MASTERCLASSES WITH TODAY’S LEADING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Learn live from some of the most influential voices in the international photography world. Discover their vision, their process, and the way they build their stories — all from the comfort of your home.
Join the sessions live, ask your questions, or rewatch everything whenever it suits you.
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COMING
January 14, 4PM cest
Ebrahim Alipoor
Theme: Working without access, budgets, or institutions: building stories that matter. From local reality to international recognition – the documentary process of Ebrahim Alipoor.
About Ebrahim Alipoor: Ebrahim Alipoor is a photographer from Kurdistan, Iran. Alipoor’s work focuses on storytelling through photography, exploring social and political issues under challenging circumstances. He views photography as a powerful medium to engage audiences, particularly in regions like Iran, where governmental restrictions and censorship pose significant challenges. Despite these limitations, he seeks to connect with people and inspire change through his work. He won a World Press Photo Story of the year award in 2025.
REPLAYS
Ian Teh
Theme: How to turn an idea into a powerful visual story
Ian Teh shows how to turn an idea into a powerful visual story – from the initial concept to a photo series with a clear message and a distinct, recognizable voice.
About Ian: Ian Teh is an award-winning documentary photographer inspired by environmental and social issues. In an era of constant urbanization and development, his work explores the underlying dreams and desires of societies and individuals, as well as the sacrifices often made to achieve them. Teh’s work has been published internationally in magazines such as National Geographic, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Granta. Since 2013, he has mentored at the Obscura Festival of Photography and from 2014 has offered his time pro bono for the Angkor Photo Festival in Cambodia. He is a member of the British agency Panos Pictures.
RAISA ZWART
Theme: Print On Demand.
Print on Demand is a business model where products are only produced and shipped after a customer places an order. This means you, as an entrepreneur, don’t need to keep inventory and only pay for a product after it has been sold. Raisa knows all about it and shares her insights with you so you can implement it to your own business.
About Raisa: Raisa is a Dutch photographer, business mentor, and creative strategist with a passion for freedom, scalability, and storytelling. She sells her work, among other ways, through Print on Demand, and her pieces now hang on over 13,000 walls worldwide. She runs her business on her own terms and lives in Portugal and Costa Rica.
PAOLO VERZONE
Theme: Light as the sixth element.
Light surrounds us from birth, shaping our lives in ways we often don’t notice. In his work, he explores the role of light in life and its expression in photography, using it as the primary tool to capture the visible. His photographic process begins with the interplay of light and its opposite, examining their value and perspective in creating an image.
About Paolo: Paolo is an Italian photographer, known for blending a journalist’s eye with long-term observation. His work explores the relationship between collective identity and individual lives. Recently, he has focused on scientists and researchers, from Arctic climatologists to National Geographic archaeologists . He’s a three-time World Press Photo winner and his photographs are widely published and exhibited.
FRIEKE JANSSENS
Theme: The source of personal work
Frieke shares how her personal work emerges—from commercial projects, research, or everyday surprises. She presents a selection of pieces that reflect her creative drives and invites you to explore your own inspirations. Participants can also ask her questions about translating these impulses into powerful, personal images.
About Frieke: Frieke is a Belgian staged portrait photographer known for provocative series on topics like smoking, drunkenness, death, and desire. Her latest work, Lightness, explores meaning and escapism, incorporating sound and text in its scenography. She has exhibited internationally, been featured in major publications, and her book The Sweetest Taboo won gold at the 2019 Henry Van De Velde awards.
ESPEN RASMUSSEN
Theme: Online/offline in photojournalism
He will talk about photography / photojournalism and how photographers have to adjust to adapt to online publishing. What kind of stories work? How do you manage to be everything - write, photograph, to video and produce. And he will talk about how the landscape for editorial / project photography is changing these days
About Espen: Espen Rasmussen is a Norwegian photojournalist and VG Helg photo editor, specializing in humanitarian issues. He has won multiple international awards and created long-term projects like TRANSIT on refugees. His work also explores the American middle class and far-right movements, while he lectures and mentors for the Norwegian Journal of Photography.
IRINA WERNING
Theme: How you can use staged photography
Irina explores how staged photography can be a powerful tool for deepening the complexities and narrative layers of a documentary story. By re-constructing moments, and collaborating with her subjects in playful ways she blurs the line between reality and fiction to reveal truth. She shares how mixing staging with documentary allows her to highlight invisible emotions and amplify voices often overlooked, without losing authenticity.
About Irina: Irina is an Argentinian photojournalist focusing on personal long-term projects, based in London. In another life she studied a bachelor’s degree in Economics, a master’s degree in History and a master’s in Photojournalism. Chosen by Time Magazine as one of the nine Argentinian photographers you need to follow in 2015. Her book Back to the Future series was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the best photobooks. And she has won a World Press Photo Award .
JIM HUYLEBROEK
Theme: Beyond the shot: understanding people and places through photography.
In this masterclass, Belgian photographer Jim Huylebroek, who works mainly for The New York Times, will share how his approach to photography goes beyond simply taking pictures – it’s about actively engaging with the world, learning from the people and cultures he captures, and developing a deeper understanding of human connection.
About Jim: Jim Huylebroek, a freelance photographer from Antwerp, Belgium, began his career while studying audiovisual media. In 2015, he moved to Kabul, where he spent several years documenting the complexities of Afghanistan. Huylebroek works as a documentary photographer in conflict zones. In recent years, he has reported from Ukraine, Lebanon, and Syria. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Guardian, and more.
Masterclass Bundle of 3
Get instant access to the replays of three inspiring masterclasses from top photographers:
📸 Lee-Ann Olwage – Discover her unique storytelling techniques that earned her international recognition.
📸 Tomas van Houtruyve – Learn from his vision on visual storytelling and documentary photography.
📸 Kadir van Lohuizen – Gain insights who you how you can combine videography and photography.
This bundle is valued at €75, but you can get it now for just €29!
EVA VERBEECK
Theme: Crafting your vision through photography.
Photography is about more than capturing images, it’s about uncovering what lies beneath the sur-face. In this masterclass, Eva guides you to use your camera as a tool for curiosity, storytelling, and connection, combining photography with writing, research, and video to create layered, meaningful projects. You’ll learn to develop your own visual language and create work that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.
About Eva: She is a Belgian photographer and filmmaker, explores identity, belonging, gender, and the subtle, often overlooked moments of everyday life. Committed to analog techniques, her long-term projects focus on connection, trust, and intimacy, creating work that is both personal and universally resonant. Based in Antwerp and New York, she works internationally on personal and commissioned projects, driven by curiosity, patience, and authenticity.
AMI VITALE
Theme: Thriving in today's media landscape. Finding meaningful stories, ethical considerations and reaching audiences. Discovering impactful stories, navigating ethical challenges in long-term projects, and building a sustainable career in a changing industry.
About Ami: She’s an American National Geographic photographer, filmmaker, and founder of Vital Impacts. She documents the intersection of human and environmental crises, highlighting resilience and innovation in the face of war, climate change, and species extinction. Her work connects local conservation efforts to global audiences, using storytelling and art to inspire action and raise significant support for conservation projects. Recognized with multiple World Press Photo awards and other honors, she continues to share her expertise worldwide.
JEROME SESSINI
Theme: Discover why revisiting the same places over time is a game-changer in photography.
In this masterclass, Jérôme shares how his fascination with Mexico has grown into a more than 20-year-long project, highlighting the power of returning to the same places and subjects over time. By revisiting his work, he allows his perspective to deepen and evolve, showing how long-term commitment can become a powerful tool in documentary photography.
About Jérôme: He is a French Magnum Photos photographer who began his career documenting people and everyday life in his hometown in France before focusing on global conflicts and their human impact. Over time, he shifted toward long-term projects that explore the broader social and environmental contexts of crises, such as his award-winning work on drug violence in Mexico and the opioid crisis in America. His photography, recognized for its depth and storytelling, has been widely published and exhibited.
STIG DE BLOCK
Theme: Diving deep into identity
In this masterclass he talks about a consistent exploration of identity and intention through his evolving visual tone, both in himself and his subjects. Featuring unpublished work from his ongoing project, EAST LOS.
About Stig: He’s a Belgian fine-art photographer who creates story-driven images that blend everyday reality with his own imaginative vision, often inspired by heritage values and subcultures. His debut project, Back to Back, is an intimate portrait of the Los Angeles low rider community, highlighting connections across diverse walks of life through a shared passion for cars.
ED KASHI
Theme: In this masterclass Ed shared a selection of projects that reflect his evolution as a visual storyteller and advocacy journalist. He does this work to engage with the world and issues he cares about using his passion and skills for visual storytelling.
About Ed: Ed is an American renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker dedicated to documenting the social and geopolitical issues that define our times. He has covered many diverse topics. A sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. He is a member of VII Photo Agency since 2010 and has been globally recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition.
LEE-ANN OLWAGE
Theme: Collaborative storytelling, finding your voice as a visual storyteller and creating long-term projects.
About Lee-Ann: She is a visual storyteller from South Africa who uses collaborative storytelling to explore themes relating to gender and identity. She is interested in using the medium of photography as a mode of celebration and aims to create a space where people she collaborates with can play an active part in the creation of images, they feel tells their stories in a way that is affirming and celebratory. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, Vogue, The British Journal of Photography, Geo, The Guardian,… Notable awards include among others a World Press Photo Award, 2020, 2023 & 2024 and a Sony World Photography Awards.
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE
Theme: Choosing a visual approach to amplify your photo project.
In contrast to many photographers, Tomas often shift the style and process that he emploies for each project, including using wet plate collodion, aerial drones or traditional color reportage. He explain the reasoning behind this and the challenges that it poses.
About Tomas: He is a Belgian-American artist, photo-grapher and author whose work tackles critical global issues, blending investigative journalism, contemporary concepts, and metaphor at the intersection of art and docu-mentary. His projects often push photo-graphic boundaries, using techniques from 19th-century processes to thermal imaging and augmented reality. His work is held in major international collections and he has received numerous top awards. He is a contributing photographer for VII Foundation and a Pulitzer Fellow.
KADIR VAN LOHUIZEN
Theme: How to work on a long term project and combine photography and video.
Kadir shows examples of his latest project ‘food for thought’ about the global food industry in which he combines videography with photography and teaches how you can do that yourselves.
About Kadir: He is a Dutch renowned photographer, who has covered conflicts in Africa and elsewhere, but is probably best known for his long-term projects on the seven rivers of the world, the rising of sea levels, the diamond industry, and migration in the Americas. More recently he has presented a new series about food consumption: food that goes to all corners of the world. In this series, he showed the massiveness of the production chain. Kadir is part of NOOR agency.
ADRIANA ZEHBRAUSKAS
Theme: Crafting your visual narrative: mastering personal projects and finding your voice in photojournalism.
How to balance assignment work with developing a visual and creative narrative that satisfies both you and your editors. Whether for newspapers or NGOs, assignments demand adaptability and speed yet they offer a way to showcase your work, reach an audience, and connect with editors.
About Adriana: She’s a Brasilian documentary photographer based in Phoenix whose work explores migration, human rights, and marginalized communities across the Americas. She contributes to VII Photo and publications like The New York Times, CNN, and The Guardian, and has received numerous awards. Zehbrauskas also teaches visual journalism internationally and serves on juries for major photography awards.
NICK HANNES
Theme: Photographing people in public spaces (strategies, attitude, ethical and legal considerations)
Inside his masterclass, Nick shares his experiences and insights on photographing in public spaces and urban contexts. The city is the ideal environment to capture the spirit of the times, but the streets also bring specific challenges. Using examples from his archive, Nick explores various strategies for capturing the city.
About Nick: He is a Belgian documentary photographer whose work explores contemporary themes such as migration, globalization, urbanization, and crisis. He has published five books and his work has been featured in major magazines and exhibited internationally. Since 2008, he has taught documentary photography at KASK in he is represented by Panos Pictures.
ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN
Theme: In this masterclass, Ilvy will guide you on how to start your story and ensure its publication. Drawing from her own experience, she will take you from the initial idea to publication or from the idea to the final pitch
About Ilvy: She is a Dutch photojournalist, filmmaker, podcast host, and educator known for her sensitive, intimate approach to documenting social and political issues. Her work includes projects like Born Free – Mandela’s Generation of Hope and coverage of Ukraine’s LGBTQ community, and has appeared in major outlets such as The New York Times, National Geographic, and The Guardian. She is a VII Foundation contributor and has received numerous awards including the Silver Camera, and she teaches, gives masterclasses and exhibits internationally.
BASTIAAN WOUDT
Theme: Kaat Celis spoke with Bastiaan about his life and work, his inspiration and motivation, and his techniques. During this interview you get an insight into his photo practice and entrepreneurship, he shares his tips and tricks.
About Bastiaan: He’s a self-taught Dutch photographer born, known for his minimalist, emotionally rich portraits and landscapes, exhibited at major fairs and solo museum shows, and featured in publications like British Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Beyond photography, he founded 1605 Collective, a platform and publishing house for artists, and engages in philanthropic projects in Uganda and Zambia, raising funds through his work. Exploring new creative frontiers, he integrates psychedelics and AI into his ongoing projects, pushing the boundaries of photography.
Masterclass Bundle of 4
Get instant access to the replays of four inspiring masterclasses from top photographers:
📸 Ami Vitale – How to navigate ethical questions in long-term projects and capture stories that make an impact.
📸 Ed Kashi – The secrets of powerful storytelling.
📸 Jérôme Sessini – Discover why revisiting the same places and subjects over time can be a game-changer for your photography.
📸 Stig De Block – Exploring and (re)examining identity.
This bundle is valued at €100, but you can get it now for just €39!
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’The way you see the world is your superpower because nobody sees the world as you do. Nurture your voice, make it as distinctive and specific as possible’.
Lee-Ann Olwage
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'Starting from reality does not mean that my photos are just a representation of reality. A good docu- mentary photograph or a series goes beyond observation. It’s also a statement. Content matters.'
Nick Hannes
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'Listen to that little voice inside your head. That intuition that says: Don't. All the times I didn't listen, something happened.'
Adriana Zehbrauskas
Masterclass Bundle of 5
Get instant access to the replays of five inspiring masterclasses from top photographers:
📸 Adriana Zehbrauskas – Shaping your visual story, mastering personal projects, and finding your voice in photojournalism, while staying creative under tight deadlines.
📸 Nick Hannes – Insights and experiences photographing in public spaces and urban environments.
📸 Eva Verbeeck – Developing your own vision and voice in photography.
📸 Bastiaan Woudt – A conversation with Kaat Celis about his life, work, inspiration, motivation, and techniques.
📸 Ilvy Njiokiktjien – From idea to publication: how to start your story and get it out into the world, based on her own experience.
This bundle is valued at €125, but you can get it now for just €49!
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'I'm not an technical person at all. Because I never was schooled to be technical. That also means I figured a lot out on myself, which did make me technical in the end.'
Ilvy Njiokiktjien
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'The easiest way to make meaningful images is by being authentic and sensitive. Candid photography isn't some kind of trick, it's a skill we can all develop. And the key to that is simple: respect the people you photography'
Ami Vitale
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'If I'm not working on a personal project, I will not be happy. You could give ma all the money and the commissioned work in the world, and sure, it'll prop me up, but inside I will not feel the same.'
Ed Kashi
