2011 Honorary Judging Committee

Commercial Categories

Michael Trow (UK) - Photo Editor, British Vogue

Michael Trow has been commissioning photo editor at British Vogue for the last five years and responsible for commissioning most portraiture, interiors, reportages and some still lives. Michael is also a photographer himself and on occasion even shoots some of Vogues portrait shoots himself.

“Working with great photographers such as Bailey, Henry Bourne, Jason Schmidt amongst others, as well as seeing new talent is a great privilege and a lot of fun,” says Michael who clearly loves his job.

Prior to that he was picture director of Jack magazine under James Brown and earlier as picture editor on the notorious Bizarre magazine with John Brown Publishing.

Michael’s photo career started at Colorific under the tutelage of Christopher Angeloglou, which fostered his passion for great reportage.  
Michael adds “A degree in philosophy ensures that I never get too worked up about the stresses of the magazine world”.

RJ Muna (US) - Photographer

Photographer RJ Muna is widely known as an innovative and multi-faceted creative photographer. No matter the medium or the perceived audience, RJ’s work is constantly defined by its powerful composition, texture, and distinct lighting. From his studio in San Francisco and various locations throughout the world, RJ has produced acclaimed print work for many clients. Some of these clients include: Lexus, Infiniti, Hewlett Packard, Jaguar, Sony, Mitsubishi, Tesla Motors, United HealthCare, Cadillac, Levi Strauss & Co., Nissan, San Francisco Ballet, Saturn, Toyota, Honda, Adidas, Columbia Sportswear, Mercedes, America West Airlines, Aspen Ski Resorts, and International Truck.

RJ has won over 150 national awards, among them the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award and a Lucie Award. RJ’s work has often been featured in magazines such as Communication Arts and Graphis Annuals, as well as Camera Arts Magazine, American Pho-tography, Black and White, Camera Work, and many other international publications. RJ's fine art work is represented by several galleries nationally where he has had numerous solo and group exhibitions. His first book, “The Apparitions” was published in 2000.
http://www.rjmuna.com

Terri Manduca (UK) - Photographers Agent

Terri Manduca has been a Photographers Agent for the past 23 years.  She started her career in the world of advertising and switched from client to agent in 1988.  Her love of photography started at an early age when she used to collect Life magazine.  Her Company has thrived because of her love of photography, love of people and love of the challenge that the world of commercial photography brings.

Her other big loves are her Jack Russell – Lili, her recently acquired allotment and being a qualified homeopath.

www.terrimanduca.co.uk

Elizabeth Zeschin (UK) - Photographer

Born in Los Angeles, Elizabeth Zeschin began her photographic career in New York City before moving to the UK. Her career spans the commercial, fine art and academic fields. Her subject matter ranges across a broad field of portraiture, still life and travel photography and assignments have taken her around the world.

Some of Zeschin’s commercial clients include American Express, Johnson and Johnson, Smirnoff, Perrier Jouet, Harrods, Laura Ashley, Marks and Spencer  and NPower . She has worked for a wide range of editorial clients in The United States and Europe including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle Décor, Conde Nast Traveler, Martha Stewart Living, Marie-Claire, Town and Country, Real Simple, Gourmet, Bon Appetit and Grand Designs.

Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in New York and the UK. She has received awards from The Association of Photographers ( London) and  The Art Directors Club of New York. Her work was chosen for The 2003 and 2005 Schweppe’s and The 2008 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at The National Portrait Gallery in London. She is included in many published photographic books including American Photography, Graphis Annual and The Association Awards Books.

http://www.zeschin.com

Fine Art Categories

Caprice Horn (Germany) – Director, Gallerie Caprice Horn

The particular intention of the gallerist Dr. Caprice Horn, who has participated in numerous in-ternational photo- and video and painting -juries, as well as being on the committee of a number of fairs, is to present a richly faceted spectrum of her program, and thereby to represent an existential aspect of global society, one which illuminates not only psychological nuances but also the profundities of human existence.

Galerie Caprice Horn, Berlin, founded in 2002, is committed to promote younger as well as more established artists, working in various media. The gallery is particularly interested in artists who reflect upon the international, cultural and normative influence of society. The international programme of contemporary art represented by the gallery includes works of photography, video, painting and installation. The artists in the programme have exhibited in a variety of institutions including the Tate, Victoria and Albert museum (London), Reina Sofía (Madrid), Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (Long Island City) et al.

Caprice Horn publishes for a variety of magazines especially about art in the Middle East. She advises a number of major collections internationally including the Middle East, China and Russia. More recently she is involved in curating projects. She is a psychiatrist by background, having also studied economics and an MBA before moving into the art world in 2002. She is a passionate photographer herself and has an extensive photography collection.

Liu Heung Shing (China) - Author and Pulitzer Prize winning photographer

Liu Heung Shing is senior advisor at Beijing Gehua Cultural Media Group and to Modern Media Group in China. As a former foreign correspondent/ photojournalist, Liu Heung Shing was posted to China, U.S., India, South Korea, and the former Soviet Union over a span of 20 years. In 1992, Liu was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Overseas Press Club Award for coverage of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Liu is the author of the widely acclaimed China After Mao, Soviet Union: Collapse of an Empire and his latest book China, Portrait of a Country. In 2004 Paris Photo named Liu as one of 100 most influential people in contemporary photography.

Francis Hodgson (UK) - Photo Critic Financial Times

Francis Hodgson writes on photography for the Financial Times and is a consultant on various aspects of photography to a wide roster of clients. He co-founded the Prix Pictet, the world’s richest photographic prize, upon the executive of which he also sits. Hodgson was until 2009 the head of the photographs department at Sotheby’s in London.  He has been a writer on pho-tography for many years, including stints as contributing editor on photography for Art Review, and a regular contributor to The Economist. He was once VP for content development at Eye-storm, the online art dealer, and before that was the founding European creative director for Photonica, a major photographic stock library.  Hodgson has been a gallerist both in the private sector and the public, and has been a frequent visiting lecturer at photographic schools (he used to teach a course in the culture of photography at the Royal College of Art).  

In another life, Hodgson is the acclaimed author of one of the very few full-length studies of the role of the goalkeeper in soccer (Only the Goalkeeper to Beat, Macmillan, 1998)

Julia Fullerton-Batten (Germany/UK) - Photographer

Julia Fullerton-Batten was born in Bremen Germany. She spent her childhood in Germany and the United States, before moving to the UK when she was 16. She now lives in London. Julia studied photography at the Royal Berkshire College of Art and Design and started her profes-sional career in 2001. She is now a well-established professional photographer, and has devel-oped a worldwide reputation as a fine art photographer. Her first book, 'Julia Fullerton-Batten: Teenage Stories', profiling her study of teenage girls, was published by Actes Sud in 2007. Her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the world. She has permanent collections in The National Portrait Gallery, London and Musee de l’Elysee, Lausanne, Switzerland. She has been profiled in countless international magazines.
http://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/

Photojournalism & Documentary Categories

Elisabeth Biondi (US) - Visuals Editor, The New Yorker Magazine

Elisabeth Biondi joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1996, shortly after photography was introduced to the magazine and as it began to play a more prominent editorial role.  As Visuals Editor she has helped shape the look of the publication by establishing a group of staff photographers, commissioning both ‘Masters’ and emerging talent, and utilizing portrait, fine art, and documentary photography.  She continues to build the magazine's reputation for its use of photography, which is much acclaimed and has received numerous awards.

Born and educated in Germany, Ms. Biondi started working with photography when GEO Magazine, often described as a more contemporary and controversial version of National Geo-graphic, made its appearance on the American market.  Although the magazine won many awards for its photography and design, it ultimately ceased publication in 1984.
Subsequently, she moved to VANITY FAIR, which soon began to grow into the highly successful magazine it is today.  As Director of Photography, she focused on lively, witty portraiture – an important contribution to the increased success of the publication.

After seven years at Vanity Fair, Ms. Biondi returned to Germany to work for STERN, one of Germany’s largest news weeklies.  As head of the Photography Department, she explored the fast-paced world of news and reportage photography, and worked with photographers around the world.  After five years, she returned to New York, where she has since worked as Visuals Editor of The New Yorker.

Pedro Meyer (Mexico) - Photographer and Founder of ZoneZero

Pedro Meyer is one of the pioneers and most recognized representatives of contemporary pho-tography. He was the founder and president of the Consejo Mexicano de Fotografía (Mexican Council of Photography) and organizer of the first three Latin American Photography Col-loquiums. Besides his artistic photographic work, Pedro Meyer has been a teacher in various prestigious institutions, as well as the curator, editor, founder and director of the renowned pho-tography website ZoneZero, which hosts the work of over a thousand photographers from all over the world, and is visited by more than 500,000 people each month. More than 5.5 million people visited ZoneZero in one year making it one of most visited sites for content on the web.
http://www.pedromeyer.com/

Stephen Mayes (US) - Managing Director, VII Photo Agency

Stephen Mayes (US) is Director of VII Photo in New York. He has worked at the top levels of photography for 25 years, in the areas of journalism, art, commercial and fashion – working as manager of Network Photographers; Chair of World Press Photo competition (and six years as Secretary); SVP at eyestorm.com; SVP at Getty Images; and Director of Image Archive at Art + Commerce. Stephen regularly writes and broadcasts on the ethics and realities of photographic practice.

Rena Effendi (Azerbaijan) - Social Documentary Photographer

Born in 1977 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Rena Effendi has been photographing since 2001. From the outset, Effendi has focused her documentary work on the oil industry’s effects on people’s lives in her own country. As a result, she followed a 1,700 km oil pipeline through Georgia and Turkey, collecting stories along the way. This work of six years was published in 2009 in her first book “Pipe Dreams:  A Chronicle of Lives along the Pipeline”.

Effendi has won several international photography awards including the “Fifty Crows” Documentary Photography award, Mario Giacomelli Memorial Fund award, and Getty Images Editorial grant. In 2005 she participated in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. In 2007, she was chosen by the Photo District News magazine as one of 30 emerging photographers to watch. In 2008 Rena Effendi won the National Geographic “All Roads” photography award. In 2009 Rena Effendi won the Magnum Foundation Caucasus Photographer prize and in 2010 she was nominated for the Russian State “Innovation” contemporary art award. Her work was exhibited worldwide including at the "Visa Pour l'Image" Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France in 2006, at the 52nd Venice Biennale in Italy in 2007 and at the Istanbul Biennial in 2009.  
Rena Effendi's work has been widely published in Newsweek, Time, The Financial Times, The Sunday Times, International Herald Tribune, Marie Claire, L'Uomo Vogue, Courrier Interna-tional, Le Monde and others.

Rena Effendi is represented by the Institute for Artist Management worldwide and Agency.Photographer.RU in Russia.

www.refendi.com