Jury - Life Framer

A PRESTIGIOUS
JUDGING PANEL

Our jury is comprised of world-class photographers, curators, agency directors and editors. They select a shortlist and winning photographers, as well as providing feedback.

Randal Ford

Randal Ford is an American fine-art photographer widely recognised for his distinctive studio portraits of animals – works that explore their character, presence and individuality. His images have been exhibited internationally and are held in private and public collections, establishing him as a leading contemporary voice in animal portraiture.

Ford’s celebrated series Animal Kingdom comprises more than 150 studio portraits made in collaboration with trainers, wildlife organisations and sanctuaries. Working against minimal backdrops and with controlled, painterly lighting, he isolates each subject to reveal expression, texture and form with striking clarity. The resulting images bridge fine art and portrait tradition, inviting viewers to encounter animals as sentient individuals rather than symbols or specimens.

His work has appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine and in publications including Texas Monthly and Communication Arts. He has been listed among Lürzer’s Archive’s top 200 photographers worldwide, and recognised multiple times at the International Photo Awards. Across his practice, Ford combines technical rigor with a patient and respectful approach that brings dignity to the animals he photographs – offering a contemporary, humanistic view of the animal kingdom.

Léa Thouin

Léa Thouin is a Paris-based photography curator and collections specialist at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the world’s leading institutions dedicated to the preservation and presentation of photographic art. Her work spans exhibitions, publications and public programmes, connecting the legacy of key figures in photography with contemporary practice.

Through her curatorial and research work – including previous roles at the famous Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival – she has developed a deep engagement with the photographic medium and its capacity to reflect and shape cultural moments.

Thouin’s close relationship with photographic archives and visual traditions makes her a perfect judge for the theme of Black & White – a practice that focuses on structure, light, timing and storytelling, and that sits at the core of photography’s history.

Magdalena Wosinska

Magdalena Wosinska is a Polish-born, Los Angeles–based photographer whose work spans intimate portraiture, subculture documentary and atmospheric editorial work. Known for her authentic and emotionally-open style, she captures human connection with rawness and warmth.

Wosinska began photographing as a teenager after moving to the United States, first documenting the male-dominated skateboarding and heavy metal communities she moved in, before expanding into broader narratives of friendship, identity and belonging. Her images often centre on relationships – between friends, lovers, families and the communities that shape us – approached with a candid, empathetic eye.

She has published four books, has been exhibited at international galleries such as Fahey/Klein, Praz Delavallade and Webber Gallery, and has work in the MoMA Library Collection. Her work has been featured in publications such as Vogue, Wired, Rolling Stones, Dazed & Confused and The New York Times, and she counts Adidas, Converse, Goop, Ray Ban and Uber. Across her practice, Wosinska reveals the tenderness, vulnerability and imperfection that define how people relate to one another, in doing so documenting the richness of human experience.

Jimmy Marble

Jimmy Marble is a Los Angeles–based photographer and creative director known for his bold, graphic use of color and his playful approach to image-making. Working across photography, set design and art direction, his work blends pop culture, humour and meticulous visual control.

First widely showcased in his long-since sold out book “Dream Baby Dream”, Marble’s images are instantly recognisable for their saturated palettes, sculptural compositions and confident embrace of artificiality. He has collaborated with leading global brands such as Coca Cola, Nike, Tinder. LG and Apple, producing work that sits at the intersection of commercial photography, design and contemporary visual culture.

Marble describes photography as “a friend who always picks up when I call”, and that friend would no doubt be meticulously and colorfully dressed. He uses color not just as decoration, but as structure, mood and meaning – a way to enhance intention and ensure impact. It makes him a sharp and authoritative judge for a theme dedicated to colors.

Shana Lopes

Shana Lopes is a highly experienced art historian and curator based at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SFMoMA, following roles in commercial photography studios, as well as at both the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In her current role she has organized exhibitions such as Constellations: Photographs in Dialogue, Sightlines: Photographs from the Collection, A Living for Us All: Artists and the WPA, Sea Change, Zanele Muholi: Eye Me, and the SECA 2024 Art Award.

She holds a PhD in History of Photography, and has a particular passion for work that explores identity, under-represented communities, climate change, as well as photographic work that uses alternative processes and blurs the boundaries between media.

Robin Hammond

National Geographic Explorer Robin Hammond is a globally recognised documentary photographer and storyteller whose work gives voice to marginalised communities around the world, foregrounding individuals through beautiful and precise portraiture.

Over a career spanning decades, Hammond has pursued projects that shine a light on social injustice, mental health, war, human rights and identity, and in doing so has won two World Press Photo prizes, the RF Kennedy Journalism Award, six Pictures of the Year International Awards, the W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography, six Amnesty International awards for Human Rights journalism and recognition from Foreign Policy as one of 100 Leading Global Thinkers. His acclaimed project Where Love Is Illegal documented the lives of LGBTQI+ individuals in countries where their identities are criminalised – many portraits taken under deeply sensitive and risky conditions – and remains a powerful example of portraiture as activism. This activism extends to Witness Change – a non-profit organization he has founded to highlight and combat human rights violations for marginalized communities through visual storytelling.

Whether documenting intimate, personal stories or large-scale crises, Hammond’s compassionate, ethically considered and deeply researched work reminds us of the humanity behind the headlines.

Andrea Modica

Andrea Modica is an American photographer, Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Scholar and Professor of Photography at Drexel University, celebrated for her intimate, emotionally resonant black & white images that explore vulnerability, memory and the complexity of human relationships.

Working primarily in large format, her photographs – whether on the topic of Catholic school girls, minor league baseball, horse clinics or smalltown family life – are marked by a quiet intensity and deep psychological presence. Her work is held in major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Her influential books are widely regarded as landmark contributions to contemporary photographic portraiture.

Black & white lies at the core of Modica’s practice – not as a stylistic choice, but as a means of distilling emotion, form and connection. Her sustained engagement with the medium’s expressive possibilities makes her a perfect judge for a theme dedicated to black & white.

Myrtille Delamarche

Myrtille Delamarche is Editor in Chief at renowned magazine and environmental photography platform GEO, where she works at the intersection of photography, journalism and environmental storytelling, and brings a strongly international background shaped by years of reporting across Africa, Asia and South America.

With a strong editorial sensibility and a passion for long-form narrative storytelling, she helps shape stories that explore the natural world and our relationship with it. Trained as a journalist before moving into photo editing and then field reporting for a variety of environmental, scientific and industrial press, she has built a career on work that requires both visual rigor and contextual awareness – balancing aesthetic strength with journalistic integrity.

Her deep experience in photography, journalism, science and global reporting makes her a thoughtful and exacting judge for a theme devoted to Planet Earth.

GMB Akash

GMB Akash is a Bangladeshi documentary photographer whose work centres on capturing the essence of people living on the edges of society around the world. Known for his deeply human approach to visual storytelling, his photographs focus on dignity, resilience and the emotional realities of everyday life.

Working across long-term projects, Akash documents social inequality, labour, migration and survival, often spending extended periods with his subjects to build trust and understanding. His images have been widely featured in publications such as Vogue, TIME, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, The Economist and Marie Claire, and have been recognized with major awards, including honours from World Press Photo, the Lucie Awards, PDN and UNESCO. He is a regular juror, public speaker, reviewer, workshop leader and teacher, founding his own non-profit Institute of Photography in Bangladesh in 2013.

Human experience lies at the core of Akash’s practice. With an unwavering focus on empathy, his work offers a powerful reminder of photography’s ability to connect us to one another, inspiring us to strive for a more just and equitable world.

Michael Yamashita

Michael Yamashita is an American–Japanese visual storyteller and National Geographic regular, whose career spans more than four decades and six continents. He combines deep cultural insight, historical awareness and aesthetic sensibility to portray people, places and landscapes with nuance and respect.

Born in San Francisco and raised in New Jersey, Yamashita travelled to Japan after college, immersing himself in Asian languages and culture – a formative period that inspired a lifelong passion for exploring distant lands. Over the years he has produced dozens of stories, covering regions from the Tibetan Plateau and the Mekong River to remote villages, historic trade routes and natural wonders around the world.

A TED-X speaker, sought-after lecturer, and instructor at photo workshops, universities, and conferences worldwide, he is both a passionate photographer and ambassador for the medium, garnering him awards from institutions such as Pictures of the Year, the New York Art Directors Club, and the Asian American Journalists Association. Yamashita’s work he reveals how geography, history and humanity intersect, combining an experienced eye, a strong narrative instinct, and an insatiable wanderlust.

Matthieu Paley

Matthieu Paley is a French documentary photographer whose work explores identity, belief and belonging across some of the world’s most remote regions. Known for his immersive, long-term approach, he lives and travels alongside the communities he photographs, gaining rare access to moments of transition and coming of age.

Paley has worked extensively across Central and South Asia, documenting youth within cultural, religious and political frameworks that shape their lives. His work has been published widely, including in National Geographic, and has been recognised with major international awards such as World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year International.

Whether in Mongolia, Afghanistan, China, India or Sri Lanka, youth sits at the heart of Paley’s practice — not as a demographic, but as a formative stage marked by change, curiosity and tension between tradition and modernity. His ability to portray young lives with nuance, respect and depth makes him a thoughtful and authoritative judge for a theme devoted to youth.

Johan Lolos

Belgian–Greek landscape photographer Johan Lolos is celebrated for his sweeping, emotionally resonant images of Earth’s wild places — from Alpine peaks to the Gobi desert, via color-infused Icelandic highlands and jagged Greek coastlines. He brings both technical precision and a keen sense of wonder to every frame.

Shaped by a two-year adventure through Australia and New Zealand, Lolos has built a global following as he traverses continents capturing landscapes, cultures, and the interplay between humanity and the environment. In 2018 he published Peaks of Europe, a 5-month, 17-country road-trip captured in breathtaking detail, blending documentary, landscape and wildlife imagery – rooted in respect for the planet and its people.

His work has been exhibited around the world, published by the likes of National Geographic, Lonely Planet, Condé Nast Traveler, Outside and GEO, and he has worked with illustrious clients such as Médecins Sans Frontières, Nikon, Samsung and Destination Canada. Johan’s imagery does more than document place –it evokes atmosphere, emotion and a sense of belonging to something greater, reminding us of the vast and diverse world of wonder we inhabit.