The most loved photo stories from January 2026

Photography Sofiya LoriashviliJanuary 28, 2026Art & Photography / ListsArt & Photography / ListsThe most loved photo stories from January 2026

The ‘awe and terror’ of girlhood in LA, encounters with love dolls, inside a Tokyo kink club, and much more...

ShareLink copied ✔️January 28, 2026January 28, 2026TextEmily Dinsdale

There’s no neat throughline connecting this month’s seven most-loved photo stories, but each is in some way concerned with unearthing a hidden world, excavating memories, erased histories, subcultures, and condemned passions. Together, they take us from the ‘romanticised chaos’ of growing up in Los Angeles to the unseen world of love dolls, inside a thriving Tokyo kink club, and the heart of Naples’ suppressed third gender community, and beyond.

LUCIA FARROW AND MAYA SPANGLER, THE FLESH THAT SAYS YES The Flesh That Says Yes

Gallery / 29 images

Growing up in Los Angeles is perpetual summer, albeit on a fault line. Artists Lucia Farrow and Maya Spangler explore these contradictions in their latest joint series, The Flesh That Says – a series of photographs and self-portraits navigating ideas of ruination, abjection, girlhood and womanhood. They explain, “We investigate ourselves and the city as a state of becoming, romanticising the chaos of ruination for its refusal to provide whole answers. We are constantly at odds with feeling pure and abject, young and old, free and trapped... Los Angeles was just as much a part of the series as our bodies were; it was our playground, a site of ritual where the images came about.”

Read the full story here.

SOFIYA LORIASHVILI, ONLY YOU AND ME Sofiya Loriashvili, Only You and Me

Sofiya Loriashvili, Only You and Me, Love Dolls portraits

Gallery / 16 images

Paris-based photographer Sofiya Loriashvili continues her examination of sexual labour with Only You and Me, an ongoing photo project she began in 2022, documenting her encounters with love dolls. The series follows on from Stripper Edition, shot in the changing rooms of strip clubs where she has worked.

“Being a woman is already enough to understand what it feels like to be objectified,” she explains. “Being a stripper means taking advantage of that objectification, and working with dolls helped me intellectualise it... My work revolves around eroticism and sexuality, so exploring this specific attraction [to sex dolls] felt obvious,” she continues, explaining that her use of fetish and obscenity is a way to depict the complexity of human emotion – not necessarily anything to do with the act of sex itself. ”During the day, I was meeting these dolls. At night, I was meeting these men. I started to notice how I was slowly turning into a doll: figuratively.”

Read the full story here.

NAN GOLDIN, THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

Gallery / 15 images

Shot between 1973 and 1986, Nan Goldin’s masterpiece, The Ballad of Sexual Dependence, immortalises the counter-culture of downtown New York in a series of stirring portraits. First shown as a slideshow in bars and clubs, it was published as a book by Aperture 40 years ago. Now, for the first time, all 126 pictures from the original monograph are on display together in an exhibition held at at Gagosian, London.

“I don’t select people in order to photograph them; I photograph directly from my life. These pictures come out of relationships, not observation,” Goldin says, in an exhibition text. “They are an invitation to my world, but now they have become a record of the generation that was lost. To show The Ballad in its entirety 40 years after I published the book, is to reaffirm that desire for transformation and the difficulty of connection and coupling are still true to our world. I’m still impressed that generation after generation finds their own stories in The Ballad, keeping it alive.”

Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is running at Gagosian Davies Street, London, until 21 March 2026

BLACK PHOTOJOURNALISM Black Photojournalism

Gallery / 39 images

The Carnegie Museum of Art’s landmark exhibition Black Photojournalism presented the story of everyday life for Black Americans on the vanguard of historical events, spanning from the conclusion of World War II in 1945, through the civil rights movements of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and concluding with the presidential campaigns of 1984. From Martin Luther King Jr. sleeping en route to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 to looks from the Ebony Fashion Fair and Las Vegas showgirls, Rosa Parks, Grace Jones, and Charles “Teenie” Harris’ portraits of Pittsburgh’s residents, Black Photojournalism is a truly prodigious exhibition.

Read the full story here.

GABRIEL CHIU, BREATHE ME IN Gabriel Chiu, Breathe Me In

Gallery / 13 images

New York-based photographer Gabriel Chiu resists Orientalist stereotypes with his photo series, Breathe Me In – soulful portraits of Asian Americans rebelling against the imposition of fetishisation, model-minority mythology, and aesthetic containment.

Chiu’s models present themselves in counter-cultural style – baggy jeans, tattoos, piercings; at odds with less permissive, more conservative Asian households. As a teen, Chiu looked up to Jerry Hsu, a Taiwanese-American skateboarder and photographer. “Seeing an Asian guy skating and smoking” was almost transformative for Chiu, a turning point for representation during his formative years. “I just want more visual representation for younger [Asian] kids to feel confident,” he recalls. “Our parents work so hard to get us here, but they force ideas on us. Art is frowned upon in Asian households. It doesn’t make sense to Asian parents.

Read the full story here.

KENTO NAGAYOSH, KINKY LOVE Kinky Love Kento Nagayoshi, Kinky Love

Gallery / 22 images

Department H (housed in the Tokyo Kinema Club in Uguisudani) is the monthly kink club at the epicentre of the city’s kink culture. Cameras are permitted, but very few images from inside are circulated and what goes on within the walls of this former cabaret venue remains largely undocumented. Tokyo-based photographer Kento Nagayoshi’s latest project, Kinky Love, is a reverent portrayal of a typical night at Department H. His pictures show partygoers reclining, dancing and embracing in kink-wear. Shot with consent and through his compassionate lens, Nagayoshi hopes the portraits will “encourage a sense of tolerance and kindness toward people and expressions that may feel unfamiliar”.

Read the full story here.

ROMAN MANFREDI, TRA Roman Manfredi, TRA 19_CiroCiretta, Torre Annunziata

Roman Manfredi, TRA, Naples, Third Gender, Portraits

Gallery / 18 images

Roman Manfredi’s exhibition TRA explores gender fluidity through intimate photography rooted in Naples’ historic third-gender culture. Inspired by a family photo of Manfredi’s grandmother cross-dressing during Carnevale, TRA investigates identities that exist “between” fixed categories. The project focuses on femminielli, a culturally specific Neapolitan third gender distinct from modern Western labels, as well as masculille, masculine-presenting people assigned female at birth. Photographing subjects in everyday and ritual settings, including pilgrimages to Montevergine, Manfredi highlights gender variance as a lived, communal tradition rather than a contemporary trend.

Read the full story here.

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