Valentin Goppel

Valentin Goppel was born in 2000 in Regensburg, Germany. Since 2019, he has been studying documentary photography in Hannover. In his work, he approaches broad societal issues by reflecting on his own experience. The work thus serves as a subjective report, combining document and expression.

For his first major project “Between the Years,” Valentin photographed friends and acquaintances in both found scenes and arranged portraits, trying to capture the diffused feelings of growing up in times of the pandemic. The work was published as a photobook in 2024 by British publisher GOST. It won the Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award and the Visa pour L’image Urban Newcomer Grant.

Since 2023, Valentin has been working on his second major project “False Prophet Radio,” a personal exploration of contemporary America. Traveling alone through the United States, he draws from his own sense of displacement to construct a portrait of today’s America.