Frame & Focus 2026: Advanced Photography Course

Alessia Glaviano is the senior photo editor for Vogue Italia and L’Uomo Vogue. Born in Palermo, Italy, she is now based in Milan. Glaviano has a degree in economics from Bocconi University in Milan, but has always been passionate about photography. After graduating, she moved to New York to a job at Pier 59 Studios, where she worked with a range of international fashion photographers. Five years later, she moved back to Milan, to begin her career as a photo editor for Vogue Italia.

Glaviano is also responsible for Photo Vogue, an innovative online platform where users can share their own photographs under the curatorial supervision of professional photo editors. In addition to this, she curated the enormously popular video-interview series Vogue Masters, for the website version of Vogue Italia, also broadcast on the Italian Sky Arte channel. She is also responsible for the artistic direction of events and exhibitions for Vogue Italia and L’Uomo Vogue. In addition to her editorial and curatorial activities, Glaviano teaches master courses at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Milan, and lectures regularly at other academic institutions.She was a 2015 World Press Photo jury member, and has participated in several portfolio review sessions, including the New York Times Portfolio Reviews.

Image: ©️Rachele Daminelli

Armenian photographer Anush Babajanyan focuses her work on social narratives and personal stories. In addition to working extensively in the South Caucasus, she continues to photograph in Central Asia and around the world. She recently published her book on Nagorno-Karabakh, called A Troubled Home.

Anush is the winner of the 2019 Canon Female Photojournalist Grant and a laureate of the Prix Photo Terre Solidaire. She is a winner in the World Press Photo 2023 Contest’s Long Term Projects category. Her photography has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, Foreign Policy Magazine, and other international publications.

Image: ©️Anush Babajanyan

Fiona is a five-time Emmy award-winning producer and documentary filmmaker. After 20 years of broadcast experience with ABC News and NBC News, much of it in war zones and areas of conflict, she now focuses her narrative storytelling on social justice and human rights issues with The VII Foundation.

Her documentary feature "Eat Up" takes a personal look at what it takes for an entrepreneur to reinvent school lunches in Boston's Public Schools. Fiona produced and co-edited The VII Foundation book, exhibition, and education project, "Imagine: Reflections on Peace". Most recently Fiona produced a documentary film "The Stringer" which premiered at Sundance 2025 and was acquired by Netflix.

Image: ©️Fiona Turner

Gary is the CEO of the VII Foundation and VII Academy and a founding member of the VII Photo Agency. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Frontline Club, London; was twice president and twice a jurist of the World Press Photo Award; President of the Prix Bayeux Correspondents de Guerre; was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2010; and a Logan Non-Fiction Fellow at the Carey Institute in 2017.

He is a co-founder of The GroundTruth Proj- ect and founding director of the Program for Narrative & Documentary Practice at Tufts University.Gary worked as a photojournalist from the late 1980s and is now inactive as a photographer.

Early in his career, he focused on conflict photography, and more recently on socio- economics. He was a contract photographer for Newsweek in the 1990s and 2000s and covered the invasion of Iraq, multiple wars in Afghanistan, and wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir and the Middle East amongst others.

Image: ©️Alizé

Marie Sumalla is international photo editor at Le Monde since 2011, where she has coordinated visual coverage of major international news.

In 2013, she oversaw Le Mond’s reporting mission in Syria and documented, from the front lines, evidence of the use of chemical weapons — material that later became crucial in confirming the use of sarin gas.

In 2017, she coordinated Le Monde’s coverage of the situation in Iraq, a nine-month assignment recognized with the World Press Photo Award and the Visa d’or News at Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan.

In August 2021, she coordinated chronicles of the power change in Afghanistan. Since 2022, she has supervised Le Monde’s photo coverage of the situation in Ukraine.

In parallel, she runs Tipping Expected, a platform connecting photographers, filmmakers, artists, and writers whose work bridges journalism and creative expression. Her editorial approach explores the intersection between image and narrative. In 2024, she received the Arles Book Award.

Image: ©️Marie Sumalla

M’hammed Kilito is a documentary photographer residing in Morocco. His artistic journey revolves around exploring the intricate connections and bonds that individuals and groups form with their environments – be it places of residence, memories, or transit points. Kilito’s work is dedicated to capturing narratives that provide insight into this profound connection, delving into subjects like cultural identity, labor sociology, and the impacts of climate change. He is a National Geographic Explorer, a Magnum Foundation grantee, a World Press Photo winner, a Prince Claus Fund and AFAC Grantee. Kilito holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Montreal and a Master’s degree in Political Science from Ottawa University. His work has garnered awards and grants, including the Louis Roederer Prize for Sustainability, Contemporary African Photography Prize, Photography Prize of Fondation des Treilles, and Sheikh Saoud Al Thani Project Award. He has also been a finalist for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and nominated for Prix Pictet. His photography has been showcased in various festivals and venues world- wide and has been featured in publications that include The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The British Journal of Photography, Vogue Italia, L’Express, Libération, and El País.

Image: ©️Vladimir Gheorghiu

Rena Effendi is an award-winning documentary photographer and author of two monographs “Pipe Dreams: A Chronicle of Lives along the Pipeline” and “Liquid Land.” Her photography has been described as having a deep sense of empathy with a quiet celebration of the strength of the human spirit.

She is the laureate of the Prince Claus Fund award and has been shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Pictet award in Photography and Sustainability. She spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos twice and is a member of its Cultural Leadership network. Effendi’s work has been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Saatchi Gallery, Istanbul Modern, Venice Biennial and NYC MOMA. Rena Effendi is a frequent contributor to the National Geographic Magazine and has worked on commissions for the New Yorker, Time, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times Magazine, Monocle, The Sunday Times and many others.

Image: ©️Klenner, Rena Effendi

Rola Khayyat is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and educator based in Doha, Qatar.

Through photography, film/video, installation, her socially-engaged projects explore new dimensions on the representation of war, memory, and identity.

Khayyat received an M.F.A. in Visual Arts from Columbia University. Her projects have been shown at apexart, NY; the Black and White Gallery, NY; the Magnum Foundation, NY; Bronx Documentary Center, NY; Kunstraum llc, NY; the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki; Okk /raum 29, Berlin; Tacheles, Berlin; Catalyst Arts Belfast Photo Festival 2013; the 21st International Istanbul Art Fair; North of History, NY; and the JKC gallery, NJ.

Her work has been featured in The Nation, Contemporary Practices, L’oeil de la Photographie, The Public Source, Jadaliyya, JMEWS Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Yale Theater Duke Press, Warscapes, Mold, Esse, Musee Magazine, The Arab Weekly. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from VCUarts Richmond (Quest); VCUarts Qatar (FRG); apexart; Young Curators Academy; the Magnum Foundation, Civitella Ranieri; Artellewa, the Fire station Museum, PerForm Festival of Art, Ideas and Activations.

Khayyat is an Assistant Professor of Art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. She previously taught at Columbia University, and the American University in Cairo (AUC).

Image: ©️Rola Khayyat

Ross Kauffman is the director, producer, cinematographer and co-editor of “Born Into Brothels”, winner of the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Kauffman began as a documentary film editor, and then spent several years at Valkhn Film and Video Inc., a post-production company where he worked on a wide variety of films for HBO, WNET/Thirteen, National Geographic and The Discovery Channel. In 2001, Kauffman formed Red Light Films to direct and produce Born Into Brothels, a documentary about the children of Calcutta's prostitutes. It was accepted to over 50 film festivals worldwide and has since received over 40 awards, including National Board of Review Best Documentary 2004, LA Film Critics Best Documentary 2004 and the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award.

Kauffman is currently working on a variety of projects, including “Exposure”, a scripted television series following the lives of five present day photojournalists around the globe and the documentary Wait For Me, chronicling the story of a mother’s spiritual and emotional search for her son who went missing twenty-three years ago. Other projects include “In a Dream”, the story of the Philadelphia mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar which was shortlisted for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; and Project Kashmir, a documentary that takes viewers into the warzone of Kashmir and examines the conflict from emotional and social viewpoints.

Image: ©️Ross Kauffman

Ioannis (Yannis) Kontos is an Assistant Professor of Visual Studies and Creative Industries at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of United Arab Emirates University and an Award-winning Documentary Photographer with over 25 years of Professional Experience in Storytelling, Creative and Media Industries.

He holds a PhD degree in Documentary Photography from the University of Wales (UK) and a Master of Arts degree in Photographic Journalism from the University of Westminster (UK).

As a Professional Photojournalist, he has covered wars, conflicts and major events for international news organizations in more than 50 countries. His Editorial work has been recognized by 20 respected awards including first prize in the World Press Photo Competition.

His Documentary work has been published in the world's most well-known publications andhas been shown at exhibitions internationally while he is represented by the American agency Polaris Images.

As an educator, he guides students in understanding visual communication and developing their own artistic style. Through his lens, Yannis provides a voice for the marginalized and oppressed, challenging perceptions and inspiring change. He has published two insightful books, "Possible / Impossible: Aporias" and "North Korea: Red Utopia."

Image: ©️ Ioannis (Yannis) Kontos

Ziyah Gafic was born in Sarajevo and grew up during the siege of the city. He briefly became a refugee in Italy before returning home, crawling through a tunnel under Sarajevo airport to his father, a fighter in the city’s resistance. His project “Quest for Identity” is a catalog of objects found in mass graves, a document of crimes, and validation and restitution of the individual lives of his neighbors and countrymen who were murdered by Serbian soldiers and paramilitaries before being buried anonymously in mass graves.

Ziyah is Director of The VII Foundation, Sarajevo and an award-winning photojournalist, author, TED speaker and contributor to National Geographic magazine. His photography focuses on societies locked in a perpetual cycle of violence and Muslim communities around the world. Over the past 25 years, he covered major events in the Middle East, Caucasus, Arabian peninsula, and Asia, and his work has received some of the most coveted prizes in photography from World Press Photo, Visa pour l’image, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Prince Claus Fund, National Geographic Society and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Image: ©️Ziyah Gafic