We are living in a world astounded by crises. Photography is like a mirror that is peering into our existence. Genuine contemporary photography endeavours to shed light on the future of this planet, who we are as humans and what we are doing to ourselves.

Contemporary photography world should have a little to do with big cameras, the length of a lens, image resolution, sensors, iPads, smartphones, apps or computers. It has almost nothing to do with the latest products, fashion, sex, entertainment, who’s who, Twitter, Facebook, the latest fad or the newest coffee at Starbucks.

But the creative, photography world does have almost everything to do with the current issues. Here are a few of the most critical and prominent issues we face in the photography world of 2020.

  • The Environment
  • Over Population
  • The Human Condition
  • Global Climate Change
  • Human Rights
  • The BOMB
  • The BOMB
  • Guns
  • Human Dignity
  • Nuclear Power
  • Violence
  • Consumption
  • Greed
  • Women’s Rights
  • The Homeless
  • Ignorance
  • Freedom
  • Globalization and The List Doesn’t Stop
The Human Condition
Global Climate Change
War
Women’s Rights
The Homeless
Happy Kids Playing Outside

We all have experienced that 2020 seems to be something out of a mainstream blockbuster?This year has shaken things up for good between social activism on various global, common causes and a worldwide pandemic and consequent lockdown. The effect on the creative community is palpable. This year have given many challenges to visual design.

The Challenge of 2020 is to create in a Restrictive Environment. One of the most tarnished events in 2020 is, undoubtedly, the worldwide Covid-19 (or novel Coronavirus) pandemic, with the following lockdown that affected pretty much every country and people.

In this context, creative workflows and strategies are forcefully modified. Many creative teams have shifted to remote work. Many brands that are using customized visual materials cannot produce new content, and the rapidly changing media landscape demands new ways to communicate.

This year have made it more critical than ever to excel at creative skills (e.g., video, 3D, and interactive design).Given creative workflows tend to be a bit chaotic in a normal situation, the disruption of this year’s events has certainly messed things up and creatives are called to adapt and make it work.

It’s a no surprise that for most people working in creative departments or running their own business’ campaigns, the key thing for this year has been how fast things can change worldwide and how impactful those changes can be for everyone.

So far in this year, designers and creatives seem to be not only joining through but have found a way to bank on the current state of things for their marketing and communications strategies, turning a challenging context into a new inspiration and positive impact-driving concept.

The events of 2020 have inspired & taught us to adapt &inspire with change-driven visuals. And so the creative & photography teams to incorporate real-world issues into their creative work by developing campaigns with positive societal impacts.

If we can take anything out of this is that while some of this year’s events might be –hopefully– of the once-in-a-lifetime type, the rapid, social-driven global environment will stay, so adapting to the new photography trends of 2020 is important.

There is agrowing demand for diversity and socially representative images in 2020 and in upcoming years. While the stock photography market is wide and modern stock photography aims at validity & variety, the vertiginous evolution of social trends makes it hard for providers to stay up to date, and content creators are visualizing it.

The stock photo agencies, stock photographers and artists would now pick up on the socially-inspired content & images. However, the creative restrictions affect providers too and add many issues on their side of the market, so it’s a matter of time to see if they’ll be able to create the offer for this growing demand.

Things have changed, but creative and imagery is still on it’s working mode. If one thing is clear that the creative community is not been deterred by this year’s obstacles to campaign planning, photography world, and visual content production, but is instead adapting, expanding, and exploring into new mediums, and finding a comfort level in stock photography as well as inspiration in the global happenings because ignorance is not an option we can afford and so, only our action will save us from ourselves.