September 16, 2026
PHOTOS
Celebrating “What Holds Us” on iPhone 18 Pro
Curated by Kathy Ryan, a brand new images exhibition showcases the total vary of inventive capabilities unlocked by probably the most superior iPhone digital camera system but
Moments of contact, gaze, care, and shared expertise — these are the core sides of “What Holds Us,” a brand new images exhibition that showcases unique work shot solely on the brand-new iPhone 18 Pro. Exploring the individuals, locations, and concepts that join and floor humanity, artists Alex Prager, Jack Davison, and Jimmy Chin captured pictures that talk to presence as each a mind-set and a approach of being.
“The theme holds a mirror to our increasingly fragmented world,” explains Kathy Ryan, the exhibition’s curator and the previous longtime director of images for The New York Times Magazine. “Rather than adding to this tension, ‘What Holds Us’ is a showcase of the limitless possibilities that emerge when three extraordinary artists are given the creative space to explore the idea of what connects us, using this incredible tool.”
Selected for distinct factors of view and inventive obsessions, Prager, Davison, and Chin tapped into the total vary of inventive prospects unlocked by one of the best iPhone digital camera system but. Featuring variable aperture for the primary time, iPhone 18 Pro provides better-quality low-light images, crisper particulars, and much more inventive management, setting the stage for the distinctive photographs on show within the exhibition.
“What makes iPhone such a compelling creative tool is its immediacy — it puts the ability to see, experiment, and create directly into everyone’s hands,” Ryan says. “Seeing what Alex, Jack, and Jimmy are able to create with a device we all carry every day challenges our ideas of what photography can be and shows us how it can remain true to the original values of the craft while embracing new tools and possibilities.”
While the three artists have practices which can be extremely distinctive, all of them share the outstanding potential to elicit one thing deeply human, Ryan explains: “Together, their work offers three very different perspectives on what connects us, while also demonstrating what’s possible when artists push the boundaries of their imagination — and technology rises to the occasion to make it possible.”
To have fun “What Holds Us” — which opens this Friday, September 18, in New York City — the artists spoke in regards to the evolving language of visible storytelling, the which means of connection, and the way iPhone contributed to their inventive processes.
Jimmy Chin
High amid the powder-dusted peaks of the Bugaboos in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, earlier this summer time, Chin was in his pure ingredient capturing a sequence of visually arresting photographs that discover belief and connection in one of many world’s most excessive environments.
“I’ve always been interested in human passion and meaning, and where that intersects with the raw beauty of wild landscapes,” explains Chin, a mountain climber, journey photographer, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker whose work has taken him everywhere in the world. “When you spend a lot of time in these places, you start to look at things differently. You start to see the details.”
Through a sequence of tight close-ups, sweeping aerial vistas, and adrenaline-activating motion photographs captured on iPhone 18 Pro, Chin sought to impart the sheer scale of the mountain vary and people who have been formed by it. That contains legendary climber Conrad Anker, who’s featured all through Chin’s pictures and seems as the only real tiny determine on the middle of an immense panoramic shot that anchors his work for the present.
“The resolution and the sharpness on iPhone 18 Pro surprised me,” says Chin. “I could shoot a few inches of rock and ice, or a massive panorama, and trust it would hold at size. That is what this work needed. It also meant I carried almost nothing. In the mountains, everything you carry is a decision. I was not thinking about gear. I was thinking about what was in front of me.”
“Given the difficulty of reaching such heights amid 70-mile-per-hour winds with traditional equipment, it was essential for Jimmy to be able to work with the minimal equipment and maximum flexibility that iPhone gave him,” Ryan echoes. “It’s a testament to iPhone’s functionality, but also to how technology can remove barriers to creativity and make previously impossible images possible.”
Jack Davison
As he started to develop his personal tackle the exhibition’s theme, there was one visible Davison couldn’t get out of his head: the picture of human arms interacting with clay.
“Through this project, I wanted to celebrate the relationship between clay and people: its physicality, texture, and surreality as a sculptural form,” says Davison, a celebrated portrait photographer and director who’s identified for his signature chiaroscuro of robust blacks and whites. “I wanted to make something that felt very grounded, sensual, and messy — something that could only be crafted by human touch.”
Davison’s intimate pictures are startlingly tactile and visceral, that includes an array of topics the artist directed as they performed with clay and chalk. Some of the photographs’ topics smeared clay on themselves and have become human sculptures, whereas others left fingerprints and tracings of their interventions.
In the studio — a former sugar warehouse in London — iPhone 18 Pro unlocked new prospects for connection together with his topics. “The relationship is more personal because you’re not bringing something in front of your face — you’re holding it lower, maintaining eye contact,” Davison explains. “You’re still able to hold that personal connection.”
“I genuinely was blown away by the camera on iPhone 18 Pro,” he continues. “There was something about the quality of the imagery that felt like a huge leap. Not just from a technical standpoint, but in its ability to create more artistic and surreal images. That really surprised me. The ability to switch between lenses, use slower shutters, and shoot RAW made it such a potent package.”
Alex Prager
Though she’s no stranger to staging kinetic, kaleidoscopic crowd scenes, Prager knew there was one thing totally different in regards to the exuberant, color-drenched pictures she was capturing on set with iPhone 18 Pro.
Alternating between a fowl’s-eye view to seize the phantasm of a seemingly steady crowd and tighter, extra granular pictures to house in on the interiority of the topics inside it, Prager let the cellphone’s digital camera system assist information the place she took the work.
“Photography has changed a lot, and this particular camera is more like a video stream, in essence, which also shapes how we approach images today — more like video with higher output in our photo albums and on social media,” explains Prager. “It was exciting for me to think about all of this while harking back to a timeless crowd winding down from a celebration.”
Whirling with individuals, Prager’s hovering set up attracts viewers in, virtually as in the event that they’re caught in its motion. “There’s a sense that we are not seeing singular captured moments in her work — instead, we are watching the scene unfold,” Ryan says. “We are watching the seconds before and after. We are neither here nor there. There seems to be a party going on, and it seems that the party has just ended. There is an implied narrative, but it is just out of reach.”
“Alex’s method of working definitely challenged the new iPhone, but it rose to the occasion,” Ryan continues. “She was able to take advantage of iPhone’s ease of use and adaptability while also maintaining the high production values seen on a major film set.”
“What Holds Us” can be on show in New York City from September 18 to twenty, and over the approaching months, the exhibition will journey to London and Shanghai.
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