The Jury 2023

The international jury of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award this year includes:

Caroline Hunter

Caroline Hunter

Picture Editor for The Guardian Saturday Magazine (Great Britain)

Caroline Hunter teaches a regular masterclass for the Leica Akademie Italy and gives talks and workshops on photography and editing. Over the course of the last twenty years, she has worked with some of the most prominent names in photography and has served as a jury member for a number of leading international photography competitions, including World Press Photo. Hunter has also acted as a nominator for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, and in 2019 and 2020 she was awarded Picture Editor of the Year by the British Society of Magazine Editors (BSME) Talent awards.

Whitney Hollington Matewe

Whitney Hollington Matewe

Photo Editor at TIME Magazine (USA)

As a photo editor at TIME Magazine, Whitney Hollington Matewe works primarily on culture—portraiture and features as well as large franchise packages for Time 100, Time 100 Next, Next Generation Leaders and Kid of the Year. Prior to joining the photo department at TIME, Whitney was a photo editor at National Geographic, The New Yorker, The Intercept and Condé Nast brands like Teen Vogue and GQ. While she is based on the US West Coast, Hollington Matewe collaborates with photographers around the globe and strives to amplify the stories and perspectives of underrepresented voices.

Luca Locatelli

Luca Locatelli

Photographer (Italy)

Luca Locatelli is the winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2020. He is an environmental photographer and filmmaker focusing on the relations between people, science-technology and the environment. Deeply rooted in documentary and journalistic production, his work revolves around the ‘making’ of the future. For more than 10 years, his main research has been to explore and document the most promising solutions to confront the climate crisis of the 21st century. The aim of his work is to open up a discussion about our attitudes towards the environment. Locatelli is a National Geographic Magazine photographer and frequent contributor to international media such as The New York Times Magazine, TIME, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, and Geo Germany, among others. His work has been featured in various venues, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, Shanghai Center of Photography and Somerset House, London. Among others, he has been honoured with the World Press Photo 2018 and 2020; and in 2018, 2020 and 2021 by the World Photo Organisation (WPO).

François Hébel

François Hébel

Curator (France)

As a multifaceted curator, producer, exhibition organiser, initiator and author, François Hébel is one of the most important personalities on the international photography scene. For over 42 years, he has been at the side of photographers worldwide. Very early collaborations in the careers of today’s major artists, such as Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, JR, Robert Doisneau, Wang Qingsong, Paul Graham, Raymond Depardon, Annie Leibovitz, Sebastião Salgado, Harry Gruyaert, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. 

Hébel has worked for numerous photo institutions and festivals: among others, as Director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, as a long-time Director of the Rencontres d’Arles photo festival, as Artistic Director and co-founder of the Biennale Foto/Industria in Bologna, as co-founder or advisor of photo festivals in Beijing, Kyoto and New Delhi. He was Director of Magnum Photos Paris and International for many years, Vice-President of the Corbis photo agency and Director of the Fnac galleries.

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann

Art Director & Chief Representative Leica Galleries International (Austria)

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann studied German Philology and Philosophy at the University of Freiburg. She also holds a diploma from the Eurythmische Hochschule in Stuttgart, where she was subsequently employed as a lecturer from 1982 to 1986. 

After ACM Projektentwicklung GmbH, Salzburg, bought into Leica Camera AG in 2005, her long-standing passion for photography led to the opening of the Leica Gallery in Salzburg in 2008. Today, Rehn-Kaufmann is Art Director and Chief Representative of Leica Galleries International and holds management responsibility the total of 26 Leica Galleries around the world. She has successfully curated numerous prestigious exhibitions including, for instance, the “Chinaflug” project, an exhibition showing spectacular aerial photography from the 1930s, exhibition concepts for the Leica Gallery at Photokina in 2012, 2014 and 2016, as well as the “10x10” exhibition on the occasion of the jubilee “100 years of Leica photography”. She is responsible for the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar and curated exhibitions of photographers Josef Koudelka, Steve McCurry, Thomas Hoepker and Andy Summers, among others.

Rehn-Kaufmann has been a member of the jury of the Leica Oskar Barnack Awards since 2008, and has played a significant role in the organisation and further development of the prestigious photography competition. She is the editor of the “40 Years of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award” catalogue, and curator of the exhibition with the same title, as well as the annual LOBA presentations at the Ernst Leitz Museum Wetzlar.
 

Behind the Scenes

With great dedication, this year’s jury – comprising Caroline Hunter, Whitney Hollington Matewe, François Hébel, Luca Locatelli and Karin Rehn-Kaufmann – reviewed around 60 proposals submitted by an international nomination panel, to compile a shortlist and determine the winners of the 2023 Leica Oskar Barnack Award.

“The significance of the LOBA is ever increasing, not least in view of AI,” Karin Rehn-Kaufmann explains. “The nominated series were honest, expressive and impressive reflections of today’s world. Working together, and with mutual appreciation, the jury completed the challenging task of choosing the winners and finalists. The result is a LOBA edition of particularly strong, diverse and moving series.”