The most captivating photo stories of 2015

With social media and the high accessibility of camera phones making everyone a photographer, this year in particular saw the medium provide an outpost for marginalised communities to tell their stories on their own terms. Saying that, the constant refresh on our feeds can get exhausting. With your insta-likes seemingly impossible to keep up with it can sometimes seem like the best photographers get lost under a sea of food snaps and selfies. Amazing photo stories can broaden our minds, touch on important social issues, and shine a light on unexplored beauty. Here's ten that proved unforgettable in 2015. 

IN-BETWEEN MOMENTS OF PORN  

French photographer Sophie Ebrard's glossy documentary photos "It's Just Love" give us a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the porn industry - people, in all their humanity and, appropriately, without any clothes, caught in what looks like a combination between a glamourous film set and a wild party. By living on set, Ebrard shared rooms with the performers, and ate with the crew around the money-shot table - “we have dinner where we fuck,” the LA porn producer Gazzman explained. 

THESE PHOTOS GET UP CLOSE AND UNCOMFORTABLE 

Shot with a dental camera, this series of minimalist nude close-ups by photographer Peter Kaaden zooms into naked bodies so much that body hair, belly fat and saliva start to seem poetic. He said, “I was trying it out on the things I like: naked bodies! I found out that I could see things I’ve never seen before – I could be closer to a body than I was ever.” Kaaden compares the project to sex - when you're so up close and personal that you can't even see the form of the body.

ARE THESE THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PHOTO BOOKS EVER? 

 Drugs, sex, and nudity, documentary or posed, here we plotted the must have photography books that sparked outrage around the world, for better or for worse. 

Among the list, Japanese artist Koshei Yoshiyuki caught the orgies of Tokyo's parks and fields during the 70s in a voyeuristic series of black and white photographs of copulating couples. 80s Seattle and its teenage residents were the subject of Mary Ellen Marks Streetwise, with Marks capturing  Erin 'Tiny' Blackwell and her friends partaking in hard drug use and sexual activity.

And obviously, Madonna's Sex, the bestselling coffee table book of all time, featured in the list with supermodel Naomi Campbell, rapper Big Daddy Kane and gay porn star Joey Stefano. Punk, rock, soft core porn and sadomasochistic sex surrounded the controversy of this 128 page aluminum packed book published in 1992.

THIS ARTIST IS PUSHING FOR VAGINA DIVERSITY 

“Raising the Skirt” by artist Nicola Canavan bursts with liberating energy, aiming to destigmatise and reclaim the cunt. Criticising the state of schooled sex education, Canavan explained that “A women’s cunt continues to be incorrectly named, shamed and erased, and that really motivated me to create this project.”

She added, “We also need to invest in 'porn' with better ethics, as this is the main form of sex education for young people that they have access to, and we need porn which shows how to respect sexual partners, what intimacy looks like and to show diversity in body types.” With this project Canavan is definitely making some steps in the right direction.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MEN AND WOMEN SWITCH ROLES? 

Chinese artist Pixy Yijun Liao deconstructs China’s strict gender and power roles in this tongue–in–cheek series of domestic photographs. Yijun started the project, "Experimental Relationship”, after a year of dating Moro, a Japanese musician five years her junior. Liao explained: “Growing up I was always told there is no need to work too hard, but more importantly to marry a man who can support me, have kids, be mother and a wife.”

Within the book she also challenged the complicated geopolitical history of China and Japan, the lovers' respective home countries. Liao added, “Japan and China have a long and complicated story. I see it as love hate relationship. It's usually tense, but two countries influence each other so much.”

CAPTURING FLEETING MOMENTS OF FINNISH YOUTH 

This raw, unglamourising photo series depicts the reality of 90s adolescence, acne, red mohawks, awkwardness and all. The Finnish photographer Jouko Lehtola said, “I try to capture innocence and rage. Anyone who has been a teenager knows it ain’t fun. It’s not a very nice situation.” Finnish Youth catches snapshots of stick 'n' poke flower tattoos under hairy armpits, first experiences of sexual jealousy, and the tensions surrounding trying to fit in.

THE GROWING PAINS OF THE GIRL WHO DREAMED OF BEING A BOY

This Israeli NYC based photographer, Rona Yefman, shares an intimate 14-year documentation of her sibling's transition. The pair recreated Jean Cocteau's infamous novel of sibling love and poison Les Enfants Terribles in their lives, isolating themselves from the conflict zone in which they were raised.

The artist's brother Gil said that their transition was “a bit like breaking apart everything you’ve been raised on, and everything you’ve understood, to really achieve a state of basic chaos, of not knowing anything, even who you are.” Some of the project was shot as being transgender wasn't accepted in Israel; the socio-political context is the untold in these pictures from within a self-created, vulnerable small world.

SELF PORTRAITURE, SEX WORK, AND FINDING REAL BEAUTY  

The diary of photographer Benjamin Fredrickson, an ex-sex-worker diagnosed as HIV+, these black and white images depict the artist's Midwest and New York based clients, lovers, members of the gay community and complete strangers from the Internet. Fredrickson said, “I'm intrigued by the diversity in the nude male form and exploring intimacy and sexuality with an honest eye, without judgment.”

NUDES AND NATURE COLLIDE IN RYAN MCGINLEY'S NEW PHOTO BOOK 

At 25-years-old, McGinley was one of the youngest photographers to get a solo show at the Whitney Museum in New York City. Before turning 30, he was named Young Photographer of the Year at the International Center of Photography's Infinity Awards. In Way Far, McGinley shot the models on a road trip from 5:00am to 9:00am, when it's “really quiet” and “really soft“, and from 6:00pm until 9:00pm, for the golden lights, in a present-day interpretation of the 1970s hedonistic hippie atmosphere.

THESE PHOTOS GO INSIDE AN EAST BERLIN, ALL–FEMALE FIGHT CLUB 

This intense, honest and non-voyeuristic series of black and white photographs portraying half-naked women of all sizes wrestling in a small East Berlin fight club shines a torch on the largely unexplored subject of female agression and sport. “The events focus on the competition and its thrill, no matter how skilled you are,” explained Polish photographer Katarzyna Mazur. There are no categories, so women of different heights and weights fight each other. “I was quite shocked. I had never seen something like that before and it was really interesting to experience the intensity so close," the artist added.