Review of the Year 2023: Top 25 Photography

There’s no mistaking that you – our audience – have been touched by photographs showcasing the body. Taking the top spot this year is our article on Sarah Piantadosi’s Bone, a series born out of her experience at a techno fetish-sex party in London four years ago, that later grew into a series displaying women’s bodies across a variety of shapes and sizes. But, you weren’t only drawn in by intimate portraits like those in Bone, you were also captured by the bodily connection in Filip Custic’s human product. Examining the connection between tech and our bodies, human product still leaves us wondering if there are truly any boundaries between the two worlds.

Community-centred narratives were also popular this year. Nathaniel Bailey uncovered the personality and livelihood of Jamaica’s people in ongoing series Parish Wells. Then to east Asia we go as Liling Cui and Kin Coedel both document communities Tibet, and Coco Capitán explores the activity of Kyoto’s teens. And, we see a perspective of London beyond its central areas in Sukhy Hullait’s documentations of communities in southeast London and Jack Smethers’ portraits of a community resisting gentrification in north London. But that’s not all; family series were also big hitters. One of your favourite articles was on Emma Hardy’s photobook Permissions, collating her documentations of family over 20 years. Putting her grandfather at the fore, Celine Van Heel shows us that age has no bearing on fashion sense, and James Barnett flips the script documenting his parents going about their everyday lives.