The British Journal of Photography

02/07/2025

Currently studying photography at Yale School of Art, Atefe Moeini grew up in Iran. Discovering image-making as a young teenager, she honed her skills by teaching herself through trial-and-error. Moeini has previously received an award from the Prince Claus Fund, and is currently exploring making images of Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles, still-lifes of objects from home, and self-portraiture, all mainly in black-and-white. She is also working on a new project, combining archival materials with photography. ⁠
⁠
“I photograph very loosely,” she says, “I just have some ideas and I’m trying to collaborate with people. For instance, for a long time I was thinking about taking a picture of a group⁠
of women together and then asking my friends or the women I know who want to be photographed.” ⁠
⁠
Find the full interview in the latest Ones to Watch issue via the BJP Shop.

Grab your copy via the link below.

The photographer, a One to Watch 2025, shoots her community in black and white, inspired by ideas of exile and making mistakes

01/07/2025

🚨 Final two weeks to enter Portrait of Britain Vol. 8!🚨

This award invites photographers to capture the spirit of a changing nation. From the Cairngorms to the Cornish coast, British Journal of Photography is calling for entries that celebrate the diversity that defines the UK today.

The jury will shortlist 200 images to be featured in the Portrait of Britain Vol. 8 photobook, while 100 portraits will be named winners and exhibited in a month-long digital exhibition in partnership with JCDecaux UK – displayed across high streets, bus shelters, shopping centres and train stations throughout the UK.

BJP Digital Access and Full Access Members are entitled to free entry to Portrait of Britain and all of our awards. As a Member you can enter up to 10 portraits for free.

Deadline: 15 July 2025, 23:59 UK time.

Enter now: http://1854.photo/4nyQtiz

📷: Carla Marcia Girvan, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 winner

30/06/2025

Belfast Photo Festival returns as the UK and Ireland’s largest photographic festival, with a programme that invites urgent reflection on our relationship with the land and one another.

This year’s theme, Biosphere, explores the natural world not just as backdrop, but as participant - shaping and being shaped by human experience. Set against Belfast’s own layered history of identity and place, the 2025 edition foregrounds work that navigates environmental memory, cultural heritage, and collective belonging. From striking open-air installations in the Botanic Gardens to nuanced explorations of conflict at the Ulster Museum, the festival blurs boundaries between art and landscape, between past and present.

Highlights include The Children’s Melody by Spotlight Award winner Eli Durst, a meditation on American individualism through the lens of childhood; Metamorphosis, a suite of exhibitions by Polish artists responding to ecology, war and memory; and Shallow Waters by Joe Laverty, a powerful visual investigation of industrial pollution and folklore surrounding Lough Neagh.

At the heart of the programme is a commitment to showing photography where it matters most - on the ground, in the community, and in dialogue with the very environments it represents. A celebration of image-making as both mirror and witness, Belfast Photo Festival is a call to see differently, to listen deeply, and to consider the landscapes - both physical and psychological - we move through every day.

On view at venues across Belfast and Northern Ireland until 30 June. Read more:

Now in its fifteenth year, the UK and Ireland’s largest photographic festival is back. Belfast Photo Festival’s theme ‘Biosphere’ asks what we owe the land and what we owe each other.

27/06/2025

Felicity Hammond came of age as an artist at a time when the understanding of photography was beginning to broaden and change. She graduated from the Photography MA at the Royal College of Art in 2014, where she was tutored by Lucy Soutter, Rut Blees Luxemburg and Peter Kennard.

In 2021, generative AI platforms such as DALL-E and Midjourney suddenly became available to the public, and conversations, debates and hand-wringing about the status of AI imagery in the context of art and photography started up. “Suddenly there was a crisis in photography, yet again,” Hammond tells BJP from her studio in South London.

Hammond works closely with photography – she was awarded the Single Image Award in British Journal of Photography’s 2016 International Photography Award – but from some of her earliest efforts as an artist, was thinking into three dimensions. Photographer and writer Alice Zoo catches up with Hammond, touring us around her studio and expanding on the ins and outs of her practice.

Find more images and read the full story at the link below.

Working in industrial spaces for 10 years, and fascinated by the contemporary experience of images, Felicity Hammond makes installations combining imagery and sculpture

26/06/2025

Opening today at The Glasgow Gallery of Photography: Female in Focus x Nikon 2024 exhibition dives into the theme of Renewal, reflecting transformation in all its forms, from personal growth to environmental and social change.

Selected from thousands of submissions, this collection of images captures the beauty of rebirth, resilience, and regeneration. Each image offers a glimpse into the power of new beginnings - both quiet and profound.

📅: 26 June - 27 July 2025
📍: The Glasgow Gallery of Photography - 279-281 High St, Glasgow G4 0QS

Presented in partnership with Nikon, with thanks to Metro Imaging for artwork production and to Hahnemühle for providing the finest quality paper for the prints.

© Costanze Han, Female in Focus x Nikon 2024 single image winner.

25/06/2025

Abeer Khan was introduced to photography through her creative parents; after they both passed away within a year, Khan channelled her grief into a creative force. Suddenly feeling lost in her own city of Mumbai, India, Khan found herself on autopilot, putting up a front to rickshaw drivers, ticket collectors and clients, and alienated from both them and herself.

Taking photographs on Mumbai’s streets, she worked instinctively, shooting in monochrome except for one image, rendered in colour to remind herself that life goes on. “There was no intentional choice of style; what emerged was simply an expression that came on its own,” she tells BJP. “Melancholy and instinct worked shoulder to shoulder in creating these images.”

In her project Daa.era, the photographer experiments with form whilst coming to understand mourning “as a form of homecoming.” Khan’s series has been exhibited at events such as Indian Photo Festival and Hyderabad Literary Festival, and published in the huge English-language Indian newspaper The Hindu, and she is working on a film version of it.

Read the full story at the link below.

The photographer experiments with form in Daa.era whilst coming to understand mourning as a form of homecoming

25/06/2025

Now in its fifth edition, OpenWalls returns to the historic Galerie Huit Arles spotlighting work that reflects on the evolving nature of culture and identity. This year’s theme, Traditions in Transition, called on photographers to explore how rituals, heritage and memory transform across time and geographies.

The exhibition features 'The Kitchen God Series' by Anh Nguyen, winner of the Series category - a striking, introspective journey through the Vietnamese diaspora, where folklore meets the realities of modern life in New York City.

We also celebrate Single Image Winners Alex Kurunis, Akanksha Pandey, Tim Benson and Andrew Kung, whose works span traditions from Greece to Kenya, India to Chinatown NYC - all speaking to the complexities of continuity and change.

Join us at Galerie Huit Arles from 7 July 2025 to experience these powerful visual narratives in person. Find out more: http://1854.photo/44dPqvh

In partnership with WePresent and Galerie Huit Arles.

© Anh Nguyen, OpenWalls Spotlight 2024 series winner

24/06/2025

Portrait of Britain Vol. 8 closes in just a few weeks! Here’s what last year’s shortlisted and winning photographers told us about their experience:⁠
⁠
⭐ “I felt an enormous sense of pride and great joy to see my work included in the Portrait of Britain book” - Ben Hickling, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Shortlist⁠
⁠
⭐ “Being shortlisted for Portrait of Britain has been the highlight of my career” - Vladimir Studenic, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Shortlist⁠
⁠
⭐ “Having my work selected as a Portrait of Britain winner is huge. It’s such a fun experience seeing your work everywhere” - Andrea Thomson, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Winner⁠
⁠
⭐ “Winning Portrait of Britain meant everything to me! It showed that working on personal projects is worth it and that one should never stop working towards goals.” - Dunja Opalko , Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Winner⁠
⁠
Don’t miss the chance to be among this year’s 100 winning photographers whose work will be displayed in a month-long exhibition on ​ screens, or the 200 shortlisted images published in the dedicated photobook.⁠
⁠
Make sure to unlock free entry to this and all of our awards by becoming a Digital Access or Full Access Member. Enter now: https://1854.photo/3HXOjIN
⁠
Deadline: 15 July 2025, 23:59 UK time. ⁠
⁠
📷️: Shahid Bashir, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Shortlist

24/06/2025

Portrait of Britain Vol. 8 closes in just a few weeks! Here’s what last year’s shortlisted and winning photographers told us about their experience:

⭐“I felt an enormous sense of pride and great joy to see my work included in the Portrait of Britain book” - Ben Hickling, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Shortlist

⭐“Being shortlisted for Portrait of Britain has been the highlight of my career” - Vladimir Studenic, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Shortlist

⭐“Having my work selected as a Portrait of Britain winner is huge. It’s such a fun experience seeing your work everywhere” - Andrea Thomson, Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Winner

⭐“Winning Portrait of Britain meant everything to me! It showed that working on personal projects is worth it and that one should never stop working towards goals.” - Dunja Opalko , Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 Winner

Don’t miss the chance to be among this year’s 100 winning photographers whose work will be displayed in a month-long exhibition on JCDecaux UK​ screens, or the 200 shortlisted images published in the dedicated photobook.

Make sure to unlock free entry to this and all of our awards by becoming a Digital Access or Full Access Member. Enter now: http://1854.photo/3HXOjIN

Deadline: 15 July 2025, 23:59 UK time.

23/06/2025

Photofusion was part of a radical moment in photography. Founded in 1990 and located in Brixton, south-east London, it was in an area renowned for alternative living, home to collectives, squats and initiatives such as Autograph, set up in 1988 as the Association of Black Photographers.

Photofusion was established as the Photo Co-op by a group of female photographers – Gina Glover, Sarah Saunders and Corry Bevington – concerned about the ways in which women were presented in the media. They had met while working together on the campaign to save South London Women’s Hospital, and their documentation of the hospital became the basis of the Photo Co-Op Archive.

Last year, some of this early work went on show at Photofusion in an exhibition, Photography versus Thatcher: The Photo Co-op Archive, Prints and Objects, 1979 to 1986 – Photofusion’s Origin Story, curated by Chris Boot. Tom Seymour and Diane Smyth meet with director Jenni Grainger to learn more about the space’s current programme.

Learn more at the link below.

Set up in 1990, the space remains committed to image-making and image-makers, and now has a handsome new London home

19/06/2025

Final month to enter Portrait of Britain Vol. 8!

Judged by leading figures across the UK photography industry, this award is an opportunity for your work to be viewed by curators, picture editors and influential professionals nationwide. We asked this year’s judges what they’re hoping to see. Here’s what they told us:

✨ “I would like to see photos that speak; there is a saying: A photo is worth a thousand words” - Dennis Morris, Photographer

✨ “I always want to see love and care... in all its forms.” - Rene Matić, Artist and Writer

✨ “Don't overthink it and just do it. You never know what the jury is going to be drawn to.” - Sophie Parker, Photo London, Director

✨ “I'd love to see a sense of energy and spontaneity in the portraits this year. I'm always very compelled by a photographic portrayal that feels fresh and surprising in some way, and which expands my sense of both the world and the photographic encounter.” - Alice Zoo, Writer and Photographer

This is your opportunity to share Britain through your lens. 200 shortlisted images will be published in a dedicated Portrait of Britain photobook and 100 winning portraits will be showcased across the UK on JCDecaux UK’s digital screens in a month-long public exhibition.

Full Access and Digital Access Members can submit up to ten portraits for free. Enter now: https://1854.photo/43N0vok