The Social Documentary Network (SDN), founded in 2008, is a global community of documentary photographers, editors, curators, NGOs, journalists, and others, who believe in the power of visual storytelling to build understanding and appreciation for the complexities, diversity nuances, wonders, and contradictions that abound in the world today.
Since our founding, the SDN website has featured more than 4,000 exhibits by nearly 3,000 photographers from all corners of the globe.
Our flagship publication, ZEKE: The Magazine of Global Documentary, is printed twice a year in print and year-round in digital, and features the most successful projects from the SDN website.
We also create gallery exhibitions, educational programs, lecture series, award programs, and portfolio reviews.
Recent stories on SDN and in ZEKE have explored sustainable solutions to the climate crisis, the war in Gaza, migration from Central America to the U.S., the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, the rising seas of Antarctica, life in Iran, asylum in America, teen mothers, and many other global themes.
ZEKE Awards winners explore the stories of Galicia, reflecting the community’s struggle to adapt and endure in the face of change, and how thirty years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, survivors and perpetrators have forged remarkable partnerships in a profound journey of reconciliation and healing.
Learn MoreZEKE Award first-place winners explore the Indigenous Evenki reindeer herders in northwest Russia and the forest guardians protecting the Peruvian jungle from illegal logging and development.
Learn More2023 ZEKE Award winners include visual stories on resistance against extractive industries in Ecuador, violence against women in Ethiopia, the Vatican apology to the Indigenous community in Canada, a thriving Queer community in Appalachia and others.
Learn MorePresented by Social Documentary Network, ZEKE Magazine
These documentary exhibits explore sustainable solutions to the climate crisis: the Indigenous People’s Burn Network in the western United States; Nemo’s Garden in Italy — the world’s first underwater greenhouse; the African Women Rising’s Permagarden Program in Uganda, and others.
Learn MoreLast Wildest Places by Jason Houston, focuses on deforestation in the Purús-Manu region in southeastern Peru. Cousins by Kristen Emack, is a poetic look at the photographer’s daughter and her three cousins, and their intimate involvement in each other’s lives.
Toby Binder and Rory Doyle are first place winners of the ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography, a new honor presented by the Social Documentary Network. Sponsors include Digital Silver Imaging, Canson-Infinity, and Leica.
LiveZEKE is a new way to experience documentary photography, combining live video conferencing and traditional documentary practice.
Learn MoreThree ZEKE Award recipients will present their winning projects and discuss doing documentary work in different parts of the world.
Learn MoreZEKE Award winners Kristen Emack, Jason Houston, and Nicoló Filippo Rosso will present their winning projects and discuss their views on the state of documentary photography today.
Learn MoreThis panel discussion will explore where documentary photography is heading in the second decade of the 21st century.
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