This feature is part of CULTURED‘s 2026 Young Photographers list. This year’s list spotlights 14 artists aged 30 or younger from around the globe who are united by a relentless curiosity and an understanding that the photographer’s most important job is identifying what deserves to be seen.
AGE: 24
BASED IN: New York
The photographer, whose work captures the textures of youth through still lifes and dramatically cropped portraits, published his first book, Drew Korn’s Second Chance, this spring. (Think: boys crying in baseball caps and lines of coke across copies of Beloved.) It sold out in two weeks.
What’s a recent career moment you’re proud of?
In April, I published my first real book, with work spanning almost seven years. It’s being reviewed in Musée Magazine, which will be the first time my work is critiqued in a publication. I haven’t seen any drafts, so it could be a negative review, but I’ll probably think it’s cool either way. It was strange to work on something for so long, and then have it sell out and be over in half a month.
I got super stressed about “momentum”and making more copies to get them into more hands for the sake of my “career,” but then I realized that I can make more whenever, and it’s probably better to stay in the mindset that you make this one so that you can make the next.
What’s the ideal situation for you to make work?
A lot of what I am trying to do is based on being close to people, and most of the work happens without a camera. Some people seem to think my work has something to do with the city or youth culture, but I really don’t think about places or situations at all. I’m thinking about my close friends and family—really, the only people I photograph. I’m embarrassed by it, but I’ve realized what I’m really looking for is myself within them.
What questions does your work ask?
Is this good enough? Am I impressing you? A lot of the work has to do with being a young man with an ego problem who really wants to be unique. I also think my work tries to be critical of the self, specifically this part that can’t avoid feeling like it has something to prove, seeks attention, and whines like a baby about wanting to be taken seriously.
Disgusting or endearing? Obscene or romantic? There’s a blurred line between the tender and the grotesque in a lot of my approach, and confusing the two is a big part of who I am. A lot of the work’s themes up until this point have had to do with the uncertainty and insecurity that comes with the period of life when you’re too old to be a boy but too young to be a man. But my life is changing now, and so will the work.
What has been your most challenging subject to photograph so far?
I think intimacy is the only interesting thing to photograph. An image can celebrate a subject one day, and the next day exploit them, and the image, of course, has not changed. This is what comes with intimate material: people, how they feel about each other, how they feel about me.
Meet more of CULTURED‘s 2026 Young Photographers:
Photographer Elijah Chukwuka Mogoli Captures a Disappearing Brooklyn
Photographer Alec Dai Once Shot a Series Naked, in a Basement, Under a ‘Weird Portrait of Jesus’
Many Photographers Have Been Nominated for a Pulitzer. This One Was Nominated for a Grammy.
Photographer Arielle Gray Wants Her Subjects to Be Unafraid of Softness
War Still Rages in Ukraine. Photographer Conall Kearney Is There to Document It.
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