Portfolio Reviews

Tina Ahrens is a visual consultant, specializing in documentary storytelling across different platforms. Since 2022 she is the director of photography at ZEIT ONLINE. Previously, she was the Director of Photography at Philosophie Magazine in Germany, where she developed a new visual language for the redesign with design duo Meire & Meire. Tina worked as a senior photographic editor at GEO magazine’s New York correspondent’s office, where she oversaw many award-winning productions for the magazine. She was a consultant for CNN Digital and was tasked with overseeing the visual content of the redesigned GEO magazine with Art director Anne-Clea Skoluda. Tina has been an affiliate Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and in 2017 and was the Impact Producer for the “The Enemy”, an acclaimed virtual reality installation by Karim Ben Khelifa developed in collaboration with the M.I.T. Tina has been a jury member, workshop teacher and portfolio reviewer at numerous international festivals and awards.

Martina Bacigalupo, born in Genoa in 1978, studied literature and photography before moving to Burundi, East Africa where she worked for ten years as a freelance documentary photographer. Her work, focused on women rights and migration, investigates the visual dynamics between Africa and the West and has been featured in many leading publications, including The New York Times, Le Monde and The Sunday Times Magazine. Her photographs are part of several collections and museums, among which the Artur Walther Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. She is the author of the photo book “Gulu Real Art Studio”, published in 2013 by Steidl. Since 2018 Martina works as Director of Photography for the French magazines XXI and 6 Mois.

Amnon Bar-Tur is a photographer and designer with a prolific career marked by significant contributions to the fields of photography, design, and arts education. His journey began as a student at the University of the Arts London, where he not only honed his artistic skills but also laid the groundwork for his future endeavors in the world of photography and beyond.

Amnon co-founded the BarTur Photo Award, a prestigious competition established in partnership with the University of the Arts London to recognize and support the talents of emerging photographers. The award since 2011 has become a platform for aspiring photographers to showcase their work and gain recognition in the competitive industry.

Part of The BarTur Award educational effort they launched is Hot-Mirror.com, a new monthly newsletter featuring insightful interviews with picture editors, directors of photography from major publications worldwide, curators, and gallery directors. It also spotlights emerging photographers, providing them with a valuable opportunity to reach a wider audience and connect with industry professionals.

Bar-Tur’s entrepreneurial spirit is further exemplified by his role in the founding of C2media, now known as C2imaging. Under his leadership, the company has grown to become a leading digital imaging production company, offering a wide range of services that cater to the diverse needs of its clientele like Armani, Estee Lauder, Chanel , Nike and many other international brands.

Amnon is the past chairman and director of CityArts which is renowned for its large-scale mural projects in New York City, which are designed by well-known artists and painted by hundreds of high school students under the supervision of the artist . These projects not only transform the visual landscape of the city but also engage young people in the creative process, fostering a sense of community and artistic expression.

She entered the world of photography as an assistant to photojournalist Federico Patellani in the late 1960s and then became Swiss photographer Serge Libis’s assistant. With Patellani, she traveled the world producing reportage for Italian and foreign weeklies and monthlies. With Libis, she entered the world of fashion and still-life photography, while attending courses at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich.
After Patellani’s death, she, along with Giovanna Calvenzi, curated his archive, organizing exhibitions and publishing several books. In agreement with his family, she oversaw the transfer of the archive to the Lombardy Region and then to the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Cinisello-Milano, where it is still preserved. She also worked as a photo editor for various monthlies and weeklies including L’Europeo, directed by Lanfranco Vaccari, Lei Glamour of Condé Nast Italia, Max, and Anna of RCS Periodici. She is among the founding members of G.R.I.N. (Gruppo Redattori Iconografici Nazionale, or the Italian National Association of Iconographic Editors) and the Ponchielli Prize. She is the editor-in-chief of Terre, la biodinamica nel mondo, published by Editrice Antroposofica.

Giovanna Calvenzi was born in Milan. In 1973, after graduating in literature, she began teaching history of photography and photographic language at professional courses for photographers at the Società Umanitaria. In 1977, she started writing for photographic publications and collaborating with various periodicals. In 1985, she became the photo editor of Amica, published by RCS Periodici. She also worked for Max (1987), 7/Corriere della Sera (1987), and Vanity Fair (1990). In 1991, she became the editor of the monthly publication Lei Glamour, by Condé Nast Editions, which she left in February 1992. That same year, she became the photo editor of Moda, from the new ERI and later of SportWeek (2000), a magazine of La Gazzetta dello Sport. From 2012 to December 2015, she served as an image consultant for Periodici San Paolo. From 2016 to 2019, she was an image consultant for Donna Moderna, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. From 2015 to 2022, she was the president of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Cinisello Balsamo-Milan. Since 2013, she has been involved with the Gabriele Basilico Archive in Milan. In 1998, she was the artistic director of the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, in 2002, a guest curator of Photo España in Madrid, and in 2014, with Laura Serani, the artistic delegate of the Mois de la Photo in Paris. She has published, among others, Italia. Ritratto di un Paese in sessant’anni di fotografia (2003), Letizia Battaglia. Sulle ferite dei suoi sogni (2010), Le cinque vite di Lisetta Carmi (2012, republished in 2023), Antonia Pozzi. Sopra il nudo cuore, with Ludovica Pellegatta (2015), and Interviste (2019).

Antonio Carloni is Intesa Sanpaolo’s coordinator of photography projects and commissions and Deputy Director of Gallerie d’Italia in Turin, the latest addition to the bank’s museum center, whose main mission is to narrate the salient issues of our time through the visual language of contemporary photographers.
Before that, he founded and directed the international photography festival Cortona On The Move for over 10 years, turning it into one of the most significant events on the international photography scene.
He has participated in numerous portfolio reviews and juries of national and international awards.

Interdisciplinary curator, sociologist, researcher, project facilitator and activist. Co-founder and member of Foundation of Visual Education and Fotofestiwal in Lodz, former director of the Art Factory and Lodz Art Center (Poland). During 2013-2018 worked as artistic director of the Triennial of Photography in Hamburg (Germany) and since 2018 as curator and collaborator of the Ci.CLO Porto Biennale (Portugal). Krzysztof works internationally as a guest curator and visiting lecturer in numerous organisations, museums, schools, and festivals in Europe.

He has been a member of the jury of various projects and art prizes, including the Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award (Arles, France), the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, (London, UK), the Prix Pictet (London, UK), the Historical Book Award, and the Author Book Award (Arles, France), and the Robert Capa Award (Budapest, Hungary). Besides being active in visual arts, his interests are rooted in philosophy, social science, anthropology, ecology, astronomy and natural science.

Dr Federica Chiocchetti is Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts Le Locle (MBAL) in Switzerland. Her first exhibition at MBAL entitled The Pleasure of Text was included among the 10 must see shows in 2023 according to Vogue. Mingling the MBAL’s permanent collection and contemporary artists from all disciplines she has curated collective thematic shows on animal instinct and Monte Verità’s utopias.

She is also the founder of the platform Photocaptionist which turns 10 years old in 2024 and through which she has celebrated the relationship between words and images by collaborating with international institutions such as Jeu de Paume, Aperture and Foam.

She holds a PhD in ‘Photo-Texts: Critical Intersections in History’, from London’s University of Westminster.

Previous curatorial projects include ‘Looking On: New Italian Photography’ at the Ravenna Art Museum (2019), the late Lorenzo Tricoli’s retrospective show ‘The Archive You Deserve’, for Fotografia Europea (2018), the festival Jaipur Photo on ‘Wanderlust’ in India (2017) and the exhibitions ‘Invisible Stratum’ for Tokyo International Photography Festival (2017).

Benedetta Donato is photography critic, editor and curator, she deals with exhibition and publishing projects within visual culture.

Director of the Romano Cagnoni Award – International Photojournalism Award, she is a member of the Romano Cagnoni Foundation Board of Directors.
Among the organizations with which she has collaborated: Giart for the Fotografia Italiana documentary film series/Contrasto; Enciclopedia dell’Arte Contemporanea – Istituto Treccani for the Contemporary Japanese Photography section; Nikon Italia and Corriere della Sera for the series Accademia di Fotografia; EXPOSURE+ Photo Festival Kuala Lumpur.
She has curated exhibitions and photo books, including: Maurizio Galimberti Italyscapes, Portraits, Francesco Faraci Malacarne, Giuseppe Mastromatteo Humanscape, Nicola Tanzini I Wanna Be An Influencer, VV.AA. 18Explorations Palermo Italian Capital of Culture, Alberto Gandolfo What remains, Romano Cagnoni The Human Revelation, Iole Carollo, Out of Africa, Nicolò Filippo Rosso Exodus, VV.AA: A Soft Gaze At Intimacy, Marco Zanella Scalandrê.
In 2021 she won RESET Call for Papers, promoted by Sistema Festival Fotografia, within Strategia Fotografia 2020, General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Portfolio reviewer, member of the jury in international events, she is among LOBA – Leica Oskar Barnack Award nominators.
Since 2015 she is contributing editor at IL FOTOGRAFO Magazine.
She is a member of GRIN – National Iconographic Editors Group.

Christian Gogolin is a Senior Photo Editor at GEO magazine with many years of expertise in producing, directing, and researching high-quality imagery. The emphasis of his work is on visual storytelling, portrait and still life across multiple distribution channels, print and digital publications. Christian has studied photography both at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Dortmund and at the University College Falmouth. He regularly takes part as a reviewer at photo festivals as well as a guest lecturer on visual storytelling at various universities, photography schools and workshops.

Nathalie Herschdorfer is a curator and art historian specializing in the history of photography. She is the Director of the museum Photo Elysée, the photography museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Before that, as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts Le Locle, she organized important shows featuring the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Stanley Kubrick, Vik Muniz, Alex Prager, Viviane Sassen, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Andy Warhol, amongst others. She is an active voice in contemporary photography and has been invited to organize numerous exhibitions outside Switzerland. She teaches the history of photography at the Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL) and is the author of several books, including: Deborah Turbeville Photocollage(2023); 160 Years of Photography from the Collections of the Red Cross (2022); Body: The Photography Book (2019); Mountains by Magnum Photographers (2019); The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Photography (2018); Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast (2012); and Afterwards: Contemporary Photography Confronting the Past (2011).

Chiara Magni, Head of Public Engagement for Médecins Sans Frontières – an international medical humanitarian organisation – has nearly 20 years of experience in communication management with non-profit and international organisations.
She is currently coordinating the Public Engagement Unit of MSF Italy, which aims to raise awareness and involve the Italian public in the organisation’s mission, through campaigns, events, partnerships, and special projects in the cultural sphere (photography, publishing, cinema).

MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIERS
Médecins Sans Frontières (AKA Doctors Without Borders) is a non-governmental humanitarian organisation that provides medical relief and assistance to people whose survival is threatened by armed conflicts, violence, epidemics, natural disasters, and in all places in the world where access to medical care is not guaranteed. The organisation was founded in Paris in 1971 by a group of doctors and journalists. Thanks to its efforts, it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Médecins Sans Frontières operates in more than 70 countries with emergency and long-term projects. Raising awareness is part of MSF’s DNA, just like healing and saving lives. For MSF, bringing humanitarian crises and the stories of the people who live them to the public is a fundamental step in developing the sense of human solidarity that is the basis of medical action.
For this reason, MSF has also been engaged in activities and collaborations in the field of photography.

Emanuela Mirabelli is the Photo Editor of Marie Claire Italy magazine, where she publishes a variety of projects, from documentary photography to new languages in contemporary photography, and a variety of authors, from established artists to emerging talents. She also writes texts and holds various lectures about photography in workshops, masterclass, conferences and schools and holds a course about photo editing. She is regularly invited to do portfolio reviews in Italian and international festivals and she is a jury member of international photo awards. Born in Milan, she has always been intrigued by all that is expressed through the images. After high school she started to write movie reviews for magazines, while studying art history at the University. She worked for Photo magazine and then she worked as the executive director of Carla Sozzani Gallery, the leading photography gallery in Milan, before becoming Photo Editor of Marie Claire Italy.

Katharina Mouratidi is the artistic director of f³ – freiraum für fotografie. The exhibition venue in Berlin-Kreuzberg offers a stage for international photography and has established itself as an institution that deals with photography under the auspices of socio-political issues. The exhibition program includes renowned positions in the history of photography, such as Ruth Orkin, Thomas Höpker, Robert Lebeck and Tina Modotti, as well as contemporary photo artists from Berlin and around the world. What the exhibitions at f³ – freiraum für fotografie have in common is that they deal with the pressing issues of our time in a visually first-class manner and open up new perspectives on socially relevant topics.

In her function, Katharina Mouratidi has been planning, curating and realizing photography exhibitions and projects for many years, including: A Life In Death by American photographer Nancy Borowick (2017), The Heavens by Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti (2018), Where Love is Illegal by Robin Hammond (2018), Greenpeace Photo Award with works by Pablo E. Piovano and Ian Willms (2019), ZEIT-ZEUG:INNEN – Icons of Photojournalism (2020), HIDDEN – Animals in the Anthropocene (2021), Ruth Orkin – A Photo Spirit (2021), Tina Modotti – Revolution and Passion (2022), Ruth Orkin – WOMEN (2023/2024).

Katharina Mouratidi is a jury member of numerous international prizes and awards, including: BarTur Photo Award, Lumix Festival Awards, Swiss Photo Award, Robert Capa Photography Grand Prize Hungary, Lotto Brandenburg Art Prize Photography. Further information: www.fhochdrei.org

Irene Opezzo is a photo director and creative producer with fifteen years of experience, she’s been art directing and producing photo content across genres internationally, commissioning experienced and emerging photographers.
Irene graduated from Politecnico di Milano with a focus on Design, and CFP Bauer. She got her start working with fashion, portrait, and fine art photographers in Milan, Berlin and Brussels. Then moved into art directing and producing at magazines and daily newspapers in the US and Italy, such as Vice News, Vogue Italia, Look, and the national daily newspaper La Stampa.
Irene is a portfolio reviewer for many events and festivals such as Photo Vogue, Diversify Photo, Palm Springs Photo Festival, ArtCenter College of Design, LA FotoWorks. Irene is the Photo Director at Robb Report and lives in Los Angeles.

Arianna Rinaldo is a freelance professional working with photography at a wide range. From 2012 to 2021 she was the artistic director of Cortona On The Move, international festival of visual narrative. Since 2016 she is the photography curator at PhEST, a festival on contemporary photography and arts in Puglia. Arianna’s relationship with photography started in 1998 as Archive Director at Magnum Photos, NY; and then, back in Italy, as photo editor for Colors magazine. From 2004 to 2011, in Milan, she worked as editorial consultant and curator for exhibitions and special projects. For 4 years she was photo consultant at D, the weekend supplement of La Repubblica. For almost 10 years she was the director of OjodePez, a bilingual documentary photo quarterly published by La Fabrica in Madrid. Based in Barcelona since 2012, Arianna is active as consultant, teacher, curator and mentor. She participates in photo events and festivals around the world as speaker and portfolio reviewer; and she is regularly invited on jury panels and selection committees for international institutions and organizations, including Leica Oskar Barnack Award, British Journal of Photography Ones To Watch, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. Arianna is intrigued by the amazing stories told through images. She is interested in contemporary documentary and original storytelling: visions on the current world and stories of humankind living on this planet, and beyond.

Laura Sackett is the creative director and co-founder of LensCulture, one of the leading sites committed to discovering and publishing the best in the contemporary photography. She leads all aspects of design including strategy, brand, website, print, communications, screenings and exhibitions. Besides leading the creative direction for LensCulture, she also designs and co-curates LensCulture exhibitions and the online galleries. Laura is a frequent reviewer at portfolio reviews. She is a founding Board Member of PhotoAlliance, and earned an MFA in photography from the California College of the Arts. She currently lives in Berkeley, CA.