The Photojournalism Hub Calendar 2026 showcasing the incredible work of photojournalists and documentary photographers who have contributed to our mission.
Photojournalism Hub March 2025 In Focus event at Riverside Studios will welcome uniquely experienced and talented photographers Janine Wiedel and Gabrielle Motola. Their presentations will guide us into the world of the documentary photo book from the point of view of visual anthropology and psychological and ethnocultural studies. The photographers’ works will be available during the evening – some for purchase and others for free (donations to Gabrielle Motola’s photographic bursary will be very welcome).
This event will be hosted by photojournalist Sabrina Merolla and Photojournalism Hub’s founder and director Cinzia D’Ambrosi. The talks will be followed by Q&As and time to socialise and mingle.
Janine Wiedel has been working as a documentary photographer and visual anthropologist since the late 1960s. From the Berkeley Riots and Black Panther Movement in California to the in-depth portrayal of the UK’s main historical protests since the 70s, she always fuelled a lifelong interest in movements and sub-cultures. Wiedel has persistently reworked her long-term projects, which have become prominent studies, books and exhibitions. She has published zines (Café Royal Books) and historical milestone books such as Vulcan’s Forge, dedicated to the West Midland Industries (1977-79). In-depth projects have focused on Irish Travellers, Baffin Island Inuits, UK Industries, Iran, Protest movements, Urban Squatting, Eco Warriors, the Rastafarian Community, and the Refugee Camps in Northern France. Currently, she is pulling together her book on the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (1983/84). It will soon be followed by a book dedicated to ‘St Agnes Place Squat’ (2003-06), a notorious street in South London squatted by a diverse range of people over 30 years and evicted in 2006. Web: https://archive.wiedel-photo-library.com/index Insta: @wiedelphoto
Gabrielle Motola is an award-winning photographer, writer, and photo therapist whose work blends emotional depth with perceptive realism. Her creative process often integrates with solo motorcycle travels leading to portraiture, street, and infrared landscape photography, exploring self-reflection, resilience, and the human connection. Her photo book, An Equal Difference (2016), is an ethno-photographic exploration of Iceland’s striking contrasts while examining gender dynamics following the 2008 financial crisis. Created over three years, the book centres on dialogues with individuals from diverse walks of life, including politicians, scientists, artists and educators. These conversations go beyond the surface to reveal the complexities of the Icelandic mindset, encouraging a reflection on identity, gender equality, and the societal norms that influence them. Through her workshops, Gabrielle brings a reflective approach, inspiring participants to realise their unique creative potential. www.anequaldifference.com www.gabriellemotola.com Gabrielle’s workshops bursary: www.gabriellemotola.com/learn/#bursary Insta: @anequaldifference & @gmotophotos
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IN FOCUS brings together two remarkable photographers whose works centre on the themes of community and diaspora, exploring identity, memory, and the cultural landscapes that shape collective experiences.
Myah Asha Jeffers is a Barbadian-British writer, director, photographer and dramaturg. As the previous Literary Associate at the Royal Court Theatre, she was responsible for shaping the works of new and established playwrights. Myah’s photographic work has won the Portrait of Britain Prize twice and The Photography Foundation Social Documentary Award. She is the 2024 recipient of the renowned Joan Wakelin Bursary (Royal Photographic Society & The Guardian). Her photographs have been featured in publications such as Vogue, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Magazine, ELLE and The Independent amongst others. She has also worked in collaboration with the likes of Tate, Somerset House, ICA, South London Gallery and Whitechapel Gallery. Myah’s debut short film Bathsheba world premiered at Inside Out (TIFF) and has screened at festivals including New York Shorts, Leeds FF, Norwich FF and Atlanta’s Out on Film, garnering nominations at multiple festivals for Best British Film and Best Director. Myah’s practice I am a photographer, writer and director, particularly interested in witnessing and documenting the nuances of daily life within diasporic communities. My practice is conceptually focused on ‘Black Interiority’, where I closely examine themes such as class, cultural identity, queerness, grief, gesture, and truth. Working solely with small & medium format analogue cameras and darkroom-based hand printing processes, the work is particularly concerned with the intersection of “naturalism” and “myth”, through illuminating the magic of rituals, quiet, and connection. With a focus on the (in)tangibility and truth of grief / its relationship with what I call “living abstraction” – where Black folk sculpt or construct versions of themselves as a tool for survival; I aim to make work that lends itself to abstraction through the experimentation with form, monotone, texture, and structure. Exclusion Zone. I’ll be presenting a first preview of my most recent project, Exclusion Zone supported by the Joan Wakelin Bursary and the Visual Studies Workshop Artist Residency. In 1995, a series of seismic Volcanic eruptions rendered two thirds of the island of Montserrat uninhabitable, catalysing a mass exodus. With now only 20% of the island deemed habitable and a current population of just over 4000 people – Montserrat is one of the least populus countries in the world. It also happens to be one of the few remaining British colonies. The uninhabitable 80% of the island is known as the “Exclusion Zone” – a site of buried infrastructure, homes and memories. It is both a graveyard for relics of the past. This photo series explores the legacy of the natural disaster 30 years on; through the lens of both elders who are nostalgic of what the island was and young people who only know the island for what it is today.
Paulina Korobkiewicz (b. 1993, Suwałki, Poland) is a London-based photographer and visual artist. Her work explores themes of cultural identity, memory, and the transformation of social spaces. Her projects focus on the visual and cultural landscape of her hometown and region as well as that of her current residence in the UK, documenting everyday scenes and environments with a sense of nostalgia and socio-political commentary, drawing from her own experience of migration. Her practice involves community-based research, conducting workshops, and mentoring. In addition to developing long-form personal projects, Paulina continues to undertake commissions and residencies. Shehas participated in several group and solo exhibitions internationally. Her work has been featured in a variety of publications, such as Hapax Magazine, Kajet Journal, Contemporary Lynx, Photomonitor, the BJP, and Creative Review. Paulina is a winner of the Camberwell Book Prize, has been shortlisted and nominated for awards including BarTur Photobook Award, Magnum Graduate Photographers Award and Prix Pictet.
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From self-portraiture that reclaims Igbo women’s identities to a collaborative exploration of historic ties to transatlantic slavery, photographers Adaeze Ihebom, Charlotte Woolford, and Mal Woolford confront history’s erasures. Ihebom’s Igbo Woman series challenges colonial narratives and reimagines the strength of pre-colonial Igbo femininity, while the Woolfords’ wet-plate collodion portraits uncover shared ancestry and redefine representation through co-creation. Together, they navigate themes of identity, isolation, and transformation across time and culture.
Adaeze Ihebom is an Italian-Nigerian artist who explores themes of identity and isolation. She has a degree in Digital photography from Ravensbourne University and has a Masters degree in Photography arts from the University of Westminster. Adaeze will present her Igbo Woman series – This series was inspired by Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe which traces the evolution of family identity from pre-colonial, through colonial and post-colonial times. In a series of self-portraits, in which I performativity explore women from various periods of history. As fictional characters, I construct their identities through costume, performance and the act of naming and dating the images. The decision to highlight Igbo women is rooted in my belief that she has been grossly misrepresented. To be more precise, I personally feel that history has not portrayed the Igbo woman in her rightful perspective. She is usually shown in images that correspond to a supposed African man’s world and the idea of feminine submissiveness to the man. The series is a way to challenge this mistaken notion and to show how colonialism has further removed feminine freedom from the Igbo woman. The portraits depict the colonial experience and the effect and impact of Christianity on Igbo women. It shows the female transformation from a virile, half-clad, war-like Igbo damsel to a mundane, all covering and meek-looking woman. This transformation shows both a radical departure and complete alienation from traditional dressing modes. Their lives changed irrevocably when the British invaded the Igboland. Colonization changed not only the religious, social and political institutions. It also enforces policies that diminished the roles and statues of Igbo women making them look like second class citizens.
Charlotte Woolford and Malcolm WoolfordHaving known each other from the school pickup, Charlotte and Mal discovered by chance that they share the surname: Woolford. Archival research revealed that they are connected through historic transatlantic chattel slavery and a household of enslavers and enslaved in Georgetown, Guyana. Two hundred years later, they are neighbours. Charlotte and Mal use the early photographic technique wet-plate collodion to make closely observed portraits not as photographer and model but as co-photographers. They trouble the historic use of photography to explore equal control and representation.
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‘Me, and My Community’ is a documentary photography project for residents over 50 years old of Hammersmith & Fulham. The project’s beneficiaries is a group with people of ages ranging from 50 to 89 years old who have regularly met and produced some extraordinary pieces of photographic work. The overarching theme of the photographic work has been on what community is and it means on a personal and collective level . The project ended with a photography exhibition at the William Morris Museum in London Hammersmith.
Seeing the Green is a documentary photography project taking place at Church Street Library. The project includes workshops that introduce participants to the foundations of visual storytelling and the development of personal photography projects. These sessions combine practical training with an exploration of visual narrative methodologies through theory and group activities.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn photography and photo storytelling while documenting green spaces in and around the borough of Westminster, with a focus on the Church Street ward.
The project offers two free workshops per monthat Church Street Library and is free to local residents of Westminster.
The project includes: Mindfulness-inspired field photography walks; Photo documentation of the local area through the changes of the seasons; Befriending activities and trips; Contributing in a photography archive accessible to the wider community; Showcasing your work in a photography exhibition;
The project is run by the Photojournalism Hub CIC and Hammersmith Community Gardens Association charity and supported by Westminster City Council, and Community Priorities Programme.
Photojournalism Hub is proud to present the latest magazine edition of documentary photography, photojournalism and writing showcasing the work from our photography workshop participants.
In this issue we present photography responding to the theme of Sustainability.
Participants captured stories of some volunteers and groups who work on projects to ensure sustainability and clean recycling.
We also present projects documenting public demonstrations aimed at raising awareness of the danger of climate change.
Furthermore, we present a behind the scene photography from our young participants engaged in interviewing local artists as part of the forthcoming Askew Road Arts Festival.
And lastly but not least, we share some highlights from our work including photos from our photography exhibition at the Science Museum last June part of the Imperial College The Great Exhibition Road Festival and photos from the last In Focus event at Riverside Studios.
We are thrilled to introduce award-winning photographers Anselm Ebulue and Mark Chapman at the In Focus event on the 25th of September. Both photographers bring a unique perspective to the photographic medium, transitioning from deeply personal, introspective, visceral stories on loss and mourning to powerful, straightforward documentary photography.
Anselm Ebulue is a documentary photographer based in London. He was a winner in the 2018 and 2020 Portrait of Britain award and was awarded a scholarship for the LCC x Magnum Documentary Photography Short Course. He has recently graduated from the MA Photojournalism and Documentary course at UAL. His work has been published in a variety of publications and clients include The Guardian and Observer, The Modern House, Time Out Magazine and Red Bull.
Anselm will be presenting ‘Whims of the Rye’ which is an ongoing documentary series exploring Ebulue’s personal relationship with Peckham, in south east London. Ebulue’s approach is visceral, making pictures of mundane spaces that resonate with his emotive reactions where memory and change intersect. The work expresses a sense of loss, mourning the transformation of an area in a state of rapid flux that is most clearly evidenced by its gentrification. Ebulue is particularly interested in the relationship Black communities have with Peckham and through documentation, hopes to highlight the significance of the area to the Black diaspora. Whims of the Rye serves as both a celebration and preservation of the Black communities who have called Peckham home for many decades.
Mark Chapman is an award-winning photographer and film-maker based in Gateshead, North East England and London. His moving-image work has been screened internationally across narrative, documentary and experimental contexts. Chapman’s debut photobook ‘God’s Promises Mean Everything’ explores isolation and displacement via a long-term study of a hostel resident from Teesside. The book was published by internationally renowned Dewi Lewis Publishing and launched during Photo London at Somerset House in May 2024. Mark will be speaking about ‘God’s Promises Mean Everything’, an immersive long-term character portrait that extends over seven years, but limits its perspective to a single room. Haunted by the spectre of the family he lost, Derek, a hostel resident from Teesside lives without the social safety nets many of us take for granted. Mark was given unique access to document Derek’s life over several years and the project seeks to elevate a working class story that would otherwise go unacknowledged. The images are an inseparable mix of the self-aware and spontaneous, candid and constructed. Seeking to explore the boundaries between filmmaking and photography practice, I want to tell urgent contemporary stories that are also rigorous aesthetic constructions. However, my aim is not straightforward realism, but rather to transform. My work moves between naturalism and expressiveness, altering the shape of the real world into something disturbing and mysterious. This is now the third project in which Derek has appeared (across film and photography): his unifying presence creates a constellation of individual projects across disciplines that have now become an open-ended archive of experience. The Dewi Lewis Publishing website: https://www.dewilewis.com/products/gods-promises-mean-everything
December 2023, Mediterranean sea. People onboard an overcrowded rubberboat drifting in the central Mediterranean sea have been found by the rescue crew of the Sea-Watch 5, at sunset on Christmas Eve.
The history of migration across the Mediterranean goes back thousands of years. In recent years, tens of thousands of people have crossed the Mediterranean by boat from North Africa and Turkey to seek asylum or to migrate to Europe. The central Mediterranean Sea is the Europe’s deadliest frontier. In 2014 and 2015, about 320,000 people crossed the sea from North Africa to Europe, mainly ending up in Italy and Malta. The next year, the vast majority of migrants crossing to Europe did so in the Eastern Mediterranean, landing on Greek islands close to the Turkish coast. Altogether, however, the most dangerous route is still in the central Mediterranean where distances are longer and the weather more unpredictable.
In 2023 alone, at least 3,129 men, women and children trying to cross into Europe were reported missing or dead at sea – an average of 8 people per day. This makes 2023 the deadliest since 2017. While Libya remains the main point of departure, during 2023 the number of boats leaving from Tunisia have increased dramatically. The majority of migrants are being smuggled by human traffickers who charge thousands of euros for a vague promise to take migrants to the closest EU territory. Most of these migrants are subject to serious abuse prior to their departure and there’s no guarantees of ever making it to Europe.
Fenruary 2021, Medieterranean sea. People onboard an overcrowded rubberboat drifting in the night through the central Mediterranean sea have been found by the rescue crew of the Sea-Watch 3. The rescue operation was carried out in the darkness.
Since 2014 around 30,000 migrants have been confirmed dead at sea but the reality is that many more attempt the crossing and lose their lives without ever being found. With legal pathways to gaining entry to the EU not an option for most refugees detained in or transiting through Libya or Tunisia, risking their lives at sea is the only way out the country.
The stories of those who make it to Europe mostly have a similar theme. In the places where they were waiting for passage to Europe they were often working for no money, being kidnapped for ransom and facing horrendous violence, murders, forced eviction, destruction of property, detention and arbitrary arrests, even if they were on their way back to their country of origin. Thousands of migrants find themselves in an impossible situation. Either they endure abuse in the transit countries or risk the journey to Europe.
December 2023, Mediterranean sea. RHIB crew of the Sea-Watch 5 during a training. The RHIB crew has the task to perform first approach and provide the first rescue to the peole in distress at sea, transferring them from their boats on the morhter ship. Trainings are frequent, intense, and cover almost all possible real scenarios that could occur during a critical rescue.
‘Libya is so hard for us. We are stuck. We can’t move on and we can’t travel back where we came from. That’s why we take the risk and cross the sea. This journey is the journey of life or death. A journey of no return’ says one of the lucky ones who was rescued by a boat chartered by Sea Watch, an NGO that patrols the Mediterranean and assists migrant boats in distress.
The accounts of the ‘journey of life or death’ told by so many survivors are equally harrowing. Overcrowded and unseaworthy boats, no food or water for days, struggling people driven to despair by exhaustion, dehydration and extreme temperatures combine with the gravest discomfort in cramped decks, sea sickness, storms and other adverse weather to test even the strongest-willed. Most journeys cover a distance of between 400 and 500 km to Italian and Maltese shores. SOS calls are systematically bounced between various European authorities and coast guards often resulting in them being ignored or actioned after an agonising wait. Many boats capsize or sink before rescue craft make their way to the scene.
Through the most recent deals with Libya and Tunisia, the EU has increasingly trained, financed and strengthen the unofficial coast-guards of the northern African countries to reach as many boats as possible. The unscrupulous so-called Libyan coast guard and Tunisian authorities unlawfully bring the migrants back to the place of abuse they had escaped from. Libya, a country that has been in a state of de facto civil war since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, is officially deemed ‘unsafe’ by international law, and interceptions violate the fundamental human right of non refoulement. Only 5% of the migrants leaving the North African coasts reach Italian or Maltese territory independently. The vast majority are rescued by the Italian coast guard and non- profits operating their own rescue missions to try and prevent more deaths.
‘They use Black people [people] to make money there. So if you don’t have the money you will have to die there or live in pain’ recalls another person rescued by a patrol boat in the Mediterranean. ‘The life in Libya is very tough, it’s by God’s grace that I’m still alive today. Because sometimes you go to work, you work with them and maybe they don’t want to pay you: they can take your life there.’
Non-governmental organisations carrying out search and rescue (SAR) operations have been a constant presence in the Mediterranean since 2014, seeking to fill the void left by the lack of state-organised SAR operations. The European Union, and especially Italy, are increasingly implementing stricter migration policies, essentially criminalising NGOs carrying out SAR activities.
February 2021, Mediterranean sea. Migrant rubber boat after its passengers have been brought to safety onboard the Sea-Watch 3. Between 70 and 80 people were crossing the sea on the overcrowded rubber boat, with limited water, gasoline, no gps nor satellite connection, no food and at risk of sinking for deflation or capsize.
After systematic cases of arbitrary seizures of the rescue ships and prosecution of crews, the recent practice of assigning distant ports for disembarkation, for example, keeps rescue ships away for days from the search and rescue area in the central Mediterranean where most of the emergencies occur. Despite the challenges, a number of non-profit organisations, such as Sea-Watch portrayed in this work, continue their tireless search and rescue activities at sea, in solidarity with the most criminalised: the people fleeing in search of a safer future.
Selene Magnolia Gattiis an Italian award-winning IFJ, NUJ freelance photojournalist based in Northern Italy and Berlin. Her work spans multiple issues, including questions of environmental and social justice, food production, migration, as well as gender related and contemporary political issues. She works on assignment and independent projects. Since 2023 she is represented and distributed by Panos Pictures. Raised in the Italian Dolomites, where she developed a strong bond to the natural environment, she has a background as emergency nurse, volunteer medical personnel in humanitarian crises, and academically qualified linguist, before shifting to and studying photojournalism. She has worked for a number of publications such as Der Spiegel, The Guardian, de Volkskrant, Il Reportage, Il Manifesto, amongst others. She also works for some of the leading environmental media agencies and a number of international no profits. Some of her photographic work on intensive food production is featured in the book ‘Hidden – Animals in the Anthropocene’, awarded ‘Photography Book of the Year’ by POY (2021). Her long-term project Zor, which portrays life in the biggest so-called ghetto in Europe, was exhibited at Perpignan’s Visa Pour L’Image photojournalism festival 2022. Her work was recognised by British Journal of Photography (2023), Siena Photography Awards (2022), London Photography Awards (2022), Prix de la Photographie Paris (2022), TIFA, MIFA, BIFA (2022), Kolga Tbilisi (2022), Global Billboard Project (2021), among other winning entries. She was selected for the Hamburg Portfolio Review in 2023. In 2023, she is the yearly Senior Fellow of WeAnimals Media Agency and a recipient of the European Environmental Journalism Fund grant for an ongoing project about the impact of factory farming.
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