Female in Focus 2020 Winners

From 1854 Media and British Journal of Photography, the Female in Focus award was conceived in response to staggering gender imbalance in photography. An open call to female-identifying photographers around the world, it is an annual initiative to promote and reward women’s work in an industry that disproportionately favours men’s.

From a pool of thousands of entries, the panel has selected two outstanding bodies of work and 20 single images to be exhibited at El Barrio’s Artspace. Collectively, the curation examines gender, race, sexuality and beyond, weaving delicate stories of beauty and pain; joy and injustice; resilience and reflection.

The Female in Focus 2020 Exhibition, initially postponed due to the pandemic, is now set to be exhibited at The Bridge & Tunnel Gallery in New York City from 16 to 30 November 2023.

Two winning bodies of work

We’d like to thank the judges of this year’s edition:

Sandra M. Stevenson – Assistant editor, photography department, New York Times (2020)

Kate Bubacz – Photo director, BuzzFeed News (2020)

Laylah Amatullah Barrayn – Co-author, MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora (2020)

Chiara Bardelli Nonino – Photo editor of Vogue Italia and L’Uomo Vogue (2020)

Gulnara Samoilova – Founder of Women Street Photographers (2020)

2020 Single Image Winners

Special thanks to our exhibition partner: