Classes
Our classes are designed to improve your photography and visual journalism skills no matter your skill level. This year, classes will be held online in small, intimate groups. Participants, teachers and guest lecturers will come together virtually in May 2026 to celebrate their photographic stories and learn new skills.
Our teachers are some of the world’s most influential photographers and visual journalists. They offer perspectives gained from long experience working around the world.
Please note that our instructors and presenters are subject to change.
Teachers
Individual classes will be taught in English, Portuguese, Hindi, Bengali, Spanish, Bosnian, Serbian, French, Farsi, Arabic, and Kurdish.
Monica Allende
[Portfolio Reviewer | Spanish, English]
Monica Allende is an independent curator/artistic director, consultant and educator. She is the Artistic Director of Landskrona Foto Festival and was GetxoPhoto International Image Festival Artistic Director from 2017 to 2019. She curated “Light” an exhibition during PhotoLondon 2021 at Peckham24. She has also collaborated with WeTransfer as a Consultant and Creative Producer and was the FORMAT17 International Photography Festival director. She is curating the Blues Skies Project, a multidisciplinary project with artist Anton Kusters and Ruben Samama, shortlisted for the Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize 2019 and exhibiting in Les Recontres d’ Arles in 2021. She collaborates with Canon Europe as an adviser on the Ambassadors and the Student Mentorship Programmes. She advises CAMPO.lat, a grassroots digital platform, on strategy and programming. Allende was the Photo Editor at the Sunday Times Magazine, where she launched Spectrum, the award-winning photography section.
She is a visiting lecturer at the London College of Communication, London & EFTI in Madrid. She is a collaborator and teaches programmes in Latin America and Sarajevo for the VII Academy part of the VII Foundation. She has also produced and taught creatives labs for FIFV in Chile, Proyecto Imaginario, Argentina, ScreenLab in London and Taskheil in Saudi Arabia. The Mentorship Business Programme for the University of Sunderland’s and workshop for Internazionale a Ferrara, WPP workshop Angola, Magnum Professional Practice, Grain and Format “East Meets West “ Programme among many others, and WPP JOOP Masterclass.
She is dedicated to nurturing new and established talent and nominates photographers for prizes, including the Paul Huf Award , Deutsche Börse TPG Photography Prize, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Prix Pictet and The Joop Swart Masterclass/ WPP.
Allende is also a reviewer and ambassador for Reminders Photography Stronghold in Japan and Docking Station in Holland. She is on the Board of Trustees of Photoworks advising on curatorial practices.
Ali Arkady
[Individual Classes taught in Arabic and Kurdish]
Ali Arkady is an artist, photographer, and filmmaker from Iraq. In 2009, Ali joined Metrography, the first Iraqi photo agency; in 2014, he joined VII Photo Agency as part of the VII Mentor Program. In 2017, Ali had to flee Iraq with his family when his life was threatened after photographing Iraqi armed forces committing war crimes. He sought refuge in Europe, where he was granted asylum and has subsequently built a new life.
His photographs of war crimes in Iraq were published worldwide by international media and put pressure on the Iraqi government to acknowledge the crimes committed by their soldiers. For this work, he won the prestigious Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents in 2017 and the Free Press Unlimited Most Resilient Journalist Award in 2019 for his exceptional courage and persistence. In addition, his work was shown as part of the Venice Biennale 2017.
Ali’s work focused on armed conflict and the daily life of his fellow citizens during the American occupation and the rise of the Islamic State. For over 18 years, he has portrayed the conflicts that Iraq has experienced and the consequences of that conflict with sensitivity and an unflinching eye. His work in Iraq also includes illuminating the Yazidis’ plight, the Islamic State’s violence, and the ensuing displacement of internal populations. He has also worked in Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, and Europe.
He became a teacher in a UNHCR program for several Yazidi girls fleeing Islamic State who wanted to train to be photojournalists. He continues to mentor several of the students seven years later, and, in addition, he teaches young men and women from the Arab-speaking world through programs at the VII Academy.
Victor Blue
[Individual Classes taught in English]
Victor J. Blue is a New York based photojournalist whose work is most often concerned with the legacy of armed conflict, human rights and the protection of civilian populations, and unequal outcomes resulting from policy and politics. He has worked in Central America since 2002, concentrating on social conflict in Guatemala, and since 2009 has photographed the Counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan. He has completed assignments in Syria, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq, and India, and has documented news stories and social issues across the United States. He worked as a staff photographer at The Record in Stockton CA, and holds a Masters Degree in Visual Communication from Ohio University. He practices a deeply reported, character driven documentary photography that tries to both inform viewers intellectually and move them emotionally, and communicate something universal from the particular circumstances of individual lives and struggles.
His photographs have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harpers Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Sports Illustrated, USAToday, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, Mother Jones, The San Francisco Chronicle and on The Discovery Channel and The History Channel. He has shown photographs in exhibitions at the Powerhouse Gallery in New York City, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and at 111 Minna Gallery and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. His work has been supported by grants from the NPPA and Ohio University. In 2012 Parlay, his project on his Grandfather, was awarded in the Pictures of the Year International and the NPPA Best of Photojournalism competitions. In 2010, 2011, and 2015 his work in Afghanistan was honored in Pictures of the Year International. In 2017 he garnered three awards in the Pictures of the Year International.
Michael Robinson Chavez
[Classes taught in Spanish]
Michael Robinson Chávez, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer for The Washington Post, became seduced by photography after a friend gave him a camera before a trip to Peru in 1988. A native Californian and half Peruvian, he previously worked with the Associated Press, The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times and is a graduate of San Francisco State University. Robinson Chávez has covered assignments in over 75 countries including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the collapse of Venezuela, violence in Mexico, tsunamis in Indonesia and Chile, the Egyptian revolution, gold mining in Peru and the 2006 Hezbollah/Israeli war.
He was part of a team from The Washington Post awarded a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the January 6th coup attempt on the US Capitol and for Explanatory Journalism in 2019 covering climate change. He is also a three-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Photojournalism and was named Photographer of the Year by Pictures of the Year International in 2020. His photographs have been exhibited in France, Australia, Peru, United States, Croatia, Georgia and Spain. He teaches photo workshops through the Leica Akademie.
Marko Drobnjakovic
[Classes taught in Bosnian/Serbian]
Marko Drobnjakovic is a freelance documentary photographer based out of Belgrade, Serbia. He graduated from Belgrade University with a B. Sc. and M. Sc. in Engineering. His photography focuses on post-conflict societies, and includes stories related to the Iraq conflict, the turmoil and escalation of conflict in Ukraine, the rise and fall of ISIS in northern Iraq, the refugee crisis in Europe and the aftermath and consequences of the Yugoslav wars.
Marko worked on feature assignments for publications and clients that include The Associated Press, NBC, MSF, International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch, Der Spiegel, El Pais and The New Yorker. Awards and grants include the Magnum Foundation Grant, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Breaking News Photography, Yunghi Kim Grant, Aftermath Project Grant finalist, Ochberg Fellowship, Logan Nonfiction Fellowship, Alfred Toepfer Fellowship Grant.
Kiana Hayeri
[Classes taught in Farsi]
Alison Morley
[Classes taught in English]
Alison Morley is the Chair Emerita of the Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism Program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, where she led a wide range of international students and faculty for 18 years. She began her career as a portrait photographer in Los Angeles and after ten years of working with various magazines , she moved on to become the Director of Photography at The Los Angeles Times Magazine. She later moved to New York City and worked as the Director of Photography at The New York Times Sophisticated Traveler, Audubon, Civilization, Esquire, Mirabella, Smart Money(consultant), OPRAH (consultant) and ELLE Magazines.
Alison currently works as a Book Consultant/Photo Editor/Photo Book Editor, Sequencer, Curator and Educator for photographers and partnering institutions globally. Recently she curated the Daegu International Photo Festival in Korea, taught as a high school mentor for the YMCA_VII Academy Youth Voices Photography Program in Boston and was the 2024 Coordinator for the Foundry Photojournalism International Workshop, supported by VII Academy and Photowings.org.
Her forte is Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism. but she has worked in every genre of photography. She teaches and coaches Digital Book Making Online for the International Center of Photography as well as private clients in all levels and aspects of their photographic journey.
Smita Sharma
[Classes taught in Hindi/Bengali]
Smita Sharma is a Delhi based photojournalist and visual storyteller reporting on critical human rights, gender, social justice and environmental issues in her own community as well as in the Global South on assignments for Human Rights Watch, National Geographic Magazine, TIME and other publications.
From documenting the effect of pregnancy on girl’s education in Kenya to child marriage in Nepal, and sex-trafficking in South Asia, Sharma is committed to representing people with dignity and telling underrepresented stories with impact.
Smita is a TED fellow, TED Speaker and an IWMF reporting fellow. For Stolen Lives, her in-depth work documenting minor sex trafficking in India and Bangladesh for National Geographic Magazine, she received the Amnesty International Media award for photojournalism and the Fetisov Journalism Award for Outstanding Investigative Reporting.
Smita is actively engaged in public speaking, victim advocacy and international public education. Her work has been exhibited and shown globally, including at the UN Headquarters in New York. Her book We Cry In Silence documenting cross-border trafficking of underage girls in South Asia is published by FotoEvidence and she is organising a campaign in the region aimed at educating and raising awareness amongst the communities most vulnerable to human trafficking.
Book – ‘We Cry in Silence’ published by FotoEvidence in September 2022.
Adriana Zehbrauskas
[Classes taught in Portuguese]
Adriana Zehbrauskas is a Brazilian documentary photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. Her work is largely focused on issues related to migration, religion, human rights, underrepresented communities and the violence resulting from the drug trade in Mexico, Central and South America. As a documentary photographer the core of her work is aimed at moving, challenging and connecting people through the stories she works on.
She contributes regularly with the The New York Times, UNICEF, CNN, The Washington Post and The Guardian. Her work has been widely published in outlets such as The New Yorker, Stern, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Libération, Folha de S. Paulo, Bloomberg and El País, among others.
She is the recipient of a 2022/23 Robert Capa Gold Medal Award Citation, 2021 Maria Moors Cabot Prize , 2021 Anja Niedringhaus Courage In Photojournalism Award Honorable Mention, a New York Press Club Award in Feature-Science Medicine and Technology in the Newspaper category for the article “Zika’s Legacy: Catastrophic Consequences of a Continuing Crisis (NY-2018) and a POY International (2019). She was a finalist for the Premio Gabo (2018) and received two Honorable Mentions at the Julia Margaret Cameron Award (2018).
Adriana is one of the three photographers profiled in the documentary “Beyond Assignment” (USA, 2011, produced by The Knight Center for International Media and the University of Miami. She’s a recipient of the first Getty Images Instagram Grant (2015) and was awarded Best Female Photojournalist in her native Brazil (Troféu Mulher Imprensa). Her mobile photography work was selected by Time Magazine for the “29 Instagrams That Defined the World in 2014″ and her project on Faith in Brazil and Mexico was awarded a Art & Worship World Prize by the Niavaran Artistic Creation Foundation.
She’s an instructor with the International Center of Photography (ICP- NY), the World Press Photo Foundation, Gabriel García Márquez’s Fundación Gabo, the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop and serves as a jury member to dozens of grants and awards worldwide, including the World Press Photo, POY LATAM and Premio Gabo.
Guests
Monica Allende, Robert Dannin, Mike Davis, Maral Deghati, Nariman El-Mofty, Alice Gabriner, Julie Hau, Stephanie Heimann, Magdalena Herrera, Natalia Jiménez, Olivier Laurent, Santiago Lyon, Frank Meo, Dario Lopez Mills, Tanvi Mishra, Claire Rosen, Marcel Saba, Maggie Steber, Mikko Takkunen, Gaia Tripoli