Photographers chosen for PDN’s 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch will share the useful lessons they learned as they launched their careers. The panelists will discuss planning and funding personal projects, their strategies for promoting their work to potential clients and galleries, and how they built a support network.
Presenters: Sarah Blesener Kholood Eid Cole Wilson An Rong Xu Laurel Golio
Moderators: Holly Stuart Hughes
Location: Brooklyn Bridge Park – Water Street
Presented by:
Photographers chosen for PDN’s 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch will share the useful lessons they learned as they launched their careers. The panelists will discuss planning and funding personal projects, their strategies for promoting their work to potential clients and galleries, and how they built a support network.
Sarah Blesener was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She studied Linguistics and Youth Development at North Central University. While at university, she worked as a photographer for the organization Healing Haiti based in Port au Prince, Haiti, covering events surrounding the 2010 earthquake. Upon graduation in 2012, she studied at Bookvar Russian Academy in Minneapolis, concentrating on the Russian language. She is a recent graduate of the Visual Journalism and Documentary Practice program at the International Center of Photography in New York. Her latest work revolves around issues of youth culture and movements, focusing on Russia, Eastern Europe and the United States.
Kholood Eid is a Palestinian American documentary photographer, filmmaker and educator based in New York City and Seattle who is known for her intimate portraiture. In 2020, she was a recipient a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, alongside colleagues, for The New York Times investigative series ‘’Exploited.’’
Her work explores the depths of vulnerability, the strength in survival, the beauty in adversity and the intersectionality of identity through blending conceptual and reportage practices. In 2023, she launched Wet Nose Pawject—a dog portrait business—to incorporate more levity in life and have an outlet for her obsessive love of dogs.
Clients include The New York Times, National Geographic, TIME and The New Yorker among other publications and she has taught at Columbia University, New York University and the Bronx Documentary Center.
Cole Wilson is an editorial and commercial photographer, and was chosen for PDN’s 30 2018. His clients include The New York Times, WIRED, Bloomberg Businessweek, Chelsea FC Inc, Adidas, Puma, GQ, Popular Mechanics and Runner’s World.
An Rong Xu is a photographer and director, chosen for PDN’s 30 2018. Born in China and raised in New York City’s Chinatown, he has photographed and directed for publications and companies such as The New York Times, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, GQ Taiwan, The History Channel, Instagram, Airbnb, Underarmour and Google.
Laurel Golio, a photographer and visual anthropologist based in New York, was chosen for PDN’s 30 2018: New and Emerging Photographer to Watch. The co-founder of “We Are the Youth”, a photojournalism project that shares the stories of LGBTQ+ youth in the U.S., Golio has shot for Bloomberg Businessweek, The Cut, The Fader, Champion, The North Face, Powerbar, Red Bull and other publications and clients. Golio’s work was part of ICP’s “Perpetual Revolution” exhibition show and been exhibited in shows around the U.S.
Holly Stuart Hughes is the editor of Photo District News and PDNOnline.com, the monthly magazine and website for professional photographers. PDN provides photographers with the news, inspiration and insights they need to succeed. Each year, the editors of PDN publish PDN’s 30, an annual issue showcasing 30 new and emerging photographers to watch, and providing information for student and emerging photographers on launching and sustaining a career in today’s market.
Photo District News (PDN) and PDNOnline, the award-winning publications for the professional photographer, have covered every aspect of the professional photographic industry for over 30 years. PDN delivers the information photographers need to survive in a competitive business–from marketing and business advice to legal issues, cutting-edge photographic techniques, new technologies and more.
PDN published its first PDN’s 30 issue in 1999. Photographers selected for past PDN’s 30 issues have become some of today’s most acclaimed and prolific photographers.
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