Judges from this year include gallery directors, curators, and editors of international repute. Together, they will select the 200 shortlisted images to be published in the Portrait of Britain Vol. 7 book printed in collaboration with Bluecoat Press, and 100 winning images that will be exhibited on JCDecaux screens.
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20+ years leading BJP’s aesthetic as Creative Director. Responsible for its evolution over multiple redesigns and the driving force behind its forays into digital publishing. Now, as CEO Mick is working to take BJP to the next level.
Tom is a designer and publisher based in London, UK.
Book design is his primary focus and is founded upon the belief that making a book is both collaboration and response. Working together with artists to make a publication relies upon exhausting all possibilities in order to arrive at a best possible final form for the work to exist in.
Since 2022 he has been running Bluecoat Press, which is a London based publisher that specialises in making photo-books. At Bluecoat Tom hopes to maintain the respect that has been garnered over the past 30 years but also push the books into a contemporary space. There are many ways Bluecoat is working towards this, including diversifying the range of artists and works that they publish, and raising production and design standards across the board.
Moving forward Bluecoat Press is striving to be a positive force in the publishing industry, creating beautiful books to represent the voices of many different artists. Reaching beyond the arts and photography into the lives of people who cannot normally access books is something Bluecoat is aiming for as they grow. Creating more accessibility to art is key to growing its uptake and involvement by future generations. A passion which Tom also brings into his personal practice.
In 2020 he co-founded Besides Press, a photobook publishing company which celebrates projects created with an impulsive curiosity, without deliberation and often without an audience in mind. This includes spontaneous side projects, playful collaborations, and offbeat experiments.
Caroline Hunter is an award-winning picture editor for The Guardian’s Saturday magazine.
For over two decades, Caroline has worked with some of the most prominent names in photography. Caroline commissions a wide range of photography; from still-life and documentary photography, to concept and celebrity cover shoots. She has served as a jury member for a number of leading international photography competitions. Caroline has acted as a nominator for the Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize and she teaches a regular masterclass for Leica. In 2019 & 2020 she was awarded Picture Editor of the year, with Kate Edwards, by the British Society of Magazine Editors (BSME).
Born in Birmingham, Jermaine Francis grew up in nearby Tipton, a former industrial town in the West Midlands of England. He studied at Walsall Art College and later Derby University. He now lives in London, where he is an established Photographer, writer & curator. Francis has published three books and his work has been exhibited internationally, most recently at Galeriepcp in Paris, Saatchi Gallery, Peckham 24 and the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Photography Editor, Dazed
Ashleigh Kane is a writer, editor, creative consultant, art buyer, host, and curator based in London, UK. She is the Arts & Photography Editor-at-Large at Dazed & Confused and previously held the title of Arts & Culture editor from 2014-2020.
Ashleigh is also an art buyer and curator for Thursday’s Child and hosts Art After Hours in collaboration with the EDITION London, a series of monthly art tours that she curates and leads in Fitzrovia. Some of her clients include Gucci, Prada, Miu Miu, Versus Versace, and Nike, and she has been invited to lecture/speak at London College of Communication, London College of Fashion, amongst others.
Siân Davey is a photographer with a background in fine art and social policy, who worked for fifteen years as a psychotherapist. In 2007, following a visit to the Louise Bourgeois retrospective at Tate Modern, London, she was inspired to translate her personal history into creative practice. In 2011, she moved into photography, drawing on her experiences as a psychotherapist and mother to inform her practice, her family and community being central to her work. In 2014, Davey completed an MA in Photography at the University of Plymouth, followed by an MFA in 2016.
Her awards include the Arnold Newman Award for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture, New York (2016), the Prix Virginia, Paris (2016) and the Royal Photographic Society Hood Medal (2017) and Honorary Fellowship (2023). Her work was selected in three consecutive years (2015 – 2017) for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She has been a recipient of a W. Eugene Smith Fellowship (2019), commissioned by the Wellcome Photography Prize (2019) and been a nomince for the Prix Elysée (2023).
Her work has been exhibited internationally in both solo and group shows, including at Aperture, New York (2018); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2021); Richard Saltoun Gallery, London (2021); and Images Vevey, Switzerland (2022). She is represented by Michael Hoppen Gallery, London. Davey’s work is held by collections including the Science Museum, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; and the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol. In 2023 she was a Finalist in the Prix Pictet for The Garden, and the work exhibited around the world as part of their touring exhibition at: Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Red Cross Museum, Geneva; Luma Westbaus, Zurich; Fotografiska, Stockholm; Arter, Istanbul; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; Ratskeller, Luxembourg; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and Photography Museum Ireland, Dublin. The Garden is Sian’s third book with Trolley Books following Looking For Alice (2015) and Martha (2018). Looking For Alice was shortlisted for the Paris Photo/Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Awards (2016) and for the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Book Awards (2017). She lives and works in Totnes, Devon.
Curator of Photography, National Galleries of Scotland
Louise Pearson has been a curator of photography at the National Galleries of Scotland since 2017. She has recently curated the exhibitions Making Space: Photographs of Architecture and Counted: Scotland’s Census 2022. She was the recipient of an Art Fund New Collecting Award which used Scotland’s census as a platform for increasing diversity in the national photography collection. Louise has previously held positions at Royal Collection Trust and the National Library of Scotland.
Deirdre has over 20 years’ experience working in Photography and Visual Arts, as a gallery and programme Director, Curator, Arts Administrator and Artist.
Previous history includes Arts Council Northern Ireland, Visual Arts Development Officer; managing grants, informing policy, strategy and sector development in visual, craft, public art, architecture and support for artists’ development. Belfast City Council, Arts Development Officer and Culture and Arts Manager; managing a culture and arts framework for Belfast City. Previous roles include Co-ordinator/Director for Arts for All, Trace Fine Art Gallery, Engine Room Gallery and Creative Exchange, curating international projects, directing public programmes and developing participatory arts.
Deirdre was educated at the University of Ulster, BA Fine Art 1999 and Masters in 2001. She began her career as a Belfast-based practicing artist, undertaking local, national and international exhibitions, residencies and exchange programmes.
