Confronting Fear and the Future With Photography
Phillip Toledano employs the unexpected to expose the humor, heartbreak, and ambivalence of the human condition.
Photographer Phillip Toledano spends a lot of time figuring out what’s required of him as an artist. How, for instance, can he accurately reflect life and all its facets—humor, ambivalence, vulnerability, love?
He’s been taking photos since he was ten, starting with simulated Alpine landscapes created from magazine clippings and figurines. For National Geographic, Toledano lent his eye to the November 2016 story “Mars: Inside the High-Risk, High-Stakes Race to the Red Planet.” His vision created pictures that were nothing short of magical.
After the death of his parents a lot of his work became introspective and personal.
“The work I did with my father—that changed the course of the river for me,” he says, referring to Days With My Father, a
