Tina Ahrens is the Director of Photography at ZEIT ONLINE. Previously, she was the Director of Photography at Philosophie magazine in Germany for nine years, where she oversaw the redesign of the magazine with Design-Duo Meire & Meire. Prior to that she was the photographic editor at GEO magazine in Hamburg, and then became a senior photographic editor at GEO magazine’s New York correspondent’s office, where she oversaw many of award-winning productions for the magazine. She went on to be a Visual Consultant for CNN Digital and was responsible for developing a new visual language for the redesign of GEO magazine with Art Director Anna-Clea Skoluda. Tina has been an affiliate Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an Impact Producer for the "The Enemy", an acclaimed virtual reality installation developed in collaboration with the M.I.T. Tina has been a jury member and portfolio reviewer at numerous international festivals and awards.

Gael Almeida is the Executive Director for Latin America at the National Geographic Society; her work includes seeking new projects; supporting Latin Americans who receive funding; and triggering collaborations among the network of Explorers and partners to create long-term changes in the region. She also works with different local and international partners and storytelling grantees to create spaces for reflection and discussion on how we tell our stories and generate synergies among visual artists and local communities in the region. She has over 20 years of experience coordinating initiatives for collective impact and science communication.

Edda Fahrenhorst lives and works in Hamburg. Since 2010 she has been co-owner and managing director of the agency Fotogloria | Büro für fotografische Zusammenarbeit. Since the summer of 2020, she has also been the curator of the environmental photography festival "horizonte zingst" and the expanded year-round exhibition program in Zingst. Edda is also one of the active members of the "Freundeskreis des Hauses der Photographie" in Hamburg and always works on at least two freelance projects at the same time, currently on the series #FacesOfPhotography and "6.0 - Wir zeigen Zukunft".

Silke Frigge is Managing Director of the independent photo agency laif, which was founded in Cologne in 1981 and is now owned by the laif co-operative. laif represents more than 400 renowned photographers and photojournalists worldwide and image archives of around 40 international partners, including NOOR, VII, The New York Times, Redux, M.YO.P., Agence VU and many more. After studying art history, she initially worked as a freelance art historian before completing a traineeship at laif from 2002-2004 and then working in the agency's Marketing & Sales department. In 2007 she switched to the editorial side as a photo editor and worked for many years for various daily newspapers, business and consumer magazines, most recently as head of photography. Before returning to laif in August 2020, she worked as a healthcare communication project manager for global pharmaceutical companies. She is a member of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) and the laif co-operative.

Teona Gogichaishvili, born in 1977, is a native Georgian and has lived in Germany for over 25 years. After studying German philology, history and philosophy in Georgia and Germany, she studied photography and design in Cologne and Bielefeld, graduating with a Master of Arts in Photography and Design. Since 2006, Ms. Gogichaishvili has been a freelance curator, photographer and lecturer at home and abroad. From 2017 until today, she is the head of the art department at the Music and Art School of the City of Remscheid. Since 2011, Ms. Gogichaishvili has been the co-organizer and curator of the international photography festival KOLGA TBILISI PHOTO in Georgia. Within this framework, she has curated numerous renowned exhibitions, including Dakar Fashion by Finbarr O‘Reilly, THE LAST TESTAMENT by Jonas Bendiksen, Then There was Silence by Jan Grarup, Le Petit Chaperon Noir by Sarah Moon. In 2018, Ms. Gogichaishvili, together with Antonia Loick/V8 and Inga Schneider/ Photoszene Köln, founded PURPUR COLLECTIVE. The collective has declared as its goal to highlight women in photography. In this context, the film „How to be/see a Woman”, with works by the 12 international female artists, was recently produced. Ms. Gogichaishvili is also a portfolio reviewer, involved in various photo festivals, including Photoszene Cologne, Hamburg Portfolio Review, Arles, Visa pour l‘image/Perpignan, Houston FotoFest. Since 2022, Ms. Gogichaishvili has been a member of the Board of Directors, Section Imagery, of the DGPh - German Society of Photography.

Claudia Hinterseer is senior video producer at the award-winning South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before she worked as managing multimedia producer at China Daily Asia. Prior to pivoting from photography to video, she was photo editor at Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. In 2007, she founded NOOR photo agency and served as its MD for seven years. Earlier in her career she set up photojournalistic educational programs around the globe for World Press Photo. She obtained an MA in Visual Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam.

Hideko Kataoka is based in Tokyo, Japan. She has been director of photography at Newsweek Japan since 2001. In 2004, She launched the Picture Power section in the magazine, a weekly photo essay that captures underreported topics around the world. Published for the last 18 years, Picture Power continues to provide a printed showcase for contemporary photographers’ work. Hideko is a lecturer at Tokyo Polytechnic University, serves as a member of the external review committee at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum and as a juror at international photography festivals and competitions, e.g. World Press Photo.

Carol Körting was born in Bogotá, Colombia and is based in Berlin, Germany. She moved to Germany and after working as a freelance photographer, she studied photo editing at the Ostkreuz Schule für Fotografie. Körting has been the photo editor of the Leica Foto-grafie International Magazine since 2011. She participated as a jury member in several photo contest, such as Kuala Lumpur Photo Awards, The Independent Photographer, BarTur Photo Award, Belarus Prafota, Slideluck Editorial and Zenith Magazine.

Peter Lindhorst discovered his passion for photography while working for one of the first photo bookstores in the world. He later studied cultural studies at the University of Lüneburg, where he graduated with a thesis on Nan Goldin and Larry Clark. He has worked for various publishing houses, including Steidl and Scalo. After a long stay in Brussels, he has been curating the photo exhibitions at Freelens Gallery in Hamburg for 10 years now. He is extremely interested in any kind of political issues and especially environmental issues and activism. For many years he has been the picture editor of the German Greenpeace Magazin.

Prof. Heike Ollertz is a Hamburg, Germany based photographer. She worked for a wide variety of magazines, e.g. Mare, GEO, National Geographic, Stern, der Spiegel and more. In 2019 Ollertz became an appointed member of the German Photographic Society DGPH. In 2020 she became a founding member of Agentur Focus – Die Fotograf*innen. Until January 2023 she was dean of the faculty Art & Design at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences. Heike Ollertz is one of the founders of the Hamburg Portfolio Review and since February 2023 the new COO of the photographers’ association FREELENS e.V.

Prof. Dr. Nina Röder is a Berlin, Germany based Professor of photography at University of Europe for Applied Sciences, where she teaches artistic strategies & exhibition methods. Next to her artistic activities she holds aPh.D. in the field of artistic research. Her research focus lies on performative strategies in contemporary photography in the context of contingency. Exposing hidden and unconscious structures of mechanisms of biographical narratives characterises the approach of her work. Nina‘s series have been shown in international festivals and exhibitions.

Carla Rosorius, is based in Hamburg and works as a photo editor for the GEO and P.M. Magazine families. Born and raised in the South of Germany, Carla studied Social Science and Art History in Berlin. Afterwards she attended Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie to get to know the field of Photo Editing. She gained her first working experiences as an intern at Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine. Followed by prestigious magazines and newspapers like DER SPIEGEL and DIE ZEIT. Since 2015 she is working for GEO, mainly GEO kompakt and GEO WISSEN in a responsible position until 2019. She is now part of the Visual Board of GEO and P.M. Magazines. Since 2019 she is a jury board member of PUNKT – a journalistic award for science and technical photography. She was one of the reviewers at plattform9: perspective?! at Deichtorhallen in Hamburg in 2019.

Jewel Samad, Middle East and North Africa Photo Editor in Chief at Agence France-Presse (AFP) based in Nicosia. A Bangladeshi-American photojournalist, Jewel started his career in 1993 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He started working for AFP in 1996 and has since being based in various cities across Asia and the United States. Throughout his career, Jewel has covered significant global events, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, and floods, and major sporting events like the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. Additionally, he was a key member of the AFP team covering the White House for six years.

Based in Paris, Xavier Soule is board member of Zoom Photo Festival Saguenay. Since four years he is the Art Director advisory board of Fonds Regnier Pour La Creation and as a Photo collector he is President of the new Art Soul Museum in Normandy. He is also board member of Auguste Perret Foundation at Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris. CEO of VU’ Agency & Gallery, he is involved in all the major questions of the current revolution of images. Having been CEO of Abvent Group for over 40 years, he has a unique expertise in CAD & 3D imaging technologies. Architect dplg, Xavier Soule holds a doctorate in contemporary Art History, and a Master in Sciences and Technics for art restoration and conservation.

Gilles Steinmann is the Director of Photography for the daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) in Switzerland. He has been a photo editor for over 16 years, worked for various major Swiss publications and has been involved in the coverage of some of the most historic global news stories. One of his other main tasks at the newspaper is in developing new ways of storytelling both in print and online to bring indepth visual reporting to his readership. From 2017 until 2020 he published over 150 photo-essays in print and online as a "Foto Tableau" giving photographers a platform to tell their stories. Gilles has been a jury member for national and international photo contests such as the Lumix Festival for Photojournalism in Hanover, Germany.

Daniel Tchetchik is a staff photographer and the founder/chief editor of the photography blog at Haaretz Newspaper He has displayed his personal works in prominent museums and galleries in Israel as well as on international stages in several destinations across the world. His recent large scale project Dark Waters was displayed last year at the Museum for Sepulkralkultur and published by Kehrer Verlag. Tchetchik’s works are part of the collections of The Museum of Tel Aviv, The Museum of Ramat Gan, The Peter Blum Gallery, The Umm El Fahem Gallery, Museum for Sepulkralkultur, The Marc Rich Foundation, The French Institute as well as several private collections. Tchetchik divides his time between local and international personal projects and documentary assignments, many times each approach provides inspiration for the other. His work has been featured on platforms of the The Financial Times, The Süddeutsche Zeitung, The New Yorker, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Haaretz Newspaper and more.

Ng Swan Ti is the Managing Director of PannaFoto Institute, a non-profit organization committed to fostering an open-minded community through education in photography and visual storytelling based on critical thinking skills and a multidisciplinary approach, and a co-founder of the Jakarta International Photo Festival (JIPFest).

She started her photography career in 2002, utilizing her personal work as a means of self-discovery and addressing religious and identity issues in Indonesia. Her works have been showcased at international exhibitions and photo festivals. In 2014, she published her first photobook, titled “Illusion.”

Ng also actively engages in various photography initiatives, contributing as a mentor, curator, juror, and guest speaker. Notably, she co-curated exhibitions such as “Vision 20/20: Community exhibition” (Jakopič Gallery, Slovenia, 2020), “Space” (Jakarta International Photo Festival, 2021), “Tracing Inherited History” (Hong Kong International Photo Festival, 2021), and “Revival” (Jakarta International Photo Festival, 2022). She also serves as a mentor for the Women Photograph Mentorship Class (2022), the Objectifs Documentary Award (2023) as well as the World Press Photo Contest jury member (2024).

Andreas Trampe is based in Hamburg, Germany and has a long photographic history. Starting his career as a photo trainee, he went on to work as a freelance photojournalist for German daily newspapers and magazines including Bunte and Bild am Sonntag. In 1996, Andreas started working at Stern Magazine. He was first assigned Deputy of the Picture Desk before becoming the Director of Photography for nineteen years. Since 2019, he has been Senior Picture Editor for the magazine. He is member of the German Society for Photography (DGPh) and one of the founders of the stern Scholarship Program promoting young photographers by giving graduates a years' contract as staff photographer at stern magazine. Andreas is one of the founders of Hamburg Portfolio Review.

Niamh Treacy is the Coordinator for FORMAT International Photography Festival, the UK’s leading international contemporary festival of photography and related media based in Derby, UK. She has reviewed internationally for organisations such as Belfast Photography Festival, Uganda Press Photo and LCC and has juried open calls for FORMAT, UPPA, Zealous and the United Rugby Championship. Niamh is part of the FORMAT and QUAD curatorial team curating shows both internationally and nationally such as; un/natural, Lishui Photography Festival (2021), Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards, QUAD (2021), #massisolationFORMAT, Derby Museum and Art Gallery (2021); FUTURE FOCUS, QUAD Gallery (20222) and Bruce Asbestos, Eye of Newt 2.0, QUAD (2022).