Great lecture by Shane Hulbert at the 2025 Pingyao International Photography…

Great lecture by Shane Hulbert at the 2025 Pingyao International Photography Festival, where he presented his new body of work, spoke about AI more broadly, and unpacked how this series came together.

What made the talk compelling was that it went beyond concepts—Hulbert gave a clear exploration of his techniques and processes, and how these are shaping his practice. For this series he drew inspiration from Robert Adams’ Our Lives and Our Children: Photographs Taken Near the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant (1979–83), a project that quietly documented family life in the shadow of nuclear threat.

Hulbert explained how his own prompts were framed around emotions such as stress, anxiety, concern, and tension. The resulting series carries this psychological weight through both still images and, as a conclusion, a haunting two-minute video that leaves an unsettling impression.