VICE Magazine Archives - VICE https://www.vice.com/en/tag/vice-magazine/ Wed, 02 Oct 2024 18:28:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://www.vice.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/06/cropped-site-icon-1.png?w=32 VICE Magazine Archives - VICE https://www.vice.com/en/tag/vice-magazine/ 32 32 233712258 Introducing VICE’s Photo Issue 2024 https://www.vice.com/en/article/vice-magazine-photo-issue-2024/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:46:10 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810108 The VICE Photo Issue is back with a vengeance—in print and as urgent as ever. As we mark our 30th year, we’re reviving the VICE Magazine legacy that’s launched careers and redefined visual storytelling since Ryan McGinley helmed the first Photo Issue in 2001. This year, we scoured the globe for 20 rising stars who […]

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The VICE Photo Issue is back with a vengeance—in print and as urgent as ever. As we mark our 30th year, we’re reviving the VICE Magazine legacy that’s launched careers and redefined visual storytelling since Ryan McGinley helmed the first Photo Issue in 2001.

This year, we scoured the globe for 20 rising stars who are revolutionizing photography. Ada Zielińska shoots flaming cars in Warsaw and wildfires around the world. Adam Rouhana documents the joys and burdens of life in Palestine. Carlos Idun-Tawiah finds cinematic beauty in his Ghanaian family’s photo albums. Kristina Rozhkova takes super-raw, sensual portraits in Russia. Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart makes fun fine art on a Canadian farm. Sara Benabdallah showcases the women who make Marrakech tick.

And that’s not even half of it. Literally, physically, it’s a big issue.

Free copies of will be available at some of our favorite photography labs, bars, and local businesses in New York City and London over the next couple of weeks. Pick up an issue at Bushwick Community Darkroom and photodom in NYC or magCulture and Photobook Cafe in London. And if you miss out on one of those limited-supply freebies, don’t worry, because there’s more good news.

The whole VICE Magazine is coming back, in all its sprawling and salacious glory. We’re launching a brand new subscription to deliver four magazines a year, anywhere in the world. The subscription will also give you access to a bunch of online exclusives—like extended films that are too risque for social media. The first issue you get will be The Photo Issue 2024.

Sign up below to get a heads up on when it launches before anyone else. Then, without further ado, meet the 20 stars of The Photo Issue 2024.

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Ada Zielińska

Ada Zielińska photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
Ada Zielińska

Read more: Ada Zielińska on watching the world burn.

ADAM ROUHANA

ADAM ROUHANA photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
ADAM ROUHANA

ANDRÉ RAMOS-WOODARD

ANDRÉ RAMOS-WOODARD photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
ANDRÉ RAMOS-WOODARD

Read more: André Ramos-Woodard remixes Black cartoon history.

AVA CAMPANA

AVA CAMPANA photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
AVA CAMPANA

Read more: Ava Campana’s absurd, All-American self-portraits.

AVION PEARCE

AVION PEARCE photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
AVION PEARCE

Read more: Avion Pearce embraces darkness in their queer Black photography.

CARLOS IDUN-TAWIAH

CARLOS IDUN-TAWIAH photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
Carlos Idun-Tawiah

Read more: Carlos Idun-Rawiah turns family photo albums into Ghanaian epics.

HENRY CRAWLEY

HENRY CRAWLEY photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
HENRY CRAWLEY

KAROLINA WOJTAS

KAROLINA WOJTAS photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
KAROLINA WOJTAS

KRAIWITCH TUNGSOMBOON

KRAIWITCH TUNGSOMBOON photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
KRAIWITCH TUNGSOMBOON

KRISTINA ROZHKOVA

KRISTINA ROZHKOVA photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
KRISTINA ROZHKOVA

LAUREN DACCACHE

LAUREN DACCACHE photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
LAUREN DACCACHE

LISS FENWICK

liss fenwick photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
LISS FENWICK

Read more: Liss Fenwick turns termite mounds into supermodels of the Outback.

LUIS MANUEL DIAZ

LUIS MANUEL DIAZ photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
LUIS MANUEL DIAZ

MINH NGOC NGUYEN

MINH NGOC NGUYEN photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
MINH NGOC NGUYEN

ROBERT HICKERSON

ROBERT HICKERSON photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
ROBERT HICKERSON

SAGE SZKABARNICKI-STUART

SAGE SZKABARNICKI-STUART photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
SAGE SZKABARNICKI-STUART

SARA BENABDALLAH

sara benabdallah photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
SARA BENABDALLAH

Read more: Sara Benabdallah captures the soul of Morocco with help from her grandma.

SHAHRAM SAADAT

shahram saadat photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
SHAHRAM SAADAT

Read more: Shahram Saadat turns carwashes into surreal time capsules.

TÔN TÔN BO

ton ton bo photographer vice magazine photo issue 2024
TÔN TÔN BO

TUMI ADELEYE

TUMI ADELEYE vice magazine photo issue 2024
TUMI ADELEYE

Plus: 15 Years of Jake Burghart

jake burghart photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
jake burghart

Read more: Jake Burghart on sneaking cameras into the world’s danger zones.

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1810108 TPI-DIGITAL-COVERS-21_FULL FRAME How Are You Late Capitalism rouhana-vice-2 Untitled-(Amerikkkan-Flag)_lowres 03_The Not-So-Virgin Mary Pearce_Avion_01 The Barbershop Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Boys Will Always Be Boys (Copyright © Carlos Idun-Tawiah, 2023) HenryC_TheContract2 karolina_wojtasssss-8 kraiwitchTwinkle Twinkle Kristina_Rozhkova_DACHA_19 lauren-(re)construction 16 rusty car sunset copy Jan_2023_0 011 Jan_2023_0 011 Minh-1 Robert Hickerson_The Mother of Sighs_VHS Cover Art bento Benabdallah_Chedda Oujdia Screenshot Screenshot ton ton tumi JLBphoto_Congo_MG_3876-2
André Ramos-Woodard Remixes Black Cartoon History in Bold Portraits https://www.vice.com/en/article/andre-ramos-woodard-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:42:47 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810521 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. Combining original portraits with cartoons from American history, photographer André Ramos-Woodard is redrawing the future to tell a black and queer story that’s […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

Combining original portraits with cartoons from American history, photographer André Ramos-Woodard is redrawing the future to tell a black and queer story that’s distinctly his own.nh

andre ramos woodard photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024

ANDRÉ RAMOS-WOODARD: I’m a trained photographer, but I’ve always liked drawing. When I was a kid, I would watch anime with my cousin and redraw all the characters from Dragon Ball Z as Black people.

Years later, I looked into the history of illustration, and that’s when I found all these minstrel caricatures that I used in Black Snafu. It was 2020, after the death of George Floyd and many other Black people, and it felt really important for me to dig into that.

I was making photographs that I considered celebratory, highlighting Black experiences, then drawing on top of the images to juxtapose the truth of Black people versus the way Black people have been portrayed throughout American cartooning. It’s a little bit of an act of reclamation, using these characters to teach about American history.

andre ramos woodard photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024

But honestly, it got kind of tiring. Stealing these characters, which I would consider detrimental to Black identity, was exhausting. So, I started to incorporate characters from my childhood, like Spawn or Sticky and Fifteen Cent from The Proud Family, that are pro-Black and just powerful, fun, courageous, and celebratory.

Even though I’m using references in my work, I try to fight against the idea that you have to have a historical background to really dig into art. My homies, my friends, my family, I want them to see themselves in these characters. I want them to find something that they relate to.

andre ramos woodard photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
andre ramos woodard photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024

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Learn more about the magazine, subscription, and how we’re building a new era for VICE by joining the waitlist below.

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Ada Zielińska Chases Catastrophe with Her Camera https://www.vice.com/en/article/ada-zielinska-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:41:55 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810498 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription, and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. Flaming cars and wildfires reveal the sorts of catastrophes that can feel distant but are obviously already here. The daughter of a firefighter, […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription, and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

Flaming cars and wildfires reveal the sorts of catastrophes that can feel distant but are obviously already here. The daughter of a firefighter, photographer Ada Zielińska explains how she got into watching the world burn.

ada zielinska vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ADA ZIELIŃSKA

ADA ZIELIŃSKA: When I got into photography, my first big idea was to stage car crashes. I choreographed scenes depicting the aftermath of accidents and the people around them, which I thought were very cinematic. Eventually, I thought about setting a car on fire. I had no idea how to do it, but I remembered my dad was a firefighter when he was very young. He used to tell me stories about putting out fires in Warsaw. I explained my idea and asked him to help me, and he said, “Let’s do it.”

Dad had a friend who owned a junkyard, so we went there. My dad knew exactly what to do, replacing the gasoline in the tank with water. I, on the other hand, was so afraid of the fire that I didn’t take any good pictures. I remember running around in a panic with my camera in my hand. Still, I wanted to go back to it. So I started calling my meeting up with my dad every few weekends, and we would set things on fire. Mostly cars. 

After about five years of doing this, I turned it into the book Pyromaniac Manual. By then, I was scheduling fires with a team of firefighters and directing them. They used my work for training exercises.

ada zielinska vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ADA ZIELIŃSKA

There’s one photo of a steering wheel on fire that I took from inside the car. The firefighters put a belt on me so that if something happened, they could pull me out. But when it got to that point, it wasn’t exciting anymore. It wasn’t dangerous. I knew what was going to happen: the tires and airbags were going to explode, the windows were going to crack. 

So I looked further afield. I began traveling to the sites of wildfires, mostly after they had been extinguished. 

In one sense, I’m trying to find beauty in these catastrophes, however crude that sounds. And, later, to think about what they mean. 

ada zielinska vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ADA ZIELIŃSKA

In the modern world, we have control over everything. But when a natural disaster comes, even in the most developed countries, there is nothing we can do. Right now, there’s flooding in Dubai. I wish I was there. People have cars that cost $2 million, and they can’t do anything about it. Their cars are just floating away.

I have this memory from a burnt forest I photographed in Australia. It was all black and still. It wasn’t burning, but it was still super hot in there. And what struck me the most was that the birds weren’t singing. It was complete silence. It was so overwhelming. On the one hand, it was, I don’t know, the worst thing in the world. But on the other hand, it was so beautiful and scary.

ada zielinska vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ADA ZIELIŃSKA

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Avion Pearce Embraces Darkness in Their Queer Black Photography https://www.vice.com/en/article/avion-pearce-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:25:23 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810558 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. These intricately staged photographs offer glimpses of queer Black lives, both real and imagined. Here, Avion Pearce talks about the power of representation—and […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

These intricately staged photographs offer glimpses of queer Black lives, both real and imagined. Here, Avion Pearce talks about the power of representation—and the responsibilities that places on them.

avion pearce photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Avion Pearce

AVION PEARCE: In middle school, I found my dad’s little 35mm camera. I started taking it to school, taking photos of my friends and figuring out how to make an image. It was this thing I was doing for the joy of it. I felt like this was a way of creating a world without using language, and that was appealing to me.

It wasn’t until I left school in 2011 that I decided to take it seriously. I started thinking about history. One of the first projects was a fake archive. I created these two Black women in a relationship who were alive in the 1930s and 40s and created a whole world around them. I made stills from what might be a period film of these two women alongside an archive of their belongings: letters, objects, clothing, etc.

I was thinking: I might not have access to a history like this, but I can imagine it, and I think that’s really powerful. It was a way to create something I desperately wanted to see.

avion pearce

Then I turned to photographing people in my community in Brooklyn. I was thinking about survival as the city is rapidly changing, as gentrification and the housing crisis are issues, and a lot of people are being displaced. I’m exploring my responsibility in photographing a community that is trying to survive in this place—which I feel very protective of.

I think of photography as a really powerful tool for documenting and recording a time, place, and people, informing our ideas about these things, and confronting the issues of visibility and invisibility at the same time. I can use this tool to make commentary about the world around me. Maybe it can’t change laws, but it can impact the people who see the work.

avion pearce photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
avion pearce

I’ve gotten comments like: “The colors are so dark, this doesn’t feel very joyous to me.” My response is that I don’t owe anyone joy. Just because I’m photographing a marginalized community doesn’t mean I have to photograph them a certain way. I think that the images should be as complicated as the things that I’m speaking about. And I think that darkness is so beautiful and rich, and there’s so much there, and so much is revealed with the light.

People feel excited to be photographed in a way that’s more nuanced, poetic, and sentimental, even. That’s all that I want: to create a world and invite people in.

avion pearce photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
avion pearce

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Jake Burghart on Sneaking Cameras into the World’s Danger Zones https://www.vice.com/en/article/jake-burghart-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:24:29 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810610 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. VICE’s longtime creative partner, Jake Burghart has helped to craft over 100 documentaries in more than 70 countries. Over 15 years, he worked […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

VICE’s longtime creative partner, Jake Burghart has helped to craft over 100 documentaries in more than 70 countries. Over 15 years, he worked on many of the films that came to define the sort of hard-hitting, courageous, and mind-boggling stories that VICE traded in, including “The VICE Guide to Iran,” Dennis Rodman’s visit to North Korea, and on-the-ground coverage of the 2011 Arab Spring.

On these expeditions, he always shot photos for keepsakes, using whatever camera he had with him at the time: a 35mm, medium format, DSLR, or a cheap point-and-shoot. We asked Burghart to sift through his hard drives and share the stories behind some of these monumental moments.

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CONGO

This photo was taken deep in the jungle on the border of Congo and Rwanda. I was with Suroosh, and we were going to interview the Mai Mai, a militia group. On the way there, we came to the last U.N. outpost. We had tea with these guys there, and they strongly advised us not to go any further into the jungle-which we did anyway.

We were quickly captured by a group of teenage rebels with machine guns who took us back to their camp. It wasn’t until months later, when we were home and got all the translations, that we realized they’d said something along the lines of: “Hey, boss, we found these white guys in the jungle. Should we just kill them?” But we had no idea that line had been spoken while we were there.

Our fixer explained to them that we were going to see the Mai-Mai, and these guys were like, “If they’re guests of the Mai-Mai, we can’t touch them. We actually have to make sure they’re safe.” So they escorted us to the Mai-Mai camp. It was an overnight walk through the jungle.
There was a funeral going on when we arrived; fires, drumming, and chanting. They put us in a grass hut with a mud floor and said they’d see us in the morning. This photo was taken the next morning: These are the main guys of the Mai-Mai village and their guards. And this is us setting up for the interview.

EGYPT

Jake Burghart

This is in Egypt during the revolution. We sort of snuck in—we were there as tourists, but we were filming in Tahrir Square, Cairo, during the day when demonstrations were happening. This photo was taken at night, near the presidential palace—there were all these kids in black masks throwing Molotov cocktails and firing slingshots and everything else at the palace. They had lasers they were shooting into the cameras, and they were getting tear-gassed. This guy is running away from the palace, across the no-man’s land, and the tear gas is shooting over his head. We spent a bunch of nights filming these guys and all of this until we were eventually arrested.

It was scary because we were held in custody in a country that had no government at the time. They had ousted the president, and there was no new president—the country was under martial law. They just sort of put us in a room and began questioning us as though we were spies. Luckily, the producer got out a tweet about us being captured, which became news in itself. The U.S. State Department found out we were there and sent someone to get us. It was the ultimate version of your mom picking you up from jail when you were a kid: To have this black SUV from the U.S. State Department pick us up from Egyptian prison and take us back. They were very cool about it.

IRAN

jake burghart photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024 iran
Jake Burghart

I’ve been to Iran several times. This was taken on the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. I’ve always liked this photo because you see these guys on stage with the yellow flags they’re passing out, and everyone’s got these sort of “Death to America” signs, and it’s all very serious. But there’s also this guy here selling colorful balloons. I like that juxtaposition of the sort of carnival air these balloons give and this very serious Iranian monument on this very serious day.

JAPAN

jake burghart photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024 japan
Jake Burghart

We were doing a story on hostess bars, weird cuddle clubs, and the different things on offer in Japan. And, you know, the Yakuza runs most of that, if not all of it. So we were kind of trying to get in tight with these guys so that we could film in those places. These guys are all tattooed up, and one night, they started just showing off their tattoos. This guy was showing the full scope of what he had going on, and he just took off his clothes in the back of a tattoo parlor where we were. One guy is smoking and holding a baby, and another guy in a leather jacket is looking on; there are Pringles and weird DVDs in the background. I don’t know—it’s just one of those absurd photos.

CHINA

shane smith jake burghart photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024 china
Jake Burghart

This was during the Creators Project days. We were doing this big event in Beijing, and afterward, we decided to see the Great Wall before going home. It was a little road trip we did just for fun. This is a random place on the side of the road. We stopped to get snacks,
and this place was there, and Shane ended up playing pool with this dude. I don’t know exactly what it is, just a giant place with a pool table. But I feel like it was classic Shane of that time: Texas shirt, army jacket, earring. He was down to hang with anyone. He loved going to places, and on our way, he’d be like: “Oh, here’s this random guy who has a crazy style and seems cool. I’m going to have a beer and play pool with him.”

RUSSIA

edward snowden shane smith jake burghart photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024 russia
Jake Burghart

This is a photo of Edward Snowden at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. It’s this famous hotel where, supposedly, every room is wired. This is where they put the Americans so they can spy on them, at least that’s what people say. I don’t know, I looked around and I couldn’t find any wires. But all the rooms have this really cool old-school Russian vibe.

We met Snowden in secret in this room, and Shane did this really long interview with him. In this photo, they’re just kind of having a moment. Snowden’s laughing at whatever Shane had said, and I just like that it’s a pulled-back look at these two guys talking. Snowden was lovely and cool and had so many amazing things to say. I feel like everything that he said about surveillance is true and continues to come true.

NORTH KOREA

jake burghart photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024 north korea
Jake Burghart

This was another anniversary- forget what for, but there was a major show of force on display. We were in Pyongyang on a media junket. I was with Shane, and we were alongside people from CNN, BBC, and Fox News. The North Koreans were parading their ICBMs and other big missiles, and it was just a really insane thing to witness. Their precision, their marching, how in time they were, and how aggressively they marched. You can see that haze in the background, all from these thousands of guys just marching and kicking dust into the air. There were guys with bazookas marching, women marching, and then guys on horseback, and then a crazy stretch Mercedes with GoPros on it. Absurd things, scary things, so much shit going on.

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Shahram Saadat Turns Carwashes into Surreal Time Capsules https://www.vice.com/en/article/shahram-saadat-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:24:18 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810601 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. Working between reality and fiction, Shahram Saadat recreates the strangeness that lurks in mundane life. In these carefully constructed images, he offers a […]

The post Shahram Saadat Turns Carwashes into Surreal Time Capsules appeared first on VICE.

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

Working between reality and fiction, Shahram Saadat recreates the strangeness that lurks in mundane life. In these carefully constructed images, he offers a unique way to appreciate the ordinary.

shahram saadat photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Shahram Saadat

SHAHRAM SAADAT: Initially, I was drawn to documentary photography and capturing the everyday in its eccentricities. Going from a documentary focus where everything is erratic and spontaneous, I chose to preserve these elements and work toward a more controlled photographic environment.

I began to plan out the photos that I wanted to take, from the concept to the setting. My first scenario was of a friend on a static exercise bike in the middle of a busy road in London—that acted as proof that I could execute the narratives that I was beginning to build in the way that I wanted. So I started organizing further shoots with a wider creative team to help elevate the final outcome.

Many of my projects have been studies of people from certain areas, whether it be the people from Bath interacting with an electrostatic machine or people from Norwich posing in target practice posters. I like photographing people who haven’t necessarily been in a controlled photographic environment before. Their interaction shifts between each image as they become more at ease with the setting, and it brings a freshness more in keeping with the documentary aesthetic. Every project still reflects my interest in this field but in a much more refined environment, putting the concept first and the image second.

shahram saadat photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Shahram Saadat

The apparatus and the dichotomy it poses have always intrigued me. On the one hand, I feel it creates a useful filter between the photographer and the subject, giving them a sense of distance in the moment. At the same time, it empowers and enhances the creative possibilities. The camera allows the subject to be uninhibited and lets them express themselves freely.

My recent study, The Whale, depicts people going through a carwash in southern England. I was interested in exploring whether there was a moment in our lives when we could afford to be guilt-free about not optimizing our time effectively. Initially, I thought about showering and teeth brushing, but even those actions get rushed sometimes. Then came the carwash, a three- to five-minute window where you are forced to remain in your car for the cycle. Allowing you to zone out, argue, kiss, or sing in order to pass the time. A moment of respite.

Ultimately, my practice is inspired by human idiosyncrasies—I channel the erratic spontaneity of documentary-style photography into staged scenes, underpinned by conceptual thinking.

shahram saadat photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Shahram Saadat
shahram saadat photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
shahram saadat photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Shahram Saadat

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Sara Benabdallah Captures the Soul of Morocco with Help from Her Grandma https://www.vice.com/en/article/sara-benabdallah-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:24:04 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810589 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. Sara Benabdallah’s photos sing with vibrant colors, depicting ancient architecture, contemporary textiles, and the women who make Marrakech tick. After spending time in […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

Sara Benabdallah’s photos sing with vibrant colors, depicting ancient architecture, contemporary textiles, and the women who make Marrakech tick. After spending time in the U.S., here’s how she fell back in love with her home country of Morocco.

sarah benabdallah photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Sara Benabdallah

SARA BENABDALLAH: I grew up in Marrakech, in the Medina, where my parents had a business renovating historic properties. My dad would renovate one while we lived in it, and when he finished, they would rent it to foreigners. Most of the people who came in the late 90s were artists, and in the summer, they would teach my sister and me. I was always known for being a photographer, in a way. That was my identity from day one.

When I was young, I didn’t have many friends who did arts, though. I was kind of an outcast. Plus, there was the whole sexist vibe in Morocco, especially at that time—much more than now. I didn’t feel comfortable as a young woman. I knew I wanted to go to America. When I left, I didn’t look back.

I spent some time in New York and then moved to LA. I started dating an American from the Midwest, so we traveled a lot. I saw really beautiful, wonderful things, but I also saw the reality of a lot of things.

sarah benabdallah photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Sara Benabdallah

After five or six years, I started to slowly get depressed. I felt disconnected from my roots. It was such a big dilemma because I knew so much about America, but when people asked me about Morocco, I didn’t really know a lot. It got to me, and I thought maybe I should go back.

We moved back two years ago, and it’s been really great since then. I was able to reconnect with my family. We’re working on a tea house in the oldest neighborhood in Marrakesh. Everything I thought I hated, I started to love. There are these abandoned buildings near my home, and I remember being like, “Oh, these are ugly,” and now I’m dying to go and shoot there. There are so many interesting things I would have never looked at before.

Sometimes, my best ideas come from sitting with my grandma, making bread or planting stuff. She’s been my muse. I’m very lucky, to be honest, because in Morocco, you rarely find a mother or grandmother willing to be photographed. But she’s very creative. Sometimes, going to art school can put you in a box, and she really helps me get out of that box because she has no box. When I get into a creative block, she’ll be like, “Let’s just go shoot. Let’s go, let’s do it.”

sarah benabdallah photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Sara Benabdallah
sarah benabdallah photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Sara Benabdallah

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1810589 Benabdallah_LabsaLakbira 2 Benabdallah_Oujdia copy2 image Benabdallah_oujdia_05_moon-copy_3
Liss Fenwick Turns Termite Mounds into Supermodels of the Outback https://www.vice.com/en/article/liss-fenwick-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:23:49 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810579 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. In Australia’s Northern Territory, marked by climate predictions as “uninhabitable” in the near future, Liss Fenwick shoots fires, termites, and tree bark like […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

In Australia’s Northern Territory, marked by climate predictions as “uninhabitable” in the near future, Liss Fenwick shoots fires, termites, and tree bark like it’s an ad for high fashion. Here’s why.

liss fenwick photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Liss fenwick

LISS FENWICK: Growing up, I was a bit of an outcast in this place. It’s pretty gritty. I found an analog SLR camera, 35mm. That became my way of connecting to the world and to the land I found myself in.

I initially thought about landscape photography as a protest. If you shoot these trees and termite mounds using the aesthetics of fashion and commercial photography—like making a sexy portrait of the landscape—it’s a way of protesting our anthropocentric obsession with humans. It’s not all about us. When you’re dragging out lighting to a termite mound as a kind of pilgrimage, that stuff becomes absurd.

Humpty Doo and the Northern Territory were settled very late in the British Empire. And I’m a settler photographer— my ancestry is white settlers on unceded lands of the Larrakia Wulna people. Increasingly, I think we need to confront that inheritance. The land is still being colonized by these neoliberal mining corporations. They don’t give a shit about this place. It’s just about profits.

liss fenwick photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Liss fenwick

What I love about photography is that it allows proximity to the real. You have to be there, a part of it. I love the land and interpreting the mystery and the unknown. You can make the familiar transcendent through the image, imbuing it with meaning through light or perspective. I think that is where the mischief in photography is, too. It’s not trying to sell anything. It’s just joyful. Taking these pictures, it’s not standing back and imagining. It’s actually getting in the heat and the dark and allowing these things to affect you.

I think, rightfully, it can be tricky to talk about connection to land as a white person. But I’ve also read First Nations scholars like Bruce Pascoe and The Gay’Wu Group of Women, and they say whitefellas need to develop an understanding of land and a connection to land. That’s the only way we’re going to stop the planet from continually catching on fire and being exploited. So I like to make efforts towards that.

liss fenwick photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Liss fenwick

There’s this incredible Australian philosopher called Val Plumwood. She was canoeing in the Northern Territory and was attacked by a crocodile. She was pulled under the water, and they did a death roll. Her chances of surviving were very slim. Later, she wrote about the experience. In that moment, she said, she went from being a person, being herself, to being prey for this other animal. She called it breaking “the astrological delusion” that we’re the center of the universe.

That’s something we all need to be doing regularly, so we understand the interconnectedness of all things. It’s the only way we’ll get it into our heads that we can’t just consume everything all the time.

liss fenwick photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Liss fenwick

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Carlos Idun-Tawiah Turns Family Photo Albums into Ghanaian Epics https://www.vice.com/en/article/carlos-idun-rawiah-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:23:37 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810569 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. Inspired by family stories and archives, Carlos Idun-Tawiah’s cinematic photography merges memories with reimagined pasts and futures, guiding broader conversations about joy and […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

Inspired by family stories and archives, Carlos Idun-Tawiah’s cinematic photography merges memories with reimagined pasts and futures, guiding broader conversations about joy and beauty in Ghana.

Carlos Idun-Tawiah  photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special

CARLOS IDUN-TAWIAH: I had a very communal upbringing in Sekondi-Takoradi, along the coast of Ghana. I grew up in the church, and that’s where I held my first camera. I kept a keen interest in it, so my dad bought me disposable Polaroid cameras to document our family gatherings as a means to chart our growth while he was away in London.

My mom and grandmother were also pivotal in my photography journey. They were archivists in their own way. They made these family albums compiled from photos we took every Sunday. Literally every Sunday, but also every day of the week when my mom was going to work, she’d have me take a photo of her.

Today, I’m interested in photographs meaning more than just one thing. I look to blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction, past and present, what’s real and what isn’t but could be. I’m interested in the gaps in the archives and challenging what is there and what feels missing. How can we tell stories about people who were not documented as much but deserve to be—lives that were very well lived but not seen by the camera?

Carlos Idun-Tawiah  photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special

For my 2023 photo story, Sunday Special, I was inspired by a close study of the family album and my childhood growing up in a Christian home, highlighting the beauty of Sundays and reimagining the alternative possibilities of the archives. It’s a chronological series depicting my family from the beginning of a typical Sunday till the end. Another recent series, Boys Will Always Be Boys, is a requiem and a memoir of my boyhood. It’s a poignant reminder to myself and my audience to see these nostalgic silhouettes of life as a reason to be fully present. The little beginnings are what I looked to capture—the mundane moments.

Every time I pick up a camera to tell any story about Ghana, I see it as a service to my people—not just those who are living today, but also the generations to come, so they can know the lives that we lived. I want to bring hope to the world by looking at the brighter side of things and our virtues as humans. These abstract qualities like hope, love, faith, community, and friendship will heal the world, in my opinion, and it’s fulfilling waking up in the morning knowing that my art played a role in restoring hope to our world.

Carlos Idun-Tawiah  photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special
Carlos Idun-Tawiah  photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special

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1810569 Daddy’s Polaroid Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special (Copyright © Carlos Idun-Tawiah, 2022) Don’t Say Cheese Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special (Copyright © Carlos Idun-Tawiah, 2022) Oh Grace Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special (Copyright © Carlos Idun-Tawiah, 2022) Let The Little Children Come To Me Carlos Idun-Tawiah: Sunday Special (Copyright © Carlos Idun-Tawiah, 2022)
Ava Campana Makes Absurd Self-Portraits Out of Florida’s ‘Layers of Shit’ https://www.vice.com/en/article/ava-campana-photo-issue-2024-interview/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:22:04 +0000 https://www.vice.com/en/?p=1810532 VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue. Inspired by her Florida upbringing and the absurd polarity of the sunshine state, Ava Campana’s self-portraits show the malleability of self-presentation. Here, she […]

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VICE Magazine is coming back, starting with The Photo Issue 2024. Sign up for the waiting list to learn about our all-new print subscription and enjoy this story from The Photo Issue.

Inspired by her Florida upbringing and the absurd polarity of the sunshine state, Ava Campana’s self-portraits show the malleability of self-presentation. Here, she talks us through the American dream-cum-nightmare.

ava campana photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ava campana

AVA CAMPANA: I went to high school across the water from Palm Beach Island, which is infamous for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. I was constantly surrounded by that gun-toting, red-blooded American archetype. Living there when Trump got voted into power brought me to an awakening super quickly.

Not long after, the Parkland high school shooting happened. Our school went into lockdown. I had friends who knew people who went to that school. Friends of friends passed away in that shooting. Those two events—and the reactions to them—made me very aware of where I was living. There are a lot of really great qualities to Florida, they’re just very disguised and behind many layers of shit.

I came to New York City to study photography, but my first year sucked. I was literally taking pictures of garbage on the ground. At the time, I was like, “This is revolutionary.” Looking back, I was just depressed. I made a pact with myself that I’d make work I was proud of and took my first self-portrait in sophomore year.

ava campana photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ava campana

I had these big ideas to do characters. My biggest influence is Nadia Lee Cohen: She had a series where she found name tags from different businesses and then created personas centered around them. She did another series where she had a prosthetics team. I was very impressed with that work, that you can transform like that.

I didn’t want to take photos of anyone else, partly because of necessity. Once I get the idea, everything after that is very formulaic—I have it down pat. I get a very clear image of what I want the portrait to look like in terms of styling, hair, and makeup. And then I’m thinking: Who is this character? What are their likes and dislikes? I create this whole profile. I listen to the music I think this person would listen to.

Absurdity is what I’m thinking about when I’m making the work. Our society feels absurd. American capitalism, corporate greed, all these things—it becomes a lot. It’s like a huge cloud of just shit everywhere. My work interprets all of that by using comedy and satire because sometimes I don’t know how else to deal with all those emotions. Absurdity almost feels comfortable.

ava campana photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ava campana
ava campana photographer vice magazine the photo issue 2024
ava campana

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