Reading through the stories of these 30 photographers, I was reminded of something writer Ta-Nehisi Coates said in an interview with The Atlantic in 2013. In talking about the challenging process of turning a good idea into a finished work, he said: “I strongly believe that writing is an act of courage. It’s almost an act of physical courage.” Making something—a story, a body of work—can be grueling, requiring repetition and refinement and the will to work with intensity. The idea applies to any creative pursuit, and we see evidence of this “physical courage” in the stories of these photographers.
