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July 14 and 15, 2023

Are you looking for guidance with your photographic research?
Would you like advice from a professional to help you complete a project?

Enroll for a portfolio review at Cortona On The Move and have your work assessed by national and international photo editors and professionals.
Develop your work by analyzing each individual step with a view to improvement and growth, from conception to implementation and on to publication, with the experience of field experts who can help you to understand which aspects to improve and how to move in today’s photographic world.
When booking a review you can choose between 2 options, depending on to how much time you need to present your work:
• the BASIC for a 20-minute review
• the PREMIUM for a 60-minute review
Portfolio Reviews will be at Teatro Signorelli, Cortona, and can be purchased online until July 11 and in attendance from July 14 to 15
BASIC selling price 39€
PREMIUM selling price 129€

The 10% discount is valid for all users who purchase portfolio reviews by May 31st included. After this date, it only applies to COTM Membership members. The two discounts cannot be combined.

Reservations will only be reimbursed if your reader of choice is absent during the allocated space.
Below the list of the reviewers:

Tina Ahrens
Director of Photography ZEIT ONLINE

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.

Michele Bella
Director, Galleria Valeria Bella

Michele Bella was born in Milan, where he lives and works. From a young age, his plan was to become a photographer and travel the world. A professional since 1983, in the early years of his career he focused on still life, working in the field of design and advertising and with leading interior design and lifestyle magazines. Later on, he devoted himself to portraits and above all to travel reportage. He began to receive assignments from the most prestigious magazines, both Italian and international, until, by chance, he came across wine & food photography, which soon became his specialization. In 2012, he committed himself to the family-owned art gallery, Galleria Valeria Bella, where he introduced fine art photography, one of his great passions, quickly becoming an important point of reference for collectors and enthusiasts. His interest in this field focuses on photography ranging from the post-war period to the present days. In recent years, thanks to an assiduous presence in the most prestigious international fairs, the gallery has been promoting Italian photography, ranging from seminal photographers to young contemporary authors.

Jim Casper
Co-founder, Editor-in-Chief LensCulture

Jim Casper is the editor-in-chief of LensCulture, one of the leading online destinations to discover new contemporary photography from around the world. As an active member in the contemporary photography world, Casper loves to meet with photographers to talk about photography. He curates art exhibitions, publishes books, conducts workshops, serves as an international juror and nominator for key awards, and is an advisor to arts and education organizations. He is interested in many different approaches to photography.

Antonio Carloni
Deputy Director, Gallerie d'Italia-Torino

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.

Andrea Comollo
Head of Communication, WeWorld-GVC

Andrea Comollo is the Communications Manager for the humanitarian organization WeWorld, an NGO that operates in 27 countries around the world carrying out emergency and development projects. He has been working for 20 years in cooperation in the field of communication, programs, and campaigning. He holds a degree in Psychology of Communication, is a Journalist-Publicist, and a contract lecturer at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Master’s Degree Course in Development Cooperation at the Catholic University of Milan as co-owner of the “Laboratory on Images and Communication for Cooperation”.
Always focused on social movements leading to change, civic engagement, and the global dimension of inequality, he believes in the value of photography as a powerful reportage tool to promote global mobilization for a fairer world. He has always stood by the people – because all rights belong to everyone.

Giada De Agostinis
Photo Editor The New Yorker

Giada De Agostinis is a photo editor at The New Yorker. Before joining the magazine, she was the Communications Manager at Aperture. Prior to that, she worked as communications manager at Photograph magazine and Picter. She was also the editor of Paper Journal, a platform of contemporary photography. Her writing has appeared in Aperture, Paper Journal, Photograph magazine, and Italy Segreta. She holds an MA in publishing from Oxford Brookes University, UK, and a degree in communications from La Sapienza, University of Rome.

Edda Fahrenhorst
Artistic Director Fotofestival »horizonte zingst«, Artistic Director Yeast Photo Festival

Edda Fahrenhorst (b. 1974, Hameln, Germany) is the artistic director of Yeast Photo Festival, Italy, owner of agency Fotogloria, Germany, and the curator of the environmental photography festival »horizonte zingst«, Germany.
After studying photography and training as text and picture editor, she joined in 2008 the photo festival in Zingst as a freelancer, becoming co-curator in 2018 and curator in 2020. In this framing she’s also responsible curator for the Leica Gallery Zingst and the expanded year-round exhibition program in Zingst. In 2010 she furthermore founded the agency Fotogloria in Hamburg, which brings together photography and companies like Siemens or Osram in the corporate field. In 2022 she started as artistic director for Yeast Photo Festival.

Gianmarco Gamberini
Co-founder, L'Artiere

In 2013, Gianmarco and Gianluca Gamberini founded L’Artiere Edizioni, a publishing house specializing in contemporary photography books. L’Artiere strongly believes in the importance of quality and attention to every detail. Passion, dedication, technical know-how, and craftsmanlike skills are the cornerstones of L’Artiere and quality is the watchword that inspires them.

Nathalie Herschdorfer
Director, Photo Elysée

Nathalie Herschdorfer (1972, Switzerland) is a curator and art historian specializing in the history of photography.
In 2022, she was appointed Director of Photo Elysée, the cantonal 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: Body: The Photography Book (Thames & Hudson, 2019); Mountains by Magnum
Photographers (Prestel, 2019); The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Photography (Thames & Hudson, 2018); Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast (Thames & Hudson, 2012); and Afterwards: Contemporary Photography Confronting the Past (Thames & Hudson, 2011)

Peppe La Rosa
Digital Content and Multimedia Specialist MSF Italy

Peppe La Rosa works as a photojournalist and video content manager for Doctors Without Borders.
He has worked in some of the most complex contexts in which the NGO operates, including Bangladesh, showing MSF activities and life in one of the most crowded slum in the world, between exploitation of child labor and domestic violence, in the most remote areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to fight malaria and malnutrition, in Sierra Leone, where MSF is building a hospital in one of the areas most affected by the great Ebola epidemic, in the refugee camp of Moria, on the island of Lesbos, where thousands of people remain stranded for a long time in an attempt to reach Europe, in Mozambique, where he collected testimonies from the populations affected by the Cyclone Idai.
He coordinates the audio-visual production for MSF in the field and remotely, through collaboration with professional photographers and videomakers from all over the world.
He studied filmaking at the University of Pisa, and then worked as an assistant and editor for documentary director Daniele Sagre.
Always interested and attentive to social issues, with the Turin director he contributed to the creation of documentaries such as “Morire di Lavoro” and “Occhi che videro”.

Anne Leighton Massoni
Executive Director & Curator, Houston Center for Photography

Anne Leighton Massoni is Executive Director & Curator of the Houston Center for Photography (HCP) in Texas. Before joining HCP, she was the Dean and Managing Director of Education at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Massoni graduated with an MFA in Photography from Ohio University and BAs in Photography and Anthropology from Connecticut College. She co-edited The Focal Press Companion to the Constructed Image in Contemporary Photography with Marni Shindelman in 2018; and has curated over twenty exhibitions including most recently Ada Trillo & the Sirkhane DARKROOM.
The Houston Center for Photography is an organization dedicated to the art of photography. Starting in 1981 as a small visual artists’ organization, its mission has always been to promote the art and practice of photography in all its forms through various programs. HCP is comprised of three galleries and over 200 feet of linear exhibiting space. HCP is actively looking to build two and three person exhibitions with each artist exhibiting in their own gallery for the 2025 exhibition year. Massoni is particularly interested in work that addresses identity, contemporary societal issues, and/or challenges the practice of photography through new or re-envisioned technologies.

Elisa Medde
Curator

Elisa Medde edits, curates and writes about photography and visual culture. With a background in Art History, Iconology and Photographic Studies, her research reflects on the relationship between image, communication and power structures. She has been nominator for a number of prizes and chaired various juries. She loves collaborating with educational programs as lecturer and jury member, such as KABK, ECAL, Brera Academy, Fotofilmic and many more. Next to curating paper and physical spaces, she regularly writes for Foam Magazine and various publications such as C4 Journal, Something We Africans Got, Vogue Italia / L’Uomo Vogue, YET Magazine and many artists’ books. She has been Editor-in-Chief of Foam Magazine between 2012 and 2023, twice recipient of a Lucie Award for Best Photography Magazine.

Emanuela Mirabelli
Photo Editor Marie Claire

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.

Aya Musa
Curator Foam

Aya Musa (born 1979) is a curator at FOAM, the prominent photography museum in the Netherlands. Musa develops exhibitions at FOAM that provide a deepening and innovative interpretation of the museum’s artistic identity. Prior to this, Musa was a curator and head programmer at the Dutch Photomuseum. In his work, Musa combines social developments with new exhibition forms; where photography is not subordinate to the context from which it arises, but at the same time never loses sight of this context. In this way, he gives photography a stage that goes beyond existing clichés. Since 2001, Musa has combined his work in the Netherlands with empirical ethnographic research into the Middle East and the Subcontinent. He has conducted extensive research into the history of contemporary sectarian violence. Currently, Musa is studying the photographic representation of victims of sectarian violence in the aforementioned region.

Azu Nwagbogu
Founder and Director, LagosPhoto Festival

Azu Nwagbogu is an internationally acclaimed curator, interested in evolving new models of engagement with questions of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation. In his practice, the exhibition becomes an experimental site for reflection, civic engagement, ecology and repatriation – both tangible and symbolic. Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. He also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos. He is the publisher of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas. In 2021, Nwagbogu was awarded “Curator of Year 2021” by the Royal Photographic Society, UK, and also listed amongst the hundred most influential people in the art world by ArtReview. In 2021, Nwagbogu launched the project “Dig Where You Stand (DWYS) – From Coast to Coast” which offers a new model for institutional building and engagement, with questions of decolonization, restitution and repatriation, the exhibition took place in Ibrahim’s Mahama’s culture hub SCCA in Tamale, Ghana. Most recently in 2023, Nwagbogu was appointed “Explorer at Large” by National Geographic Society to serve as an ambassador for the Organization and receive support to continue his storytelling work across Africa and globally, a title bestowed on a select few global change makers. Nwagbogu’s primary interest is in reinventing the idea of the museum and its role as a civic space for engagement for society at large.

Arianna Rinaldo
Photography Curator PhEST

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.

Anna Shpakova
Photo Editor and Cultural Producer

Anna Shpakova is a cultural producer, curator and educator. Works as a photo editor of the Kometa revue (France), an illustrated magazine that introduces voices from the East.
She has worked as a director of photography at leading magazines in Russia Afisha, Ogoniok, Snob, RIA Novosti international news agency. Being a long-time expert of Soviet photography, Anna has been involved in visual study of emergent photography in post-Soviet countries. Graduated from Moscow State University, psychology department in psychoanalysis, psychology of art, she wrote her dissertation on PTSD and war photographers. Curator of international exhibitions including for PhotoQuai Musée Branly, Rencontres d’Arles, Festival Bayeux pour correspondants de guerre, PhotoEspana, WARM Festival Sarajevo, Berlin Foto Festival, Tbilisi Photo Festival, Moscow Biennale, Multimedia Art Museum. Founder of the photography department of the British Higher School of Art and Design.
Being a long time expert of Soviet photography, Anna has been involved in a visual study of emergent photography in post-Soviet countries.
She is a winner of several photography awards including Rencontres d’Arles Dummy book Award, Prix Bayeux-Calvados des correspondants de guerre, Picture of the year International. Author of 6 books including ‘Grozny : 9 Cities’, ‘Sergei Eisenstein & Grigory Alexandrov, 1929-1932’, ‘Prafota: Emerging Belarus Photography’ ect.; and documentary films: Grozny: 9 Cities, 1968.Digital, La dynastie Morozov ou l’art à la folie. She lived and worked in Moscow until March 2022. Now she lives in Paris.