For an art form inherently tied to time, it’s a misconception that photography progresses in forward motion. Art never follows a straight path, and photography’s true growth is mapped in patterns of revolution and expansion. As legendary MoMA curator and artist John Szarkowski once observed, “Its movement has not been linear and consecutive, but centrifugal. Photography, and our understanding of it, has spread from a center.”

Think of the medium instead in cosmological terms: looking back in time as it expands, circles back, reflects, moves on. This was the guiding principle behind the admittedly daunting undertaking of choosing the talented young photographers you’ll encounter in these pages. All under the age of 35, they represent a microcosm of a vast and remarkable generation of image makers. They are not part of a shared movement or aesthetic, nor is their work a direct mirror of their brilliant and esteemed nominators: Dawoud Bey, Justine Kurland, Cass Bird, Elle Pérez, Lyle Ashton Harris, Tyler Mitchell, Farah Al Qasimi, Jack Pierson, and Ethan James Green.

Think of this new group as the next ring, moving outward, in an era when photography is perhaps more prized, more omnipresent, and more distrusted than ever before. Individually, their photographs are a means for reckoning with trauma, deepening and transforming the art of the portrait, relying on traditional practices to explore and experiment and take risks, among myriad other ends. Collectively, they have dedicated themselves to photography as an art form, one that still has the power to alter the way we see the world—and as you’ll see in their answers, as an integral part of their lives, as fundamental as breathing.

—Rebecca Bengal

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