Tag: IN FOCUS

In Focus: David Hadland and Sarah Hickson

IN FOCUS
Poster IN FOCUS event organised by the Photojournalism Hub

Join us: Here

We are delighted to welcome documentary photographers David Hadland and Sarah Hickson as guests for our next In Focus event at Riverside Studios on 14 September 2026 at 7:15 pm.
In this edition of In Focus, David and Sarah explore the human stories shaped by conflict and displacement. Through their photography, they document lives transformed by crisis from soldiers living on the frontline in Ukraine to refugees navigating loss, uncertainty and the search for a new sense of belonging. Their work reflects on survival, resilience and the enduring connection between people, memory and place.

David Hadland is a documentary and portrait photographer from Luton, U.K. He lived in London for 11 years, where he graduated with a BA in Photography from Kingston University in 2018, and in 2024he graduated with an MA in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the London College of Communication. The core themes of David’s photography are identity, memory and the human experience. David is currently based in Kyiv, Ukraine, working on his long-term project documenting the full-scale war. 

Kozak is an ongoing project exploring the lives of Ukrainian soldiers stationed on the frontline. Through portraits and observations of daily life in the combat zone, the work examines how warfare disrupts the connection between people and the places they once called home.
War reshapes more than the landscape itself. Homes, streets, and fields once tied to ordinary life are transformed by conflict, altering how they are experienced and remembered. The soldiers I photograph inhabit dugouts along the frontline, living between the familiarity of home and the instability of war.
The title Kozak reflects a sense of continuity in Ukraine, linking the present to a longer history of resistance, identity, and place. Rather than focusing on spectacle or combat itself, the project centres on the everyday experience of soldiers living through war.

Sarah Hickson is an arts and social documentary photographer, now based in Brighton. Her practice explores the relationship between people, place and environment to create visual narratives that focus on themes of community and belonging, fracture and displacement.

She has worked on photographic commissions, residencies and projects in West and North Africa, India, Europe and around the UK. Sounds Unseen, an exhibition of work documenting a collaborative music project in the ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais, was commissioned by St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York and Galway International Arts Festival. Her photo essay about Kolkata was featured in the book Writing Places, following an artistic residency with the National Centre for Writing in Norwich and Kolkata. Her 200 portraits of participants in the touring theatre project Truth to Power Café, formed an integral part of the theatrical narrative, bearing witness to the participants’ personal testimonies.
It is often the frayed edges of a story that draw Sarah’s attention, where vulnerability and fragility reside alongside hope and resilience. She will present an overview of her work on migration and displacement, referencing projects she has undertaken in Calais, Serbia and Greece, Galway and the UK.

She will also briefly talk about two other projects: her visits to the Taragalte Festival in the Sahara Desert in South Morocco, exploring the endangered environment of M’hamid El Ghizlaine and its historic nomadic culture, and her photo essay about Kolkata, capturing the nuanced and multi-layered nature of daily life in this city, where the past and the present collide. 

IN FOCUS is produced by the Photojournalism Hub in collaboration with Riverside Studios to present compelling, thought-provoking, independent and coraugeous photo storytelling.

IN FOCUS: Rosie Barnes and Pupat Chenaksara

IN FOCUS

To book a place: HERE

Join us for an intimate and insightful evening as we explore the intersections of neurodiversity, mental health, and the human condition through the lenses of two profound visual storytellers. We are delighted to welcome Rosie Barnes, a celebrated documentary photographer whose decades of work have reshaped public understanding of autism and the non-human world, alongside Pupat Chenaksara, a rising visual artist who uses photography to navigate the delicate landscapes of anxiety and modern uncertainty. Together, they will share how their personal experiences ranging from caregiving and advocacy to personal healing inform their creative processes, offering a unique look at how the camera can be used to document and heal.

Rosie Barnes is a fine art documentary photographer, living in London.  Her work explores the human condition, neurodiversity, and our relationship with the non-human world. For over thirty years she has developed long-term projects that challenge assumptions, expand public understanding, and give visibility to people and subjects often overlooked. Known for her clarity, direct way of communicating and often humour, she creates work that resonates beyond traditional photographic and art gallery spaces and gives big theme subjects an easy accessibility. She has been commissioned to work on numerous picture stories for the Guardian, FT, Wellcome Collection etc and has exhibited internationally, in China, Japan, the US, Sweden, Greece, Slovakia and within the UK – including at the Centre for British Photography. Rosie is known for her influential work on autism and has published two books on the subject and spoken at the National Galleries of Scotland, having had two portraits from ‘No You’re Not, Yes I Am, a portrait of autistic women’, selected for the prestigious Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. She is also a carer for one of her adult sons and has also recently set up a CIC – Satsuma Neighbour, to campaign for and build supportive housing communities for independent but vulnerable autistic people.

Pupat Chenaksara (b. Bangkok, Thailand) is a photographer and visual artist based in London, UK. His work grows from a need to understand what it means to live with uncertainty, both personally and collectively. After a personal experience with mental health challenges, he began using his camera to navigate the spaces between fragility and strength. Through still and moving images, Pupat connects with others to explore how we cope, heal, and communicate in times of instability. His projects often start with quiet conversations that unfold into intimate portraits and published works. Pupat holds an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from University of the Arts London (UAL) and was a finalist at the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards. His work has been featured on BBC News and Rolling Stone. Pupat will be presenting ‘I’m Trying Not to Think About It’, a series exploring the mental states of young people living with anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. Through quiet conversations, images, and self-portraits, the project traces how society and capitalism shape emotional life. By participating himself, the artist demonstrates that these experiences are both personal and shared. He observes the fragile, restless state of youth and thesubtle ways steadiness appears.

IN FOCUS is presented by the Photojournalism Hub in collaboration with  Riverside Studios, bringing to the public compelling and thought-provoking contemporary documentary photography and photojournalism.

IN FOCUS: Chiara Fabbro and Ruth Toda-Nation

IN FOCUS

To book a place: HERE

Join us for a special edition of the IN FOCUS: a Photography Evening event at Riverside Studios, as part of the exhibition ‘Covid-19 & Beyond‘. The IN FOCUS features two acclaimed documentary photographers Chiara Fabbro and Ruth Toda-Nation, whose work in the exhibition explores the profound impact of the pandemic on society’s most marginalized and overlooked groups.

Chiara Fabbro is an Italian documentary photographer based in London, whose work focuses on social issues. She has worked in a variety of places, from the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, where those who have fled conflict and persecution cannot be granted refugee status and are forced into a life in limbo; to the squats in the Balkans where migrant men, women and children get stuck during their journey towards Europe; to the beaches of the Canary Islands, the destination for thousands of people who every year set off in flimsy boats from the coast of West Africa, facing what is arguably the most dangerous journey to Europe.
Chiara’s work has been published in a range of print and online magazines and newspapers, such as Al Jazeera English, Balkan Insight, Altreconomia, Solomon and El Salto. She has also collaborated with several NGOs for their advocacy and fundraising campaigns. Chiara has won the 2021 Portrait of Humanity award and received an honourable mention in Photography 4 Humanity Global Prize 2020, supported by the UN Human Rights Office. In 2022 she was shortlisted for the Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award and she was selected for Earth Photo 2025 Award.

Between Borders: Finding Refuge in a Pandemic – Faces and feet were telling the story of a long journey – hundreds of kilometers on foot, across mountains and rivers. The fear of the push-backs at the borders, often violent and degrading, was giving way to the relief of finally reaching Italy, mixed with the uncertainty of what lay ahead. 
These young men travelled along the Balkan route of migration in 2020, and arrived in Trieste amidst the pandemic. Access to temporary shelters was limited due to COVID-19 measures, leaving people in transit with no choice but to sleep rough. The pandemic weighed heavily on them, as borders were tightened further and reports of push-backs increased. It also stirred negative feelings towards migrant people, with some accusing them of spreading the virus. The already unwelcoming climate towards those seeking refuge became even harsher.
Yet the commitment of the volunteers from Linea d’Ombra, caring for those in transit through Trieste, created a small corner of humanity. Every night on the street, then as now, they tend to wounded feet, fill empty stomachs and replace worn-out shoes with new pairs for the road ahead.

Ruth Toda-Nation ’s photographic practice is informed by a nomadic childhood bridging two cultures, Japan and Britain. She began photographing in Liverpool in the 1980s and later in the rural areas of northern Japan. She continues to document the communities where she lives. Her intimate approach interweaves themes navigating family dynamics and community bonds while reflecting on ageing, loneliness, transience, and departure. Ruth often combines images with words drawn from interviews to amplify the voices of communities she documents allowing their stories to unfold.
Her first book, Our Lockdown Garden, was published by The Mindful Editions in 2022. Her recent body of work, Love is a Life Story, received the Royal Photographic Society Documentary Photographer of the Year award in 2023, and portraits from her ongoing project 900 Yards featured in Portrait of Britain 2023.

The projects, Love is a Life Story and Our Lockdown Garden document the pandemic lockdown experience of my father John (91) and his friend and neighbour Mary (97) as residents of a retirement community and care home in Milton Keynes, UK. John and Mary’s friendship and journey through lockdown reflects many of our eldest citizens experiences as friendships replaced family. 
Given their age they were aware that they may never have come out of lockdown, yet their personal voices were lost amongst the incessant news bombarding us with the mortality figures of this very vulnerable group. With no requirement to test discharged patients being sent back into care from hospital, deaths in care homes rose sharply. As a result, it is estimated that a quarter of known coronavirus deaths in Great Britain took place in care homes. 
The invisibility of this generation— The Silent Generation—was amplified during the pandemic, and many spent their last moments alone and deprived of their loved ones. If a society’s humanity is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members, then I can’t help asking: did we do enough? 

IN FOCUS is presented by the Photojournalism Hub in collaboration with  Riverside Studios, bringing to the public compelling and thought-provoking contemporary documentary photography and photojournalism.

IN FOCUS: A photography evening with Citlali Fabian and Jai Toor

IN FOCUS

To book a place: HERE

IN FOCUS is an event series by the Photojournalism Hub in collaboration with Riverside Studios that presents committed, independent contemporary documentary photography. This edition brings together two visual storytellers whose practices engage deeply with questions of identity, migration, memory, and place. Through distinct yet complementary approaches, Citlali Fabián and Jai Toor use photography to navigate personal and collective histories, examining how images can hold lived experience, cultural inheritance, and emotional truth. Their work moves between documentation and imagination, reflecting on displacement, diaspora, and the meaning of home across generations and geographies.

Citlali Fabian A Yalalteca (indigenous from Mexico) visual storyteller. She uses photography to explore ways of addressing identity and its connections with territory, migration, and community bonds.
Fabián is a  2024 BERTHA FOUNDATION Grantee,  2021 Photography and Social Justice Magnum fellow, a National Geographic Society explorer, with the project “I’m from Yalalag, a photo essay to explore the development of our Zapotec identity.” In 2021, she was awarded by the Art Council of England with a Develop Creative Practice Grant. In 2023 World Press Photo Contest Regional Jury. A 2020 Visura mentee. She was also named one of the Discoveries of the Meeting Place of FotoFest 2018 Biennale.
Her work has been shown in solo and collective exhibitions in Mexico, USA, Spain, and Argentina. Her work has been covered at The New York Times. And also has been appeared in different media like The LA Times, The Guardian, Buzzfeed, Remezcla, Revista Cuartoscuro, and IM Magazine among others. Her Mestiza series was selected as one of the New York Times Lens blog’s “13 Stories That Captured Photography in 2018” and as part of “10 Years of Photography, and Lens”.
She is also a member of Women Photograph and Indigenous Photograph collectives. Her work is part of the INBA/Toledo Collection, the Museum of Contemporary Photography of Chicago, and the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.  

Jai Toor (b. 1998) is a British-Indian photographer and artist based in the UK. His practice explores the interplay of diaspora and fantasy within the fabric of everyday surroundings. Working across documentary, fashion, and
music, Toor employs a multifaceted approach that integrates research, analogue processes, text, and archival photographs to construct layered visual narratives. Jai Toor’s practice centres around long-form photographic projects that often begin close to home — both literally and emotionally, before expanding outward. As someone who has lived across India and the UK, in many different homes, I’ve never felt a singular sense of place. This transient experience of “home” underpins much of my work, where themes of diaspora, migration, family, loss, and identity recur. He is particularly drawn to overlooked stories, fragments of personal or collective memory that might otherwise go undocumented. Photography, for me, is a way of capturing both presence and absence; a medium that can preserve histories, confront traumas, and evoke longing. He works across documentary, fashion, and music, but his approach remains consistent: research-led and open to intuition.
His projects often begin with reading, writing, and conversations, forming a kind of text-based map that guides me visually. I draw from national archives, interviews, and everyday encounters, weaving together photographs, text, and found materials. He uses analogue and digital photography interchangeably, but shooting on film allows him to slow down and connect more intentionally with the people and places he documents. He sees his work as semi-fictional, a space where documentation, re-imagination, and emotional truth coexist. He leans into ambiguity, allowing the viewer to enter the work without a fixed outcome, but with enough guidance to feel immersed. Collaboration is essential to this process: He often enters personal or communal spaces where trust, exchange, and shared authorship become part of the narrative. Ultimately, he is interested in how photography can hold contradictions, between fact and feeling, history and fantasy, familiarity and displacement, and in how storytelling can honour both the known and the unknowable.

IN FOCUS is presented by the Photojournalism Hub in collaboration with  Riverside Studios, bringing to the public compelling and thought-provoking contemporary documentary photography and photojournalism.

Photojournalism Nights: Aidan Brooks and Andrew Blowers

IN FOCUS, Photojournalism Nights

We’re delighted to welcome Aidan Brooks and Andrew Blowers to the 36th edition of the Photojournalism Nights.

Both photographers use the tool of photography as a means to connect with others in an authentic, raw and meaningful way whether through exploring encounters with strangers or documenting the street around them.

Photojournalism Nights is an event that invites photojournalists and documentary photographers to share their powerful, committed photography dedicated to social justice and human rights causes. Photojournalism Nights event is an opportunity for the public to ask questions, found out how to be involved and learn insights behind the powerful photos stories that are helping advance social justice and human rights around the world. After the presentations, the audience and the guest photographers can continue conversations and socialising in Riverside Studios bar and coffee lounge area.

Aidan Brooks
I am a community photographer and visual storyteller, with the goal of capturing individuals in an authentic and meaningful way. I use my camera to initiate conversations and discover how people feel in the moment. My passion for photography began during my childhood as a shy boy growing up in Wirral, Merseyside. Instead of asking direct questions, I found comfort behind the camera, which gave me confidence and security when interacting with people. This experience has taught me to challenge my judgments, approach things with courage and curiosity, and be a good listener. I believe in the power of being present for people and providing a safe and empathetic environment where they can express themselves freely. Aidan will be presenting selected images/stories to talk about why “talking to strangers is important for us all.”
www.aidanbrooks.co.uk
@aidan_brooks

Andrew Blowers
Having first picked up a camera after growing tired of taking phone snapshots, Andrew spent £50 on a film SLR in 2017, and was hooked. Alongside photography, Andrew is also an accomplished semi-professional bass player and during the COVID pandemic and lockdown of 2020 he found himself without a creative outlet and his enjoyment of street photography turned into documenting the world around him. 
Exclusively shooting black and white, he greatly favours the use the old ways of film and the darkroom, only utilising digital when needs must. His style is honest and open, empathetic and devoid of visual trickery. 
He is a member of documentary collective New Exit Group @newexitgroup where copies of collaborative debut zine Bardo are available. The project based on blues in Soho is being sequenced and designed, available soon. Darkroom prints from projects are available on request.
@andyblowers
@newexitgroup

To book a place HERE

In Focus: Zula Rabikowska and Giorgia Tobiolo

IN FOCUS, Photojournalism Nights

To join us register HERE

Photojournalism Hub presents Zula Rabikowska and Giorgia Tobiolo, two photographers whose powerful and committed work engages with social justice and human rights. This event offers audiences an opportunity to hear directly from the photographers about the stories behind their work, ask questions, and discover how photography can contribute to greater understanding and social change. The conversation will explore the experiences, approaches and motivations behind the photographs, as well as the issues and communities at their heart. Following the presentations, audiences and guest photographers are invited to continue the conversation and socialise in the bar and coffee lounge area at Riverside Studios.

Zula Rabilowska is a Polish queer photographer and visual artist based in London. Zula was born in Poland, grew up in the UK and her experience of migration influences her photography practice. Zula’s projects explore migration, gender and LGBTQI+ communities with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe and her work unpicks the binary understanding associated with the “West” and the “East”. Zula works with multimedia, film, and photography, and incorporates archival images and documents to challenge conventional visual story-telling norms. Zula holds an MRes in French Postcolonial Literature from the University of Warwick and an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of the Arts London. Zula exhibited as a solo artist in London (England) and Belfast (Northern Ireland), and her group shows include Format Festival (UK), Brighton Photo Fringe (UK), Lahti Fringe Festival (Finland), Gothenburg Fringe Festival (Sweden) Urban Banks Berlin (Germany) and Enjoy Museum of Art Beijing (China). Zula’s work has been published internationally including Dazed and Confused, the British Journal of Photography, the BCC, The Times. Guardian, The Calvert Journal. Zula works as a photographer in Europe, and a photography lecturer at Kingston University London, she is also a co-founder of the Red Zenith Collective, an online platform for non-binary and female artists from Central and Eastern Europe. Zula will be presenting 2 projects, “Nothing but a Curtain” and “Scared to Love.” Her photographs from “Nothing but a Curtain” will be exhibited a the Four Corners in October with the Private View on Thursday 12th October. All are welcome, please register here: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/nothing-but-a-curtain IG: @zula.ra and zulara.co.uk

Giorgia Tobiolo Giorgia is an Italian documentary photographer and educator, based in London. Raising internal questions stimulates Giorgia to examine the external environment. In this two-way relationship, she is keen to reveal the humanity, diversity, and vulnerability of labelled or stereotyped subjects, often objects of prejudice. Ultimately with her practice, she aims to break down the indifference towards certain topics and give a voice to people that need recognition, support, or inclusion. Besides her MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the University of Westminster, she has completed an Internship with Magnum Photos. Giorgia has, and continues to, collaborate with schools, festivals, charities, associations, private clients, magazines and institutions such as UAL, The British Academy of Photography, Urban Photo Fest, Photography Oxford Festival, the Calthorpe Project, Caritas Foundation, Migrants Resource Centre, the Prison of Pescara, Reuters Institute, CNN, AlJazeera, Source Magazine and more. IG: @giorgiatobiolo and giorgiatobiolo.com

To join us register HERE

In Focus: Nathaniel White-Steele and Marcin Kornacki

IN FOCUS, Photojournalism Nights

We are delighted to welcome Marcin Kornacki and Nathaniel White-Steele to the Photojournalism Nights on the 31st July at the Riverside Studios, 7pm. To join us HERE.

Photojournalism Nights invites contemporary photojournalists and documentary photographers to share their powerful, committed photography and engage audiences in social justice and human rights causes. Photojournalism Nights feature Q&A’s from guest speakers and an opportunity to connect with photojournalists who are helping advance social justice and human rights around the world.

About the Photographers

Nathaniel White-Steele is a documentary artist from Bristol, UK. He is interested in the visual register of authority, how power inscribes itself on landscapes and how ‘territory’ is made. He has worked with satellite images, GIS mapping technology, audio, archive, wet plate collodion tintypes and other methods to unpick how we attempt to control the landscape in order to govern people and the moments when the landscape and the people resist. Nathaniel is currently based in London and has exhibited both nationally and internationally, most recently showing alongside anthropologist Jason de Leon’s work Hostile Terrain 94 in Den Haag, The Netherlands.

Marcin Kornacki is a London-based photographer currently completing his MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at LCC London. His photography focuses on the often untold human stories behind the headlines of communities affected by both chronic and acute distress. His most recent project on Jaywick, the most deprived area in the UK, was recognised by the British Journal of Photography as a winner of the 2022 Portrait of Britain. He is currently working on a project with Haitians displaced by gang violence in the country’s capital city Port-au-Prince.

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