story covers: Because of this fear, a feature that the…

Around closing time, you can smell a certain combination of overripe bananas, wilted lettuce, and something slightly sweet that has gone wrong in the back hallway of any supermarket. The majority of consumers never come across it. Pallets of food that didn’t sell in time are sorted, written off, and transported away behind swinging doors, in walk-in coolers, and on loading docks. It’s simple to think that this is just the expense of operating a grocery store. Since practically everyone handled it that way for decades, that may be the exact issue. When you actually look at the numbers, it’s…

There is a specific type of tomato that is no longer found in nature, or rather, it does exist but is rarely found on grocery store shelves. It’s the one that tastes better than its neighbors but appears to have lost a battle; it’s the lopsided one with a faint green shoulder. Instead, you are greeted by a wall of produce that is so uniform that it almost seems uncanny when you walk into any major grocery chain in America or Britain. Apples are polished to a shine. Shrink-wrapped cucumbers become stiff little soldiers. The majority of consumers may no…

The face and armless torso of nine-year-old Mahmoud Ajjour gazed out at commuters hurrying past with their coffee cups and briefcases somewhere in the Barcelona metro, on the walls flanking an ascending escalator. The picture, which was captured by Gazan photographer Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times, won the 2025 World Press Photo of the Year award. It depicts a child injured in an airstrike in a truly moving and devastating way. It was worthy of praise. However, seeing it repurposed as exhibition advertising on a metro wall raises an issue that the photojournalism community has been debating…

Hundreds of glowing rectangles rise into the air like a digital dawn as the lights go out and the crowd roars. Everybody is filming. Everybody is capturing. It’s also possible that no one is genuinely watching the show somewhere in that forest of raised phones. The moment is both abandoned and preserved at the same time. This isn’t merely nostalgia or a generational grievance disguised as philosophy. Underneath it all is true psychology. Dr. Linda Henkel of Fairfield University led students through a museum and asked them to take pictures of some items while merely observing others in a study…