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.

Jesse Marlow

Ask any street or urban photographer who inspires them, and they’ll probably mention Jesse Marlow: an Australian street photographer celebrated for his ability to find beautiful moments of surprise and coincidence within the mundane.

His practice involves an acute awareness of his urban environment, using his countless hours of practice and “the daily grind that most people find themselves in” as a source of inspiration to craft his distinctive visual style that merges humor, ambiguity, and sharp observational insight.

He has published four photobooks including the widely acclaimed Don’t Just Tell Them, Show Them (2014 and 2022), showcasing his vibrant exploration of urban spaces in his home city of Melbourne, and has earned significant accolades, including the International Street Photographer of the Year Award in 2011 and Bowness Prize from the Monash Gallery of Art in 2012. He also runs workshops and is a member of the international street photographers’ collective UP Photographers.

Alex Snyder

Alex Snyder is Senior Photo Editor at The Nature Conservancy, where he works to showcase the beauty and urgency of environmental conservation through powerful imagery across the organization’s magazine and other channels.

Collaborating with a network of world-class photographers, Snyder assigns, curates and edits visual narratives that highlight the organization’s global efforts to protect land, water, and biodiversity, bridging the gap between scientific research and public engagement.

Alongside this role he is Communications Director at the The Photo Society, a collective of over 200 National Geographic photographers, where he manages an online community of almost 5 million and hosts the groups monthly virtual talk, “The Photo Society Presents.” He was previously Official Photographer for the Peace Corps, which took him to 15 countries photographing the volunteer experience. With a background in photojournalism and extensive experience in environmental media, he has worked tirelessly to highlight the immense beauty of our shared planet and some of the challenges we and its other inhabitants face.

Alixandra Fazzina

Alixandra Fazzina is a British and Irish photographer and author renowned for her compassionate and deeply human approach to documenting the lives of displaced individuals and the consequences of war.

A graduate of fine arts, her work focuses on underreported humanitarian crises, often in remote and dangerous regions such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan. Her book A Million Shillings is a powerful account of the perilous journeys of Somali migrants and refugees across the Gulf of Aden in search of a better life. It was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet and the prestigious Pictures of the Year International Best Photography Book of the Year Award.

Her fearless and tireless dedication to humanitarian documentary has won her the Nansen Refugee Award from the UNHCR. A member of NOOR photo agency, she continues to tell these important stories, while teaching masterclasses and workshops for organisations that have included World Press Photo, Reporters Without Borders and The Royal Photographic Society.

Corey Arnold

Corey Arnold is an American photographer whose stark and cinematic work explored our complicated and often precarious relationship with the natural world.

Working seasonally as the captain of an Alaskan fishing boat alongside his photography career, his work explores the raw, rugged beauty of life at sea and the environmental challenges faced by the fishing industry, as well as broader topics such as industry, the domestication of animals, and urban wildlife.

He has been widely featured in prominent publications such as National Geographic, The New York Times, Harpers, The Guardian and TIME, as well as garnering awards from Sony World Photography Awards and World Press Photo Awards, and numerous private and public collections. With his unique perspective, Arnold presents the beauty of planet Earth, and explores the challenges of our changing world.

Bronwen Latimer

Bronwen Latimer is Editor of Special Initiatives at The Washington Post where she is transforming themed projects into more visually-compelling narratives to gain new audiences.

In previous roles at the Post, she has worked to create rich visual narratives about diverse subjects such as the Syrian refugee crisis, the impact of the pandemic on a nation, and food production in the Netherlands.

Previously she held roles at National Geographic, working as book editor on the best-selling “The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography” and as Photography Director for Nat Geo Adventure. She has also held photo editor roles at TIME Magazine, Sports Illustrated and US News & World Report. With a background in both photography and journalism, she brings a wealth of experience in commissioning, editing and championing photography that tells stories.

Smita Sharma

Smita Sharma is an acclaimed Indian photojournalist and TED Fellow whose work focuses on human rights, gender issues, environment and social justice, particularly in South Asia.

Known for her powerful storytelling, Sharma brings attention to sensitive and often underreported issues, such as human trafficking, sexual violence, and the plight of marginalized communities.

She has been on assignment for many leading international media outlets, including Human Rights Watch, National Geographic Magazine and TIME, The New York Times and featured by BBC and Channel 4. Her long term project on cross border trafficking of underage girls which is also a photobook – We Cry In Silence – has earned her widespread recognition, including awards from Amnesty International, Lucie Book Award and the Fetisov Journalism Award. Her empathetic approach, combined with her commitment to uncovering truths in challenging environments, has positioned her as a leading voice in visual storytelling that advocates for human dignity and justice, and that strongly believes in the potential of our youth to bring about positive change.

Joakim Eskildsen

Joakim Eskildsen is a Danish photographer known for his intimate depictions of the human condition, combining a documentary approach with a fine art sensibility to create visually striking and emotionally resonant images.

He gained international attention and widespread acclaim with his project The Roma Journeys, in which he spent seven years documenting the lives of Romani people across seven different countries to highlight both their hardships, and rich cultural heritage. His later series, American Realities, examined poverty in the US, capturing the struggles of families affected by economic downturns.

Illuminating issues of inequality and the impact of global economic forces, often through powerful environmental portraits, his boundary-pushing documentary photography has won numerous accolades.

Alison Morley

Alison Morley is a photography coach, Photobook editor and educator, and chair Emerita of the Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism Program at the International Center of Photography.

She has taught workshops all over the world and has worked at various magazines and newspapers as the Photo editor including the New York Times, Esquire, and LIFE Magazines. She has written on photography for Elle Magazine and is an editor for major monographs such as The Ninth Floor by Jessica Dimmock, Andrea Star Reese’s Urban Cave and Ron Haviv’s Blood and Honey; A Balkan War Journal. She curated the Daegu Photo Biennale, in Korea, 2022 and recently photo edited and wrote the Afterward for All The Colors I Am Inside by Deb Achak.

Petros Koublis

Petros Koublis is a photographer known for his deeply philosophical and poetic fine art photography inspired by the natural world.

He started out as a painter, and that sensibility is apparent in his work, blending the real and the surreal into ethereal landscapes free from human intervention. His projects frequently draw on the beauty of the landscapes of his homeland Greece, capturing majestic animals and desolate nature to invite the viewer to contemplate the subtle power and complexity of the natural world. The resulting images are not only aesthetically arresting, but have a deeper emotional, perhaps spiritual dimension, and have rightly won him a raft of admirers, awards, and publication with prestigious platforms such as Phaidon and iGNANT.

Larry Louie

Larry Louie is an award-winning Canadian photographer whose work masterfully blends his dual careers as an optometrist and documentary photographer – two very different but complementary fields of visual perception.

Focusing on marginalized communities, particularly in developing countries, his work examines the impact of globalization, poverty, and human rights, presenting both the challenges and strength of the people he documents.

His series have taken him to countries like Nepal, Myanmar, and India, where he captures the lives of people in remote villages, slums, and factories. Louie’s photography has earned him international recognition, including multiple Lucie Awards for humanitarian photography, the Traveler of the Year award, and the National Geographic Photo Essay Award. His powerful black-and-white images invite viewers to truly see: to confront social inequalities while celebrating human dignity and spirit.

Damarice Amao

Dr Amao is an assistant curator for photography at the Musée National d’Art Moderne/Centre Pompidou in Paris. She has co-curated exhibitions such as Eli Lotar (Jeu de Paume, 2017), Photography, Weapon of Class (Centre Pompidou, 2018) and Dora Maar (Centre Pompidou, Tate, Getty, 2019) and co-edited the accompanying catalogues.

She recently curated and edited the following projects : Charlotte Perriand. Politics of photomontage (Rencontres d’Arles, 2021), Nicole Gravier. Myths and Clichés (Rencontres d’Arles, 2023) and Décadrage colonial. Anticolonialism, Surrealism, Modern Photography (Centre Pompidou, 2022).
She is the author of Eli Lotar et le mouvement des images (2017) and has contributed to numerous publications including Bernar Venet. Photographies ; James Barnor. The Roadmaker (2021) ; Variétés et l’esprit contemporain (2019), Le Spectre du Surréalisme (2017), Vivian Sassen. Phosphor (2023), George Hoyningen Huene (2023).

Marcin Ryczek

Marcin Ryczek is a fine art photographer whose meditative work draws on minimalist and symbolic themes, under a self-proclaimed philosophy of “minimum form, maximum content”.

Across an eclectic range of genres – architecture, travel, sport, wildlife – he uses his unique visual language to create poetic work that is both idiosyncratic and universally accessible. His image, A Man Feeding Swans in the Snow, is one of the most iconic of the internet age – widely shared across social and traditional media, and earning him the Grand Prix in the international competition Grand Prix de Découverte: International Fine-Art Photography Award and The Huffington Post’s ‘most striking fine art photograph of the year’.

He has exhibited globally and been published by The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The Daily Telegraph and National Geographic, has work in the public collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France and the Silesian Museum in Poland, and has received awards from the IPA, Grand Press Photo and the Siena International Photography Awards.