You ran because you liked running. We watched films because we liked them. We read books because we fancied reading books. These activities stitched meaning into the fabric of daily life. But today, there's a relentless insistence that leisure needs to justify itself in order to be valid. The pressure to find niche hobbies and interests against which to identify ourselves has, Mina Le argues, become an ego problem - one which ultimately feeds an 'individualistic neoliberal culture that makes community organising so much harder.'
Color becomes a voice in the 2025 Chromatic Awards, where 21 standout photographs showcase just how powerfully it can speak. This year's selections burst with vivid palettes, nuanced tones, and daring artistic choices that define the competition's reputation as a premier stage for color‑driven photography. More than a contest, the Chromatic Awards exists to elevate storytellers who see the world through a chromatic lens, resulting in winners that feel imaginative, emotional, and deeply personal.
Polish-French artist Nicolas Grospierre presents Heliograms, a photography-adjacent series currently on show in the Salle de Salomon at the Royal Łazienki Palace in Warsaw, on view until December 31, 2026. The project centers on a singular technique: images formed not by camera, lens, or chemical development, but through the direct, months-long exposure of velvet to sunlight. Created both in the countryside of northern Poland and, for this exhibition, directly on site at the historic palace, the works reveal how the sun itself becomes a recording instrument.
The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery has unveiled the winners of its 2025 Teen Portrait Competition, showcasing powerful portraits created by young artists who use photography to explore identity, pressure, and modern adolescence.
Just one painting but it is one of the world's very greatest, and most dangerous. The shock of the old hits you in front of a naked Cupid who has clearly been portrayed from life, his raw, laughing features apparently coming straight from the mean streets into the gallery. This young love god is an anarchist, and Caravaggio paints like the antichrist, mocking civilisation, symbolised by the musical instruments at Cupid's feet.
There haven't been many slow news days in 2025, a year which further highlighted how increasingly divided our world - and, indeed, our country - is becoming. But the busy news cycle was also filled with stories that unite us, such as the 96th-minute goal from Troy Parrott that served to give the entire country a badly-needed lift last month.
Tyler Mitchell, the thirty-year-old photography phenom, has enjoyed a rocket-fuelled rise in the fashion and art worlds since graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts less than a decade ago. In 2018, he became the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for Vogue, capturing Beyonc é in a frilly white prairie dress with an elaborate headpiece that simultaneously recalled Giuseppe Arcimboldo's fantastical paintings, Frida Kahlo's elaborate flower crowns, and Carmen Miranda's fruit-basket hats.
Holiday shoppers, it's time to finish knocking out that seasonal wish list. At this point, your online purchases may not arrive in time unless you're willing to pay extra for priority shipping - or you happen to get lucky. Still, gifting anything at all is awfully nice of you, regardless of when it arrives. If you're shopping on a budget of $50 or less per item, we've crafted this gift guide specifically for you.
We delve into surrealism to tell the story of a young man grappling with the freedom of his identity and social acceptance. His dreams become a dreamlike atmosphere, offering him an escape from daily oppression. Within this dream world, he encounters a recurring nightmare: the moon creature, a being that embodies everything he wishes to be in real life-free, authentic, and fearless.
Two boys stand before the camera, their presence quiet yet full of meaning. The photographs, and the vision behind them, were shaped by Shin Jeong Hoon, whose eye for subtle emotions guided every frame. Behind the scenes, Natsumi Allgower brought the look to life, shaping hair and makeup with a gentle precision that allowed the boys' true selves to shine through.
The article itself brought a massive amount of buzz, and Anderson's photos raised that to a nuclear level, with harsh lighting, unflinchingly close-ups of their faces, and posed photos that seemed clearly intended to communicate critical judgment of these people and the roles they were playing in Trump's second term. Many commentators were struck by the brutal detail of some of the photos, showing wrinkles, smeared makeup, stray hairs, and other facial skin imperfections.
Sentimental gifts often require personalization. But this year, my friends and I decided to pull back a little bit on holiday gift-giving. So my goal was to come up with something simple and inexpensive that still had a personal touch and looked luxe. With splurge-y custom creations out of the question, I finally found the perfect solution - in an unexpected place - with these double-glass brass picture frames from Amazon.
For 131 years, Pen + Brush has done more than maintain a doorit has insisted it remain open. Open to women, non-binary, and trans artists and writers long before inclusion became a fashionable refrain. On December 14, that legacy manifested not as history, but as lived experience through Revolution in Three Acts: A Sip and Tell, held within Pyaari Azaadi's formidable solo exhibition, Talkin' Bout a Revolutionnow extended through February 14, with its accompanying catalogue forthcoming in January.
The 2025 top spot goes to our interview with Blur drummer Dave Rowntree on his photographs of the Britpop band's rise to fame, documenting the mundanities of their pre-fame youth - like nap times and rollercoaster riding. You always wanted to know what lies behind iconic images, like those from Dennis Morris who documented the early careers of Bob Marley and the Sex Pistols. But it's
My grandfather Sidney Lipsyte, the son of immigrants who became a New York City public-school teacher and administrator, lived from 1904 to 2005, a good run I don't expect to match. He witnessed, and sometimes experienced, a century of mayhem and invention: human flight, human spaceflight, pandemics, vaccines, economic devastation, Nazi conquest, atomic murder, peace treaties, civil rights, pacemakers, penicillin, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union.
We are delighted to introduce Bennet Böckstiegel's captivating series to you. Born in 2000 in Schwerte, Germany, Bennet is a Berlin-based photographer whose work encompasses documentary photography, portraits, and editorials. Since March 2023, he has been honing his craft at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin, where he continues to deepen his creative and technical expertise. Many of Bennet's works thoughtfully explore themes of sexuality and gender, inviting viewers to engage with the deeper nuances of human experience.
When he took this image, Beijing-based Li was visiting Norway and Iceland with friends, on a trip focused on sightseeing and photographing the aurora borealis. He captured this picture while exploring Sakrisy, a small island in Lofoten, Norway. In the foreground sits this distinctive yellow homestay; in the background, Olstinden mountain. It had snowed heavily all day, Li recalls. As I was setting up to capture this scene, the snow stopped and the sun came out, which made the perfect environment for taking photos.
"We make a lot of work together, but we do carry our own cameras and, within that shared universe, really operate as individuals. It may sound strange to people from afar, but for us that really does make a difference - whether I shoot a photo by myself. In small ways, we try to find our own individual work, which is also healthy, I think, and nice to do."
Photographing the Northern Lights is one of those unforgettable bucket-list moments that feels deeply soul-stirring. Standing beneath a sky that suddenly bursts into neon ribbons is like watching the universe put on a private show. In 2025, the aurora delivered spectacular displays, with geomagnetic storms lighting up skies far beyond the usual polar regions. The 8th edition of The Northern Lights Photographer of the Year showcases 25 breathtaking images, from glowing fjords to shimmering lagoons and forests transformed by cosmic colors.
"Seattle's cosplay photography is a treasure trove of inspiration for fans of the genre. Check out these real-life cosplay locations and photos taken by @mrdangphotos. From costumes to locations, get the scoop on how to recreate these looks and capture your own cosplay moments in Seattle." effect, in which bots are essentially eating themselves over and over, in order to game their own systems.
From Iceland's Arctic Henge to snowy forests, the vistas represented in the 2025 Northern Lights Photographer of the Year contest highlight the visual symphony of geomagnetic light phenomena. Paired with distinctive landscapes, the images illuminate our planet's unique relationship with the sun. While photographers captured some scenes in subarctic regions where the northern lights are vivid and common, others created images farther south or in the opposite hemisphere, where the phenomenon is known as aurora australis.
I am a photographer based in Japan.My work focuses on capturing subtle strangeness, uncanny tension, and slight misalignments found in everyday life. This editorial reflects that perspective.When I saw the styling, it immediately evoked the mood of the early 2000s.I found it fascinating to see young Reiwageneration models embody that mood, and I wanted to capture the tension created by that temporal shift.
Olivia, our granddaughter, said, " If there isn't a photo, it didn't happen." This may be a bit extreme, but to some, photography freezes time with an immediacy no other medium can match. A photo is an imprint of something that truly exists: a person, a place, or a gesture. To accumulate such images is to collect moments that survive.
For the past 12 months, photographer Myla Faith Thomas has been photographing burlesque performers globally in an effort to examine how the art form functions as a space for self-invention, resistance, and radical visibility. What began as a portrait study of the UK scene has expanded into a broader exploration of contemporary burlesque culture and an internal investigation of the body, confidence and sensuality.
