Contemporary Italian photography is going through a particularly exciting moment. Alongside the photographers who have already earned their place in the history of the medium, a generation of young Italian photographers is emerging that uses the image with a freedom no single school can contain: some observe the built landscape, some work on the body …
Contemporary Italian photography is going through a particularly exciting moment. Alongside the photographers who have already earned their place in the history of the medium, a generation of young Italian photographers is emerging that uses the image with a freedom no single school can contain: some observe the built landscape, some work on the body and identity, some move between fashion and editorial culture, and others return to nature, the archive, memory or the most intimate side of everyday life.
The way we discover photography has changed, too. Exhibitions, festivals, awards, books and magazines remain essential for building an artistic career, but today Instagram has also become a vast, ever-moving visual archive: a place to follow how a body of work evolves, see new projects and come across photographers who, in many cases, are already working well beyond Italy’s borders.
This is not a ranking, nor does it claim to be an exhaustive map of new Italian photography. It is a selection of 20 young Italian photographers to know and follow in 2026, chosen for the distinctiveness of their visual language, the quality of their research and their ability to use photography as a tool for reading the present.
1. Tamara Quadrelli
Ordinary buildings, facades, geometries, shadows and colors make up the visual vocabulary of Tamara Quadrelli, an Italian photographer whose work focuses on Italy’s cultural landscape.
Her eye often starts with what we usually pass by without really looking: an anonymous building, a weathered wall, an urban detail, a structure with no apparent monumental qualities. It is precisely in this everyday dimension that her photography finds new value.
Her practice is also rooted in flânerie — walking and observing slowly. In her projects, including Silent Beauty, Geografie Sentimentali (Sentimental Geographies) and Geometries of Absence, architecture becomes part of a broader story about the Italian landscape and the memory of places. In 2025, her work received several mentions in international architectural photography awards.
2. Nima Benati
Born in 1992, Nima Benati represents the most openly fashion-oriented side of this selection. Her photography is instantly recognizable for its bold use of color, its carefully constructed images and a deliberately spectacular quality.
Benati has worked in fashion since 2010 and has gradually built a photographic universe in which glamour, styling, locations and pop imagery all come together to create the scene.
She is also an interesting case for understanding how porous the boundary between editorial photography and digital communication has become: the photographer is no longer necessarily an invisible presence behind the image, but can become a recognizable part of their own visual world.
3. Michele Bavassano
New Italian photography does not live only in cities, fashion or the built environment. Michele Bavassano, born in Orvieto, Umbria, in 1996, has chosen nature as his field of research, and wildlife photography in particular.
His focus is not solely on documenting animals. Patience, composition, light and his relationship with the subject all contribute to images that often border on the dreamlike.
He is also one of the clearest examples of how nature photography can now reach a global audience through digital platforms: his official website cites a combined social media following of more than four million.
4. Alessio Albi
Born in Perugia in 1986, Alessio Albi came to photography after a scientific education in medical biotechnology. Self-taught, he has worked professionally since 2015, mainly in portraiture, fashion and commercial photography.
Nature recurs frequently in his imagery: vegetation, landscapes and light become building blocks of the portrait, creating strongly atmospheric images.
His work spans editorial and commissioned photography, with a visual language that has also gained a particularly wide following on Instagram.
5. Alberto Selvestrel
One of the most interesting figures for anyone following the relationship between photography, architecture and landscape, Alberto Selvestrel was born in Turin in 1996 and took up photography as a teenager.
His work focuses on the human-altered landscape and the transformations people bring to it. Buildings, infrastructure and territory are reduced to essential compositions in which geometry, color and empty space play a central role.
Concision is one of the most recognizable traits of his language: Selvestrel seeks to distill the conceptual content of an image through minimal forms and rigorous compositions. In 2019, Fujifilm chose him for the launch of the X-Pro3, and in 2020 Lamborghini brought him on board for its With Italy, For Italy project.
6. Camilla Ferrari
A photographer and filmmaker born in 1992 and based in Milan, Camilla Ferrari works in the border zone between still and moving images.
Her research blends documentary observation with visual poetry, questioning perception, the relationship between dream and reality, and the aspects of everyday life that usually remain invisible.
Her work has been published by National Geographic, The New York Times, NPR, Essenziale and Domus, among others. In 2019, PDN named her one of 30 new and emerging photographers to watch, and in 2026 she received a National Geographic Society Level I Storytelling Grant.
7. Sara Lorusso
Born in Italy in 1995 and working between Bologna and Milan, Sara Lorusso moves between photography and visual art.
She uses the image not simply as a record, but as a tool for inquiry. Intimacy, femininity, emotional relationships and small everyday gestures find their way into a photography that holds together a diary-like quality and documentary attention.
Her work has appeared in i-D, Vogue Italia, Dazed, D la Repubblica, British Journal of Photography and Zeit Magazine; her commercial clients include Vans, Nike, Carhartt WIP, Puma and Levi’s. In 2022, she published her first photobook, As a Flower, with Witty Books.
8. Pietro Bucciarelli
Pietro Bucciarelli belongs to a generation for whom the distinction between personal work and commissioned photography need not become a stylistic divide.
An Italian photographer, he combines his artistic practice with editorial and commercial projects. His career includes time with Cesura and Fabrica, and his photographs have been published by outlets and platforms such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, i-D, Financial Times, PhotoVogue, C41, Perimetro and Rivista Studio.
In 2026, his work continues on the exhibition front as well, confirming a particularly interesting profile at the intersection of contemporary photography, editorial culture and design.
9. Federica Torrenti
She is one of the names to watch most closely in 2026.
Born in Bologna in 1999, Federica Torrenti is both an artist and a medical doctor. Her practice connects photography, biology, philosophy, physics and the study of the mind, probing the boundary between what we see and what remains invisible.
With La Fortezza (The Fortress), she won the 2026 Premio Luigi Ghirri as part of Giovane Fotografia Italiana, Italy’s platform for emerging photographers. The project explores consciousness by weaving together scientific, anatomical and natural imagery, and in addition to the prize it earned her the opportunity to present a future solo exhibition at Triennale Milano.
She is a striking example of contemporary photography that is unafraid to cross-pollinate with disciplines seemingly far removed from artistic language.
10. Cinzia Laliscia
In Cinzia Laliscia’s photography, the narrative often unfolds in an intimate register, suspended between memory, stillness, nature and perception.
Her work has already been featured in international contexts and on platforms dedicated to contemporary photography: from PhotoVogue Festival to LensCulture, PhMuseum and DER GREIF. In 2026, she was a finalist for Giovane Fotografia Italiana | Premio Luigi Ghirri.
Her work shows how seemingly delicate photography can be built on precise research into memory and individual experience, steering clear of merely decorative images.
11. Andrea Camiolo
Born in Leonforte, Sicily, in 1998, Andrea Camiolo lives and works between Catania and Turin. He trained at IED in Turin and at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Catania (Catania Academy of Fine Arts), and is also co-founder of DORSOPRESS, an independent publishing house dedicated to contemporary photography.
His research spans photography, landscape, archives and processes of representation, with particular attention to the mechanisms through which we construct and interpret images.
In 2023, he was a finalist for the Premio Luigi Ghirri and Terna’s Premio Driving Energy, and he won the open call L’Italia è un Desiderio (Italy Is a Desire) run by the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, the Italian Ministry of Culture’s department for contemporary creativity.
12. Giulia Sidoli
Born in Italy in 1998 and based in Paris, Giulia Sidoli approaches photography in a way that is at once contemplative, ironic and critical.
Particularly compelling is Working on My Tan: The Ultimate Tanning Guide, a project in which she examines the cultural obsession with tanning and the rituals of summer vacations, transforming them through a deliberately exaggerated, almost kitsch aesthetic.
Behind the apparent lightness of the images lies a reflection on the behaviors a society ends up treating as normal. The project was also shown at the Circulation(s) festival.
13. Melania Mazzone
Born in Calabria in 1996 and based in Rome, Melania Mazzone began her photographic career in 2017.
Adolescence, identity, memory and everyday life are among the recurring themes of her work. Her images often stem from emotions, personal experiences or memories, building a narrative in which portraiture, still life and fine-art photography can coexist.
Her portfolio on PhotoVogue captures this range well, showing a practice that also extends into fashion and beauty without losing its personal, intimate dimension.
14. Giorgia Bellotti
For Giorgia Bellotti, landscape is not simply a backdrop.
Raised in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, she first explored painting and graphic design before finding in photography the language best suited to her work. Since 2017, self-portraiture has become one of the tools through which she explores her inner world.
Body and natural environment function as parts of the same visual construction: the land where she grew up enters the image as an active presence, not as mere scenery.
15. Matteo Castagnoli
Born in Florence in 2000, Matteo Castagnoli is among the youngest photographers in this selection.
After studying at the Libera Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (Florence Free Academy of Fine Arts), he developed contemporary and conceptual photography projects alongside work in fashion and events.
Black and white is a defining feature of his personal work, while light and flash become central tools in his fashion photography. His personal projects include Insomnia and Memoriae; in 2026, Perimetro also published his series Aetherea and The Crow.
16. Yuri Catalano
Born in 1998, Yuri Catalano works mainly in portraiture, fashion, fine art and beauty.
After training in visual communication, he entered the street style scene in 2019, shooting during Milan Fashion Week.
Nature, tied in part to his upbringing in the countryside, nonetheless remains a recurring presence in his imagery. The result is a body of work in which the portrait is not separated from its setting, but often builds a relationship with it.
17. Eleonora Paciullo
Born in 1993, Eleonora Paciullo is a photographer, book designer and photo editor.
Her practice moves through real and hyperreal places, physical and mental spaces, using a variety of media. The female figure often plays a central role, while photography, memory, myth and digital culture share the same field of inquiry.
Her project Almar’a was exhibited at Cortona On The Move in 2022, while This is L.A. was shown at Circulation(s) in Paris in 2021 and published by 6Mois and PhMuseum.
18. Rosa Lacavalla
Born in Barletta, Apulia, in 1993 and based in Bologna, Rosa Lacavalla is a photographer and visual artist.
After studying at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna (Bologna Academy of Fine Arts) and a stint with Cesura, she has built a practice in which photography increasingly converses with other media, from video to sculpture.
Her approach remains intimate, conceptual and often metaphorical: rather than explaining a subject directly, her images create a space open to interpretation. In 2024, she was nominated for FUTURES through DER GREIF; she was also a finalist for the Deloitte Photo Grant 2023 and the 2025 Premio Luigi Ghirri.
19. Giacomo Infantino
Born in 1993, Giacomo Infantino is a visual artist working between Milan and Varese.
He trained at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in New Media and a master’s degree in Photography, and also studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig.
In his work, photography and moving images build scenarios in which landscape, myth, artifice and the contemporary overlap. Light plays a particularly important role — often artificial, electric and almost unreal.
His work has been shown at the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, PhMuseum Lab and Triennale Milano, among others, as well as at international festivals and exhibition spaces.
20. Eva Rivas Bao
Born in Milan in 2001, Eva Rivas Bao is one of the youngest and most conceptually contemporary voices in the selection.
In her project Una storia italiana (An Italian Story), presented as part of Giovane Fotografia Italiana 2026, she explores the relationship between politics, representation and media memory, starting from Italy in the Berlusconi era and the figure of Imane Fadil.
Personal archives and documentary materials are reworked, partly with the help of artificial intelligence, to question what happens when images are missing, deleted or can no longer serve as evidence.
Her research brings photography straight into one of the defining questions of contemporary visual culture: can we still consider an image a form of testimony?
A new generation of young Italian photographers, many ways of seeing
Taken together, these twenty careers tell us one thing above all: speaking of “young Italian photography” in the singular is probably impossible today.
Alberto Selvestrel’s minimal landscapes are worlds apart from Nima Benati’s fashion universe; Michele Bavassano’s nature follows a different logic from Federica Torrenti’s research into consciousness; Sara Lorusso’s intimate everyday life sits alongside Eva Rivas Bao’s political and media investigation.
And it is precisely this distance that makes the scene so interesting.
Photography is still a document, but it can also be construction, archive, diary, scientific research, editorial project, observation of the territory or a tool for questioning what we see. Above all, the new generation seems less interested in rigidly defending the boundaries of the medium: photography and video meet, analog and digital images coexist, publishing converses with Instagram, and even artificial intelligence can enter the process as material to be critically examined.
Following these photographers, then, means observing not only how Italian photography is changing, but also how a new generation looks at the landscape, the body, nature, memory and the visual culture of its time.
