SHIFTING FOCUS
What does it mean to photograph the world today?
This online exhibition highlights the work of eleven contemporary voices who have joined Magnum over the past decade. Through more than forty images, we invite you to discover the worlds of these photographers: Cristina de Middel, Zied Ben Romdhane, Gregory Halpern, Myriam Boulos, Salih Basheer, Emin Ă–zmen, Newsha Tavakolian, Sakir Khader, Nanna Heitmann, Lua Ribeira, and Lorenzo Meloni.
Navigating the thin line between documentary commitment and the power of suggestion, their images occupy a subtle frontier. Here, reality is not merely recorded; it is felt, staged, and at times elevated by a powerful and poetic aesthetic. Whether exploring intimate narratives, conceptual fictions, or the urgency of socio-political upheavals, these photographers share the same visual rigor and a gaze deeply rooted in our modern times.
Welcome to the next chapter of Magnum.
Discover eleven perspectives, forty-four windows open onto the world of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Salih Basheer
Salih Basheer, born in 1995 in Omdurman, is a Sudanese photographer. After finishing high school in Sudan, he moved to Cairo in 2013 and received his Bachelor’s degree in Geography from Cairo University in 2017. During his studies in Egypt, he started as a self-taught photographer, and subsequently studied photojournalism in Denmark.
In 2021, Basheer received the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund student grant for his personal project “22 Days in Between.” For the same project, Basheer was awarded the Everyday Projects Grant, In January 2023, Basheer published 22 Days in Between, the first ever photobook by a Sudanese photographer, and the book was awarded the 2023, Les Rencontres d’Arles Photo-Text Book Award.
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ZIED BEN ROMDHANE
Zied Ben Romdhane, born in 1981 in Tunisia, shifted his focus to documentary photography in 2011. He published his first book, West of Life, in 2018 with Red Hook Editions. Ben Romdhane’s work is centered around his native Tunisia. He delves into the socio-political contrasts between inland regions and coastal areas, shedding light on how geography shapes these dynamics.
He won the World Press Photo Prize in 2024, was selected for the 6X6 Global Talent Program in 2018 by the World Press Photo Foundation, participated in the Joop Swart Masterclass with World Press Photo, and received the POPCAP award (Africa Image, Basel, 2015). Zied also contributed as the Director of Photography for Fallega (2011), a documentary film documenting the Arab Spring in Tunisia. Furthermore, he actively participated in World Press Photo’s 2013 Reporting Change initiative and was a member of the collectives “Rawiya” and “Native.” Zied Ben Romdhane joined Magnum as a Nominee in 2019 and became a Member in 2025.
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