PORTRAITS INSPIRATIONAL GALLERY

COMPETITION JUDGED BY 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.

IMAGES © ROBIN HAMMOND

STREET LIFE INSPIRATIONAL GALLERY

COMPETITION JUDGED BY 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.

IMAGES © SHANA LOPES / SF MoMA

PLANET EARTH INSPIRATIONAL GALLERY

COMPETITION JUDGED BY 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.

IMAGES © MYRTILLE DELAMARCHE / GEO