Drew Gardner has been named the overall winner of the ND Awards 2024 in the Professional category. His award-winning project recreates portraits of Black American Civil War soldiers with their living descendants, using historical research, genealogy, and 19th-century photographic techniques. Shot with a tintype camera and handcrafted sets, the series brings ancestral legacy into vivid contemporary focus—earning a cover feature in Smithsonian magazine’s Black History Month edition.
Could you introduce yourself to our readers meeting you for the first time?
My name is Drew Gardner and I’m a photographer of more than 40 years experience working in multiple photographic disciplines including photojournalism fine art and moving image.
Can you recall the formative moment, or succession of moments, that led you to choose photography as your primary expressive language?
I remember this moment very clearly I was 14 years old and was having a teenage crisis. What was I going to do with my life? I had no idea. Then my dad bought Practica camera and I was totally hooked. I started a paper round so I could only enough money to buy a top end camera – a Canon A1, which I still have to this day, I can even remember it’s body number 588603. Reading books by Don McCullin and David Hume Kennerly, convinced me rather easily that I wanted to be a photo journalist and that the camera was going to be a passport to dynamic life.
In what ways have your academic, professional or life experiences outside the photographic sphere informed the narratives you construct behind the camera?
When I quit full-time photo journalism and the early 2000s I actually cursed my luck or should I say my choices as I felt that my time as a photojournalist was wasted – I wanted to make my own photographic world and I felt that by being a photojournalist I had somehow ‘missed the boat’. It took some years for the realisation to dawn that photojournalism had given me was something that was people skills and an insight into other worlds I could not have gained any other way.
“The Descendants” reconstructs historic portraits through the lens of lineage. How did the initial idea germinate, and what compelled you to translate genealogy into contemporary portraiture?
It was my own little ‘push back’ against celebrity culture which see’s society value celebrities whom have achieved relatively little outside of ‘being famous for simply being famous’. I was struck by the thought of descendants of people who had done or achieved remarkable things walking amongst us with a story to tell.
Your reconstructions demand meticulous archival investigation. Could you walk us through your methodology for tracing sitters’ ancestry and sourcing authentic period details?
Tracing the descendants through their family tree is the first step, once we have a name we then attempt to cross reference this with birth’s, death’s and marriage announcements and then cross reference again on Social Media with a collection of known family names.
From wardrobe to lighting, each tableau is a small-scale epic. Which logistical or creative challenge proved most formidable, and how did you resolve it?
It is the ultimate image tear down, in that I identify every element in the portrait and I set about establishing, what if any, parts can be hired, bought, made or manufactured. The most ambitious and stressful without a doubt was the black civil war descendants series as it took more than 4 years and bringing everyone’s together in the same room from all over the USA was no mean feat!
What responses, scholarly, public, or personal, have surprised you since the series began circulating?
It is fair to say that the descendants series has elicited the whole gamut of responses of every kind, mostly overwhelmingly positive but a couple of negative responses where people question if the sitters is indeed related to whom they say they are. I have noticed however that hidden histories attract more attention than ‘known’ histories.
Looking ahead three to five years, what ambitions or unrealized projects lie on your horizon, and how do you envisage them expanding your current practice?
There are so many possibilities and I get approached all the time by people saying ‘you should do this person or that person’ or ‘I am related to XYZ would you like to photograph me?’ My next goal is to expand the Black civil war descendants series, as it has received considerable acclaim and celebrates an often overlooked history. I’m currently running a GoFundMe for the project so I can complete the Black Civil war descendants series.
On both a personal and professional level, what does receiving the ND Awards 2024 mean to you, and how might it influence the project’s future trajectory?
Accolades are always welcome but to be named the ND Awards Photographer of the Year 2024 was very special indeed – I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. Winning ND Awards is recognition amongst my peers.
British photographer Drew Gardner has gained international recognition for his extraordinary project, The Descendants, which reimagines history through a powerful photographic lens. The ongoing series brings the past into the present by recreating historic portraits using the verified direct descendants of iconic figures. Gardner’s meticulous approach combines genealogy, art history, and photography to highlight the living connections to individuals who shaped the world—from Frederick Douglass and Napoleon Bonaparte to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Thomas Jefferson.
A turning point in the series came in 2020, when Gardner collaborated with Smithsonian Magazine to produce portraits of American historical figures. This led him to a deeper exploration of lesser-told stories, particularly those of African American soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Confronted with the reality that fewer than 200 photographs of these soldiers are known to exist, Gardner devoted three years to researching and locating living descendants. Through partnerships with genealogy projects such as the WikiTree U.S. Black Heritage Project, Gardner connected with families tied to figures like Harriet Tubman, David Miles Moore, and Andrew Jackson Smith.
To authentically recreate these images, Gardner used a 19th-century 5×7-inch tintype camera, often requiring his subjects to remain still for nearly a minute. Every detail—from military uniforms to vintage props—was historically accurate, grounding each portrait in visual and emotional truth.
The impact of The Descendants has resonated widely. The series has earned nine international photography awards, including distinctions from the International Photography Awards, ND Awards Photographer of the Year, PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, and the AoP Open award, Shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing award, Winner of the Head On Portraiture awards, Australia.
These honors recognize not only Gardner’s technical mastery but also the cultural and historical significance of his work.
Featured in National Geographic, The Washington Post, CNN, BBC World Service and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, The Descendants compels audiences to reconsider the threads that connect generations. Gardner’s lens doesn’t just capture resemblance—it captures resilience, reminding us that history lives on in the faces of the present.
www.drewgardner.com
@drewgardnerphotographer
