Aperture

Aperture’s Spring issue is out now. “The End of Nature?” brings together photographers who contemplate nature’s fragile beauty and its ever-changing relationship to humanity. From the ancient trees of California to the dwindling coasts of Mexico, from the Japanese island of Teshima to the oases of Tunisia, from India’s sacred Nilgiri forest to the open-pit mines of Nevada, “The End of Nature?” offers a sweeping yet intimate look at how nature is entwined with our lives in ways that are both mysterious and profoundly urgent. The cover features a photograph by Hashem Shakeri, a Tehran-based photographer whose ongoing series “The Kahur Does Not Fall Unless the Earth Wills It” portrays everyday life in a climate hotspot spanning Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. For Shakeri, the region’s resilient kahur tree is a testament to the beauty that persists in a place of much suffering—a vivid symbol of “the stubborn will to live under the most unforgiving conditions.” Order “The End of Nature?” or subscribe to Aperture magazine now through our link in bio. Cover photograph by Hashem Shakeri (@hashemshakeri ). Images (in order): Mitch Epstein (@mitch_epstein ); M’hammed Kilito (detail) (@mhammed_kilito ); Grant Mudford; Gayatri Ganju (@gayatriganju ); Rinko Kawauchi (@rinkokawauchi ); Michael Schmelling (@michael_schmelling ); César Rodríguez (@cesar_rodriguezb ); Hashem Shakeri; Lucas Foglia (@lucasfogliaphoto ); Victoria Sambunaris (detail) (@victoriasambunaris ); Stewart Brand wearing his “Whole Earth” pin, October 1966, Photograph by Gene Anthony

Emanuele Satolli speaks about documenting conflict zones in Ukraine and the Middle East—and why we will always need war photographers. Over the last ten years, Satolli (@emanuelesatolli ) has made thousands of images on assignments documenting conflict zones in Ukraine and the Middle East, yet only a handful were selected for each dispatch he published in outlets including Time and The Wall Street Journal. But there was more to the story, and to his experience on the front lines. How could he give form to what remained unseen? Satolli’s vast archive is the source for his recent book, “That Thing That Never Vanished” (2025), a harrowing chronicle of war and conflict. In a recent interview, he spoke with Brendan Embser (@brendanembser ) about his career in journalism, how newspapers prepare photographers to work in war zones, and why it’s essential to see difficult, even horrific images in a photobook. All photographs by Emanuele Satolli. Images (in order): Edirne, Turkey, March 2020; Iraq, June 2017; Akçakale, Turkey, October 2019; Ukraine, January 2023; Bucha, Ukraine, April 2022; Baghdad, Iraq, January 2018; Raqqa, Syria, October 2017 © the artist and courtesy GOST

“At the Limits of the Gaze” is a boundary-pushing collection of essays by Takuma Nakahira that challenge the expressive limits of photography. Nakahira is best known outside of Japan as a founding member of Provoke, the experimental magazine of photographs, essays, and poetry, and for his important photobook “For a Language to Come” (1970). Throughout a decades-long career, Nakahira raised incisive questions about visual culture and politics in both his photography and his writing. “At the Limits of the Gaze” (Aperture, 2025) is the first English-language collection of Nakahira’s writings on photography. Nakahira’s essays brim with urgency, relentlessly interrogating photography’s relationship to power, the connection between language and images, and the gaze. As editors and translators Daniel Abbe and Franz Prichard write, Nakahira’s essays “both suggest doubt about, and possibilities for, a photographically mediated reckoning with the world.” “At the Limits of the Gaze: Selected Writings by Takuma Nakahira” is available through our link in bio. All photographs by Takuma Nakahira © 2025 Gen Nakahira, courtesy of Osiris

Rinko Kawauchi takes the smallest moments and finds in them a universe, passing her unwavering attention on to us. Kawauchi’s (@rinkokawauchi ) photographs do not distinguish between high or low, significant or trivial: Every object—from snail to leaf—is created or sanctified by the eye one brings to it. It’s no surprise to learn that Kawauchi made some of her work in an Okayama forest where, as she writes, “stillness and movement, light and darkness” coexist. Other uncanny images came to her in Iceland, and in the bitter cold of Hokkaido. Our lives, she might be telling us, are made by how we look at them. “Kawauchi’s eye I imagine to be wide open as well as rigorous and precise; I suspect she looks past nothing in any room through a wish to alight on what’s important or essential. She is showing us what’s important, which is to say almost everything,” writes Pico Iyer. “In Japan more than in most places, the artist knows that her task is less to find what she loves than to love whatever she finds.” See our link in bio to read the full story, now online from Aperture’s new issue “The End of Nature?” All photographs by Rinko Kawauchi; courtesy the artist.

A new monograph, “Dionne Lee: Currents,” is a powerful meditation on the land as a site of refuge and loss. Dionne Lee works across photography, video, and collage to examine histories of land, power, survival, and Black identity in the American landscape. Lee uses formal interventions and innovative darkroom techniques—including rephotographing found imagery from wilderness survival manuals and using graphite pencils to create inscriptions on her photographs of the landscape—to address themes of dispossession, loss, and resilience. “Dionne Lee: Currents,” the artist’s first monograph, brings together works from over a decade of Lee’s career alongside essays by award-winning poet Camille T. Dungy and curator Eric Booker, as well as a conversation between Lee and the writer Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, offering a deeper look at a visionary artist reshaping how we see­—and choose to imagine—the great outdoors. Order “Dionne Lee: Currents” now through our link in bio. All photographs by Dionne Lee. Images (in order): Breaking Wave, 2018; a plot that also grounds, 2016; trespass is the most beautiful word, 2018; Contact (A Muscle Memory), 2020; Lapse, 2019 This book was made possible thanks to the Joy of Giving Something Foundation (JGS) and is supported by the Aperture JGS Book Award.

Farren van Wyk navigates emotional states of belonging between South African culture and European roots. One of the shortlisted artists for the 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize, Van Wyk (@farrenvwyk ) was born in South Africa in 1993 to a Dutch father and South African mother, before moving with her family to the Netherlands at age six. Her series “Mixedness is my Mythology” (2021–ongoing) aims to visualize the coming together of these identities. A traditional Dutch farm where she grew up, historically understood as a white space, provided the perfect backdrop for staging portraits of herself, her brothers, and her parents. A particular portrait of her brother, Alexander, standing in front of a white brick wall, his hair waved, adorned with a thin, gold chain and wearing their grandfather’s old overalls and traditional Dutch clogs, was when things began to truly click. “Props, gestures, and garments serve as symbols of cultural cross-pollination—these interferant references convey the true in-betweenness of experience, pulling not only from their African and Dutch roots but also from global Black diasporic culture,” writes Noa Lin. See our link in bio to read more on Farren van Wyk’s work by Noa (@noa._.lin ). All photographs by Farren van Wyk from the series “Mixedness is my Mythology” (2021–ongoing); The 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize is supported by @mpbcom

Megha Singha’s portraits of young women in Mumbai explore the forces that shape desire and online fame, playfully blurring the line between art and content. One of the shortlisted artists for the 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize, Singha (@meghasingha ) photographs the precarious beauty of influencer culture in her series “I Love My Friends But They’re Killing Me” (2024–ongoing). Shot primarily on 35mm film with direct flash, her series is not strictly local or international—instead, it reflects an India that lives within the friction between the two, shaped by the circulation of images across global media, and its ensuing culture of aspiration. In Singha’s view, beauty, then, a spectacle none of us can look away from, spurred on by images that permeate through cultures and socioeconomic strata. “Despite being slowly and intentionally produced, Singha’s images return to the very systems that they scrutinize,” writes Sneha Mehta. “But they succeed in showing the relation her subjects have to beauty for what it is: imperfect, irresistible, and often bizarre.” See our link in bio to read more on Megha Singha’s work by Sneha Mehta (@snemeh ). All photographs by Megha Singha from the series “I Love My Friends But They’re Killing Me” (2024–ongoing); The 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize is supported by @mpbcom

In New York, Victor Llorente documents the folkloric costumes and traditional dances of a Dominican carnival group. One of the shortlisted artists for the 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize, Victor Llorente’s (@victor.llorente ) series “Folklore” is a vibrant tribute to Los Andulleros de Santiago, a carnival group based in the Bronx who perform at various parades and festivals throughout New York. Photographing between 2018 to 2023, Llorente records the evolution of the group, Llorente’s images range from candid shots, such as a pool party scene shot in the Bronx, to more formal setups, like a seated portrait of a younger member at home or an infant holding a ceremonial whip used during performances. For Llorente, the crux of the project was Los Andulleros de Santiago and their philosophy, which, he says, was based around “their culture, how much they care about it and wanted to spread it.” See our link in bio to read more on Victor Llorente’s work by Dalya Benor (@dalyabenor ). All photographs by Victor Llorente from the series “Folklore”; The 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize is supported by @mpbcom

This spring marks the 90th anniversary of Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother”—arguably the most widely reproduced photograph in the world. This Wednesday April 29, Aperture’s executive director Sarah Meister (@thesarahmeister ) will speak at @amerikahaus in Munich, reflecting on the ninety-year history of this iconic image and its continued significance today. The elemental simplicity of Lange’s recollection that she “saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet,” belied a more complex reality. Immediately upon seeing this photograph in March 1936, the state government dispatched aid for the migrant workers, although it would be decades before the details of this encounter were known. See full event details for this free and public talk through our link in bio. Image: Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, March 1936

In the wake of her father’s death, Olivia Crumm explores how grief bends everyday reality into something strange and new. One of the shortlisted artists for the 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize, Crumm’s (@oliviacrumm ) series “Wake” is an elegiac portrait of the transitionary states of grief—and what can grow in its aftermath. Photographing with a large-format camera, Crumm choreographs scenes of her friends, her family, and herself that draw from her gestures and experiences as a caretaker for her father. Oscillating between the surreal and everyday, Crumm’s photographs reckon with the otherworldly nature of loss. “I felt like my whole sense of reality had been reordered,” says Crumm. “I was trying to sort out how I could make a picture that embodies that.” See our link in bio to read more on Olivia Crumm’s work by Cassidy Paul (@cassidypaul_ ). All photographs by Olivia Crumm from the series “Wake”; The 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize is supported by @mpbcom

Winner of the 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize, Aaryan Sinha twists familiar clichés into an exploration of what it means to feel estranged from one’s homeland. In his series “Namaste or Whatever,” Sinha creates iconoclastic views of India. The work began with Sinha’s decision to endeavor to “do a complete one-eighty, and just focus on the clichés.” A snake charmer’s cobra rears its head into the frame; men immolate a corpse on the banks of the Ganges; handprints in white paint left by pilgrims pile up on a ruddy temple wall. What distinguishes these pictures from the many like them is the sheer lushness of Sinha’s seeing. “Where cliché flattens the world into a dull procession of the foreknown, Sinha’s work intercedes, doing its part to revivify our vision,” writes Chris Wiley. See our link in bio to read more on Sinha’s work by Chris Wiley (@weistwiley ). A presentation of selected works by the winning and shortlisted artists is currently on view at @aipadphoto through April 26, alongside a panel discussion with the artists on April 25. See aperture.org/events for full details. Congratulations to our 2026 winner Aaryan Sinha, as well as the four shortlisted artists: Olivia Crumm (@oliviacrumm ); Victor Llorente (@victor.llorente ); Megha Singha (@meghasingha ); and Farren van Wyk (@farrenvwyk ). All photographs by Aaryan Sinha from the series Namaste or Whatever; Courtesy the artist. The 2026 Aperture Portfolio Prize is supported by @mpbcom

How do we understand the environment through photographs? This Earth Day, we look at publications engaged with the natural world. From Aperture’s Spring issue, “The End of Nature?”, exploring the beauty and precarity of nature, to Kimowan Metchewais’s work parsing Indigenous connections to land and home, to Rinko Kawauchi’s luminous images of natural phenomena, and more—these titles consider how nature is entwined with our lives in ways that are both mysterious and profoundly urgent. Shop the full collection now through our link in bio. Images credits: Mitch Epstein, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, California, 2022; Kimowan Metchewais, Cold Lake, Cold Lake First Nations, Alberta, Canada, 2006; Rinko Kawauchi from Illuminance (Aperture, 2021); David Benjamin Sherry, Time Past and Time Future, Utah, 2014