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FEATURE ARTICLE
Seven Photographers 30 and Under Making a Difference
By Glenn Ruga
Published September 2024
While we strive for diversity of photographers contributing to ZEKE magazine, one gap less noticed is the lack of younger photographers. While we don’t have hard data as to why, there is plenty of room for speculation. One reason is that younger photographers haven’t had the life and professional experiences that nourish an environment conducive to creating quality documentary photography. Another is that younger photographers are laser focused–as they should be–on developing their careers as photojournalists or commercial photographers, and documentary just isn’t the genre that readily puts food on their table. And the last reason I would speculate is that we at ZEKE have a concept of documentary photography that is steeped in the tradition of Walker Evans, Bruce Davidson, Gordon Parks, and Margaret Bourke White—a concept that is now quite dated and less meaningful to someone born around the turn of the century. But we do know that photography programs at colleges and universities are booming, so photographers are out there.
To find photographers 30 and under to feature for this article, we reached out to members of our Advisory Committee for recommendations resulting in the seven photographers featured here.
While I was expecting, or perhaps hoping, to find a new vision for photography coming from this younger group, the facts shown here bear out a steadfast commitment to straight documentary photography as we have known it for a generation along with a continued commitment to document both bold and subtle themes of life wherever the photographer may be. If there is one significant difference, it is that a photographer today documenting life in Bangladesh would more likely be from Bangladesh (see Fatima Tuj Johora’s profile), and just as likely to be female as male. And it follows then that a random selection of younger photographers today would be more diverse than a similar number from a generation earlier. This is a positive and welcome development!
We are thrilled to present here seven photographers from Kenya, Bangladesh, the U.S., and Ukraine who are 30 and under, have agreed to have themselves and their work featured in this article, and are making a difference.
Iva Sidash
Nationality: Ukraine
Current residence: Lviv
IG: @Iva_Sidash
Web: ivasidash.com
Iva Sidash (b. 1995, Ukraine) is an independent photographer and photojournalist. She is a member of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers and the National Society of Photo Artists of Ukraine. Sidash studied Documentary Practices and Visual Journalism at the International Center of Photography in New York. She is a 2024 Women Photograph fellow.
Since the onset of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sidash has dedicated her work to documenting the conflict, with a particular focus on the experiences of wounded Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in frontline villages and cities.
Her work has been published in INSIDER, The Financial Times, Fisheye Magazine, Der Spiegel, Forbes, and more.
Sidash’s photography has been showcased in group exhibitions in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Estonia, Poland, and Ukraine. She held two solo exhibitions, “The Wall: Witness to the War in Ukraine,” in Wisconsin, in October 2023, and in San Diego, in April 2024.
Bridget Bennett
Nationality: American
Current residence: Nevada
IG: @bridgetkbennett
Web: bridgetkb.com
Bridget Bennett is a visual journalist and educator in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. Her work focuses on labor, politics, environment and socio-economic issues. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Her work can be found in various outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, ESPN, and High Country News. Formerly, she was a staff photographer at the Las Vegas Review-Journal and a part-time instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno and expanding a project examining extraction industries’s relation to Western expansion.
Nikol Mudrová
Nationality: Czech
Current residence: New York City
IG: @mudrovanikol
Web: nikolmudrova.com
Nikol Mudrová is an audience editor for USA Today and a photographer in her free time. Before moving to New York, she worked as an audience editor and freelance photographer for a Czech online daily, where she mainly covered breaking news. Since moving to New York, she fell in love with observing the diversity all around her, the different lives people are living, and documenting it through her camera lens. Her recent work has included documenting life in different neighborhoods in New York and Philadelphia and Ukrainian refugees coming to the U.S.
Fatima-Tuj-Johora
Nationality: Bangladeshi
Current residence: Dhaka
IG: @fatima-tuj-johora
Fatima-Tuj-Johora, a visual journalist and National Geographic Explorer from Bangladesh, specializes in capturing the essence of human stories through her lens. Focused on daily life, children’s and women’s rights, and environmental issues, she blends artistry with information to create compelling narratives. With a background in biological science, Fatima’s transition to photography was driven by her belief in empathy as a catalyst for change. She sees photography as a medium that fosters connection and understanding, allowing her to shed light on pressing social issues like injustice, human rights abuses, and our complex relationship with the environment. Central to her body of work is a focus on the far-reaching impacts of global climate change, exploring its effects on both nature and human lives. Through her lens, Fatima captures moments of resilience and struggle, offering a nuanced perspective on one of the defining challenges of our time. In essence, Fatima-Tuj-Johora’s photography serves as a powerful tool for social change, inspiring empathy, understanding, and action.
She has worked for the Malala Fund, National Public Radio (NPR), Save the Children UK, Bloomberg News, Liberation, Associated Press (AP), and others. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Daily Star, New Age, The Guardian, The Courier, Avax News, Hindustan Times, and many others.
Fatima is a regular contributor photographer for ZUMA PRESS and a contract photographer for Reuters.
Samson Otieno
Nationality: Kenyan
Current residence: Nairobi
IG: @otiienosamson
Samson Otieno is a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Nairobi, Kenya. He was born and raised in Kibera where he documents the everyday life of ordinary people. His work focuses on daily life, environmental, cultural, political, and socio-economic activities of day-to-day life. Samson’s involvement in the selection panel for the African Resilience in the Wake of a Pandemic campaign demonstrates his recognition within the photography community and his commitment to using his talent to address pressing issues and collaborating with organizations like Bobby Pall Photography and the MasterCard Foundation during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is a contributor for the Associated Press. He was also chosen as one of 21 award-winning international photographers to exhibit at the Apfelweingalerie in Frankfurt, Germany. His photography has been the only place where he can open up his soul and express his imagination and ideas and change the global perception of different cultures, social statuses, and economic values.
Nathan Morris
Nationality: American
Current residence: Harrisburg, PA
IG: @nmorrisphoto
Web: nathancmorris.com
Nathan Morris is a photojournalist based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from New York University’s “Reporting the Nation and New York in Multimedia” Master’s program and attended the Eddie Adams Workshop XXXV, where he fell in love with documenting stories around him with his camera. For the past year, Nathan has been photographing politics within a battleground state, mostly as a photographer for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. When not covering politics, he often likes to immerse himself into freelancing local community-based stories. Nathan has always been passionate about meeting individuals of all backgrounds to learn how they’re impacted by the society around them.
Isadora Kosofsky
Nationality: American and French
Current residence: Los Angeles
IG: @Isadorakosofsky
Web: isadorakosofsky.com
Isadora Kosofsky began photographing at the age of fourteen, documenting individuals in hospice care. She has gone on to document healthcare, aging, mental health, disability rights, the impacts of incarceration, substance use, gender violence, childhood trauma, and experiences of grief, loss, and resilience.
She is a National Geographic Photographer and has contributed to the New York Times, TIME, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Stern, Le Monde, Paris Match, The London Sunday Times, The Guardian, Slate, and others. She is a recipient of a 2018 grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting for her work on women identified as survivors of complex trauma. In 2019, The Royal Photo Society named her one of a hundred “heroines” in photography worldwide.
She was the recipient of the 2012 Inge Morath Award from the Magnum Foundation for her multi-series work on the aged. She was a participant in the 2014 Joop Swart Masterclass of World Press Photo. Her work has received distinctions from Flash Forward Magenta Foundation, Ian Parry Foundation, Social Documentary Network, International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Women in Photography International, Prix de la Photographie Paris, The New York Photo Festival and others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and can be found in Family Photography Now (Thames and Hudson, 2016), a photographic anthology, and in Public Private Portraiture from Mossless.
Her first monograph, Senior Love Triangle, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2020.
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