Toby Binder

The documentary photographer tells Niall Hampton about his award-winning project captured on the streets of Belfast

- Niall Hampton

Life on the streets for young people in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is something of a passion project for the German documentary photographer Toby Binder.

He has been photographing there for a number of years, capturing the lived experiences of subjects who were born after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, which brought an end to The Troubles – the civil unrest that had been a part of daily life in the province from the late 1960s. While the Unionist and Nationalist paramilitaries laid down their arms as part of the agreement, there are still tensions in both communities, which continue to be separated by physical barriers. Psychological divisions are prevalent, too, passed down from generation to generation, and this is something that Toby likes to explore.

His series Divided Youth of Belfast took first prize in the Documentary category of this year's Sony World Photography Awards Professional competition, so we asked Toby to take us behind the scenes of the project...

You have photographed a diverse range of subjects in your career. Was documentary photography always a calling for you?

At least when I got into visual storytelling. During my graphic design studies, I realised that I didn't just want to design story layouts, but to experience and photograph stories myself. I would rather be out on the streets than on a computer. Since then, I have been called a street dog more than once... and it's exactly that spirit that I like. This drifting around with a clear goal in mind, but not knowing what will happen next. For me, documentary photography is absolutely the genre that utilises the power of photography in the most meaningful way. Photography can reach the feelings of the viewer like no other medium, and documentary photography shows real people and real lives. The knowledge that these people exist, that they are not AI-generated fantasy products, can never leave anyone untouched.