We have a great panel of judges waiting to see your entries!
Colin Jacobson
Founder and editor of Reportage
Colin Jacobson graduated from university with a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He subsequently entered journalism in the early 1970s as a picture researcher with the Sunday Times Magazine and went on to work as photo editor for several UK publications, including The Observer Magazine, The Economist, and the highly acclaimed Independent Magazine that he helped to launch in 1988. In 1995, he left full-time journalism, becoming a visiting lecturer and senior research fellow at the School of Journalism, Media, and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University.
Colin has been on the jury of the World Press Photo Contest four times, including twice as chairman. In conjunction with the British Council and Reuter Foundation, Colin has participated in photojournalism workshops worldwide. He was the founder and editor of Reportage, a quarterly magazine of international photojournalism, which subsequently went online as an internet publication.
In 2002, he edited the book, Underexposed, which highlighted aspects of censorship, propaganda and spin in photography. He has also curated exhibitions at the Guardian Newsroom, the Getty Gallery in London and the University of Westminster. In 2008, he edited the book, Beyond the Moment: Irish Photojournalism in Our Time.
Colin set up and ran the MA Photojournalism Course at the University of Westminster in London where he was Senior Lecturer.
Diane Smyth
Deputy editor of the British Journal of Photography
Diane Smyth is the deputy editor of the British Journal of Photography and the editor of Image Magazine, the quarterly app magazine BJP makes for the Association of Photographers. She has also written about photography for Creative Review, Telephoto, Photomonitor, Aperture, Foam, and for the catalogues for Format Festival, Flash Forward Festival, Lianzhou Foto Festival, and Krakow Photomonth.
She is currently curating an exhibition about music photography for The Photographers’ Gallery, which opens on 17 July, and she has previously curated work for Flash Forward Festival and Lianzhou Foto Festival.
Hugh Look
Chair of London Independent Photography
Hugh is the chairman of London Independent Photography, a vibrant community of over 500 amateur and professional photographers in and around the London area, and a committed humanist. His day job is as Head of Strategic Support for Jisc, a large non-profit organisation providing resources and expertise in digital technologies to further and higher education throughout the UK. Prior to this, Hugh spent most of his career in the publishing industry as journalist, editor, publisher, trainer, and strategy and policy consultant specialising in digital media. His own photographic work can be seen at www.futureglance.com.
Alongside photography, skiing and politics are among Hugh’s interests.
Michelle Sank
Photographer/Senior Lecturer in Photography, Falmouth University
Michelle Sank was born in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1978 she left South Africa and since 1987 has been living in England where she is a practicing photographer and Senior Lecturer in photography at Falmouth University.
Michelle’s impressive range of commissions includes The Guardian, The Observer, The Telegraph, and Lurve fashion magazine, among others, and she has received numerous awards throughout her career, including (but not limited to) the Gold Award at the San Fransisco Photographic Exhibition, Discoveries at Fotofest, the Photographic Photo Prize from the National Portrait Gallery, and Single Image Winner at the British Journal of Photography International Awards.
Michelle’s work has been published extensively around the world, most recently in Esquire Russia, Hungry Eye Magazine, The Guardian Magazine and the British Journal of Photography. Her images reflect a preoccupation with the human condition and to this end can be viewed as social documentary. Her work encompasses issues around social and cultural diversity.
Images from “Insulae” produced in the Channel Islands in 2013/2014 are in the collections of the Societe Jersiase, Jersey and Guernsey Museum, Guernsey. “In My Skin” will be published in European Photography, June 2015 and, will be on display in Museum het Dolhuys, Haarlem, the Netherlands.
Michelle is represented by Gallery Vassie in Amsterdam.
Robert Ashby
Chair of the BHA Board of Trustees
Robert Ashby describes himself as a photography autodidact, who has been interested in photography since childhood. His education and career spans various interests from a degree in Chemistry, working at a bank, and as an entrepreneur who has successfully started several businesses. In 1982 during a sabbatical year, he developed his photography knowledge and experience in extended projects on China and Japan.
A keen photobook collector, Robert was chair of trustees at the Hereford International Photography Festival where he was also Festival Director for three years. He has exhibited his own work, written on photography, including for the Oxford Companion to Photography, and curated many exhibitions both in the UK and abroad.
More recently Robert has been concentrating his photographic work on the evolution of landscape, part of which was recently exhibited at the Format International Photography Festival in Derby in March 2015.
Currently Robert is a technology business mentor and developer, and is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Humanists UK.
