Huck 62
A photographer probes truth and lies in modern Turkey
The Parallel State — After being injured in a deadly attack in Libya, British photographer Guy Martin wasn’t sure if he’d ever shoot again. Then he recalibrated his identity. Slowing down, he started documenting the faux-reality of Turkish soap operas and the surreal political events they mirrored on the streets.
Written by: Guy Martin, as told to Andrea Kurland
Eight 'rules' of photography that are worth breaking
Rip it up and start again — The real stories of our time aren’t always plain to see. They’re shaped by invisible forces, unfold behind closed doors, and are conveniently erased from collective memory. But in an era of fake news and manipulated truths, we need these stories more than ever. The only way to tell them is to take a few risks, break all the rules and pioneer a new way of seeing the world.
Written by: Lewis Bush
The photojournalist who braved prison and a hunger strike
The other side — French photographer Mathias Depardon was arrested in Turkey while on assignment for National Geographic, accused of being a spy. He spent the next 30 days locked inside a room. But what came next was even harder.
Written by: Mathias Depardon, as told to Andrea Kurland
Gregory Crewdson spends years crafting photos on a cinematic scale
Staged truths — Gregory Crewdson is not the kind of photographer who carries a camera. Instead he uses Hollywood-sized productions to create perfect moments that feel both inexplicably personal and profoundly cathartic.
Written by: Gregory Crewdson, as told to Cian Traynor
A photographer's 8,000-mile journey from Cuba to the US
The long route to another life — Photojournalist Lisette Poole spent 51 days documenting two Cuban women's migration to the US. She travelled illegally through 11 countries, via smugglers and roadless jungles, using a point-and-shoot camera when it was too dangerous for the real deal. This isn’t a story she simply observed: it’s an experience she survived.
Written by: Lisette Poole
The lawyer leading a double life as a street photographer
powercorruptionandlikes — By day, Ryan Staley works in the buttoned-down world of corporate law. But his free time is spent on the streets of LA, focusing his untrained eye on an ‘alternate reality’ that only he can see.
Written by: Ryan Staley, as told to Cian Traynor
The photographer tackling an entire history of misogyny
‘We have a problem’ — Spanish photographer Laia Abril is on a mission to map the systems that control women’s lives. It’s a challenge that sees her traversing time and space, going back through history and around the world, to remind us that there are consequences to every action.
Written by: Laia Abril, as told to Andrea Kurland
Cristina de Middel is a perfect photographer for the post-truth era
Facts... re-imagined — People thought she was crazy to quit her job at a newspaper to document things that don’t exist. But Spanish photographer Cristina de Middel was on a fantastical mission. Straddling the art world and photojournalism, she explores real stories that are hard to believe - and debunks credible ones that are misleading.
Written by: Cristina de Middel, as told to Andrea Kurland
The hidden African history captured by one maverick photographer
SJ 'Kitty' Moodley — When sociologist Steven Dubin discovered a collection of studio portraits from apartheid South Africa, it brought to light an unknown photographer who empowered others to resist.
Written by: Steven Dubin, as told to Cian Traynor
LaToya Ruby Frazier on Gordon Parks' inspiring legacy
Groundbreaking gravitas — As one of the most prominent voices to document American life in the 1950s and ’60s, Gordon Parks used his camera as a ‘weapon’ to fight racism, intolerance and poverty – paving the way for others to blur the line between artist and activist. LaToya Ruby Frazier is determined to further that legacy through social documentary that’s both personal and political.
Written by: LaToya Ruby Frazier, as told to Cian Traynor
Todd Hido's voyeuristic lens captures suburbia's secretive side
Intimate Distance — By identifying as an artist rather than simply a photographer, Todd Hido has forged an illustrious career out of sheer creative freedom. Taken at a step removed but with an inquisitive eye, the breadth of his work proves that there are no limits except the ones you impose on yourself.
Written by: Todd Hido, as told to Cian Traynor
Ed Templeton on Larry Clark's renegade style of photography
Kindred spirits — There is a lineage of photographers who shoot to shock, planting themselves in fringe-dwelling scenes with the eye of a lustful voyeur. Larry Clark was never one of them. His photographs of wayward teens bingeing on sex and drugs, and leaving 1960s America aghast, are moments that he lived. It’s in this brutal suburbia, in the faces of strung-out kids, that skateboarder Ed Templeton first realised that his own life could be a muse.
Written by: Ed Templeton