We're excited to reveal the judging panel for the Sony World Photography Awards 2022. From careers in editorial to academia, this year’s jury brings a range of knowledge and expertise from varied photographic backgrounds. The Awards' judging process is completely anonymous (the name and nationality of the entrant are hidden from the judges).
Professional competition
Mike Trow began his career as an editor and reportage agent for the major agency Colorific before working as Picture Editor on magazines including Bizarre and Jack magazine.
He was at British Vogue for 13 years, where he led a team that commissioned, produced and art directed all portrait and feature shoots. As a photographer, he's shot for Vogue and other titles. He now works as a curator, consultant, freelance editor and photographer.
Mike’s also chaired the judging panel for the Sony World Photography Awards. Since the 2018 competition, he’s guided the most credible curators, museum directors and picture editors to decide who has created the most exciting work entered into the Professional competition. Mike has curated the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition, held annually each Spring at Somerset House before embarking on a worldwide tour.
Deborah Klochko has been the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California, since 2006. She has taught, lectured and written extensively on photography and has curated more than 30 exhibitions throughout her career.
Klochko is the Founder of Speaking of Light: Oral Histories of American Photographers. She is the author of Picturing Eden and co-authored both Moment of Seeing: Minor White and Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge. Formerly the Director of The Friends of Photography, located at the Ansel Adams Center, she has also worked at the California Museum of Photography; the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Klochko received her Master of Arts in Teaching, Museum Education at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the Visual Studies Workshop (SUNY) in Rochester, New York.
Rahaab Allana is the Curator and Publisher at the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi; Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society (London) and was previously Honorary Research Associate at the University College, London (Department of Visual Anthropology).
He has curated, contributed to and edited several publications and exhibitions on South Asian photography and its trans-national histories, working internationally with museums, universities, festivals and other arts institutions such as The Brunei Gallery (London); Rencontres d’Arles (Espace Van Gogh); Jimei x Arles (China); The Folkwang Museum (Essen); The Photography Museum (Berlin); The Fine-Art Museum (Brussels); the Science Museum (London); plus the Rubin Museum (New York), among others.
He serves, and has served, on advisory committees/juries of various cultural fora and is also the Founding Managing Editor of PIX, a theme-based photography initiative. Allana is also the Founder of the first app for photography from South Asia called ASAP l art and has recently guest-edited two volumes on lens-based practices in the subcontinent - for Aperture Magazine (New York, 2021); and the other for Tulika Books (Delhi, forthcoming).
Ângela Ferreira is a Portuguese artist, independent photography curator and postdoc researcher at Escola de Belas Artes Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Brazil. Her focus is on developing studies on contemporary visual practices that problematize the hybrid forms of photography.
She is Co-Founder of the Portuguese PhotoFestival Encontros da Imagem, which has collaborated as Artistic Director and Curator. She has lectured on contemporary photography throughout Europe and Latin American countries, particularly in Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia, and acted as a curator for both national and international exhibitions. She is a Curatorial Member of the Photography Museum in Fortaleza, Brazil, and an Artistic Advisor of the FotoFestival SOLAR, Ceará, Brazil.
Richmond Orlando Mensah is a Ghanaian-based curator and creative director. He specialised in Linguistics and French for his undergraduate degree from the University of Ghana and his interest lies between contemporary African photography and diplomacy. He is the Founder and Creative Director of Manju Journal. Established in 2015, Manju is a global art and culture platform dedicated to celebrating emerging African talents in and out of the diaspora.
His previous collaborations as content curator include Vogue Italia, i-D, PaperJournal, The Der-Greif magazine and The Photographers’ Gallery London. As a Creative Director, he has worked with brands including Tommy Hilfiger and Gucci in collaboration with London-based Black Creative Agency (AVibeCalledTech). Outside his creative capacity, Richmond Orlando Mensah has also worked with various diplomatic sectors in Ghana and Africa including; The Office of the President (Ghana), The Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Regional Integration (Ghana), The Embassy of Ghana in Cotonou (Benin) and more. He is currently working on a number of photo projects and exhibitions between Accra, Ghana and London.
Student competition
Colin Czerwinski’s journey as a photographer has taken him to places he could have never imagined - from the basements of house shows to traveling around the entire United States, Japan, and most of Europe. He is incredibly thankful for all of the opportunities that have been given to him from touring with Vasudeva. In the course of all these years of traveling, what CzerwinskI has come to understand is a deeper vision of himself and what it is that he does as a photographer, and that is to document people and places in the moment. ‘To not seek compositions, but to allow the curiosity and discovery of myself to see and experience,’ he says. Czerwinski is the founder of NOICE Magazine, a photography publication and community for photographers that have a meticulous eye for form, beauty, symmetry, novelty, and humour.
Open & Youth competition
Hideko Kataoka has been Director of Photography at Newsweek Japan, since 2001. She joined the magazine as a photographer in 1991, covering national news, social issues and portraiture of world business and cultural leaders. As Director of Photography, she oversees and directs photography both for the printed and digital editions of the magazine as well as its special issues.
Since 2004, she’s created the Picture Power section in the magazine, a weekly photo essay that captures underreported topics from around the world. The book Ten Years of Picture Power, with selected photo stories from the section, was published in 2014. Hideko is a Lecturer at Tokyo Polytechnic University and serves as a Member of the External Review Committee at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.