Clare Freestone has been Curator of Photographs at London’s National Portrait Gallery for two decades. During that time, she has produced a host of NPG displays and has acquired many important images for the Gallery’s Collection, which spans the 1840s to the present day. Clare has a particular research interest in the careers of pioneering women throughout the history of photography. She curated ‘Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer’ (2011) and wrote the accompanying publication. Her most recent exhibition, ‘Yevonde: Life and Colour’, shines a light on an extraordinary and influential woman who gained freedom through photography and blazed a trail for subsequent artists.

^{Image: © Eva Vermandel}

Ann M. Jastrab is the Executive Director at the Center for Photographic Art (CPA) in Carmel, California. CPA strives to advance photography through education, exhibition and publication. These regional traditions-including mastery of craft, the concept of mentorship, and dedication to the photographic arts-evolved out of CPA's predecessor, the renowned Friends of Photography established in 1967 by iconic artists Ansel Adams, Wynn Bullock and Cole Weston. While respecting these West Coast traditions, CPA is also at the vanguard of the future of photographic imagery. Before coming onboard at CPA, Ann was the gallery manager at Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco where she incorporated contemporary artists with the living legends of photography.

Ann also worked as the gallery director at RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco for 10 years until their closure in 2017. Ann has curated many shows in the Bay Area while simultaneously jurying, curating, and organizing numerous exhibitions for other national and international venues outside of San Francisco. She has reviewed portfolios for a multitude of organizations including the Seoul International Photography Festival in Korea, Fotofest, Photolucida, GuatePhoto, PhotoNola, Review Santa Fe, Medium, Palm Springs Photo Festival, Filter, PhotoAlliance, and Lishui International Photography Festival in China as well as being a juror for Critical Mass. While being a champion of artists, she created a thriving artist-in-residence program at RayKo where recent residents Kathya Landeros, Meghann Riepenhoff, Carlos Javier Ortiz, and McNair Evans all received Guggenheim Fellowships.

Besides being a curator, Ann Jastrab, MFA, is a fine art photographer, master darkroom printer, and teacher as well. She has been leading courses in the San Francisco Bay Area and at the Maine Media Workshops (formerly the Maine Photographic Workshops) in Rockport, Maine since 1995.

Klavdij SLUBAN, winner of the European Publishers Award for Photography 2009, of the Leica Prize (2004) and of the Niépce Prize (2000), main French prize in photography, Klavdij Sluban is a French photographer of Slovenian origin born in Paris in 1963.

He develops a rigorous and coherent body of work, nourished by literature, never inspired by immediate and sensational current affairs, making him one of the most interesting photographers of his generation. The Balkans, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, Central America, Russia, China and the Antarctic (first artistic mission in the Kerguelen islands) can be read as many successive steps of an in-depth study of a patient proximity to the encountered real. His images have been shown in such leading institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Photography of Tokyo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Rencontres d'Arles, the Museum of Photography in Helsinki, the Fine Arts Museum in Canton, the Musée Beaubourg, the Museum of Texas Tech University...

His many books include East to East (published simultaneously by Actes Sud, Dewi Lewis, Petliti, Braus, Apeiron & Lunwerg with a text by Erri de Luca), Entre Parenthèses, (Photo Poche, Actes Sud), Transverses, (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) and Balkans -Transit, with a text by François Maspero (Seuil).

Since 1995, Sluban has been photographing teenagers in jails. In each prison he organizes workshops with the young offenders to share his passion.

First originated in France, in the prison of Fleury-Mérogis with support of Henri Cartier-Bresson during 7 years, as well as Marc Riboud and William Klein punctually. This commitment was pursued in the disciplinary camps of Eastern Europe -Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, Latvia - and in the disciplinary centres of Moscow and St Petersburg as well as in Ireland. From 2007 to 2012, Sluban has been working in Central America with imprisoned youngsters belonging to maras (gangs) in Guatemala and Salvador. In 2015, he started photogrphing imprisoned teeangers in Brazil.

In 2013, the musée Niépce showed a retrospective of K.Sluban's work, After Darkness, 1995-2012.

In 2015/16, he was awarded the Villa Kujoyama Residence in Kyoto, Japan. K.Sluban is member of national and international jurys, such as prix Niépce, prix de la Jeune Photographie de Niort, prix Leica, All About Photo..

Dewi Lewis established his publishing house in 1994. Internationally known, its authors have included photographers such as Laia Abril, Bruce Gilden, Martin Parr, Simon Norfolk, Pentti Sammallahti, Paolo Pellegrin, Sergio Larrain, and Anders Petersen as well as many younger emerging photographers. A founding member of The European Publishers Award for Photography, which ran for 22 years from 1994 to 2016, he continues to work in collaboration with European publishers.

An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, he was awarded the Society’s inaugural RPS Award for Outstanding Service to Photography. He has also received the The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation for Outstanding Contribution to Publishing. Dewi Lewis Publishing received the PHotoEspana’s prize for Outstanding Publishing House of the Year.

He has acted as Jury member for several major competitions, as a portfolio reviewer at innumerable events, and as a ‘Master’ for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclasses for a three year period.

Travel and street photography has always been my passion. I am especially interested in the subject of social life around me. I love to capture so many essential values in life through photography. I also have been working as a content creator about photography.

Sandrine Hermand-Grisel is a professional photographer who specializes in Fine Art Photography and Printmaking. She grew up in Paris, France and in London, UK before she moved to the United States with her family in 2006. She decided to use her knowledge of the photography world to become the curator of the website, All About Photo, which she founded in 2013. Much more than a cultural agenda, All About Photo is a source of information for photographers and aficionados of photography as well as a showcase platform for talented artists.

An integral part of All About Photo is its annual awards competition, The Mind’s Eye, she has juried over the years with renowned photographers and curators such as Liu Bolin, Ann Jastrab, Ed Kashi, Eli Klein, Jules Maeght, Aline Smithson, Ami Vitale, Judy Walgren, Sabine Weiss, Frank Horvat, Elizabeth Avedon and many more. She also juried competitions and shows for A Smith Gallery, Darkroom Gallery, Gomma Photography Grant, Rayko Photo Center, L.A. & N.Y. Photo Curator, Emerge UK Prize, The PhotoPlace Gallery, Praxis Gallery, The Young Photographer's Award and others.

Sandrine Hermand-Grisel's work has been published in books and magazines as well as exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide.

While still working on personal projects, she now spends most of her time discovering new talents for All About Photo. She is also working on the new AAP Magazine committed exclusively to the publication of portfolios.