The Fresh Shoots of Spring

“In photography everything is so ordinary,” British fashion legend David Bailey once said. “It takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.” His words—though printed in The Face in 1984—seem an apt description of the current crop of imaginative young photographers working in the industry, five of whom are showcased at Liberty by Spring Projects this month. From theatrical portraits of performers and eccentrics in their homes by Alice Hawkins to Josh Olins’ lurid, poppy images for Love magazine, these photographers find idiosyncratic ways of stepping beyond fashion’s glossy comfort zone and into galaxies of humor, nuance and satire.