In the opening sentence of her essay collection The White Album (1979), Joan Didion wrote: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” These days, we take photographs of ourselves in order to live. We also photograph the people we know and the strangers we don’t, the food we eat and the places we visit. For artists who use photography as their primary medium, this may be the best of times and the worst of times—a time of abundant imagery, versatile technology, and globally connected audiences. To have a distinctive voice, to tell unique and captivating stories, to stand out from the madding crowd, remains as challenging as ever, as the two photographers featured in this issue reveal.