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We’re excited to reveal the Ones to Watch 2026!

Now in its 15th edition, Ones to Watch is BJP's annual selection of emerging photographers who embody the talent and creativity in international photography today, nominated by a global network of curators, editors and artists.

Depicting war or the effects of migration; exploring heritage from more than one country, or histories of dominance and imperialism – many of this year's Ones to Watch broach weighty topics, but they still find moments of joy. From straight documentary to working with illustration and sculpture, this international cohort also puts photography through its paces, playing with the possibilities of the expanded medium while speaking with distinctive voices.

On this year's cover, Kristina Podobed (@kristinapodobed). Originally from Odesa, Ukraine, she is now based with her young family in Paris, where she makes intimate, subtly disorientating work. She was recommended to BJP by Alessia Glaviano, Head of Global PhotoVogue and Director of the Photo Vogue Festival.

Meet the 15 photographers: Timon Benson @timonbenson | Moayed Abu Ammouna @moayed.abuammouna | Kincső Bede @bedekincsohilda | Nathalie Bissig @nathaliebissig | Fabiola Cedillo @fabiolasin | Hubert Marot @hubert_marot | Dev Dhunsi @devdhunsi | Kristina Podobed @kristinapodobed | Zexuan Zeng @zexuan_zeng | Osheen Harruthoonyan @o_s_h_e_e_n | Ivan Samoilov @samoilovivan | Andong Zheng @andongzheng | Tamibé Bourdanné @tamibebourdanne | Ilyes Griyeb @ilyesgriyeb | Pretika Menon @pretikamenon

Our special thanks to the curators, artists and editors who nominated this year's photographers.

Become a BJP Full Access Member and receive the upcoming Ones to Watch issue straight to your door. Subscribe by 25 May and explore our membership options at the link in our bio. The magazine will reach Print Subscribers and Full Access Members from 02 June, and will be available to all BJP Members on our online library from the same date.
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Learn more via the link in bio. ⁠
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📷️: @kristinapodobed

The Female in Focus x Nikon 2025 exhibition opens today until 29 May at @1014.gallery, London.⁠
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Step into a world of powerful stories captured through the lens of this year’s winners. Featuring the two series winners alongside 21 striking images, the exhibition explores this year’s theme On the Cusp, reflecting lives and communities at moments of profound change.⁠
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Presented in partnership with @nikon_europe, with thanks to @freshaire_ltd for producing the artwork and @hahnemuehle_uk for providing the finest quality paper for the prints. ⁠
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Learn more via the link in bio. ⁠
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📷️: @laetitiavancon

A Black British male from the Jamaican diaspora, Ryan Prince explores self-representation within visual languages, and the ways in which photography works to challenge stereotypes and normalise lived experiences. The photographer Kalpesh Lathigra nominated Prince for⁠
Ones to Watch after seeing his series ‘One Year of Therapy’, where Prince turned the camera on his own therapy sessions, a move typical of his quest for honesty and truth.⁠
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Every year, BJP’s Ones to Watch shines a light on the photographers epitomising the talent and creativity in international photography today. Here we revisit the class of 2025 – where Prince was nominated by Lathigra.⁠
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📷️: @ryanadrianprince⁠
🖊: @isaac_hux

Female in Focus x Nikon 2025 is currently on show at @1014.gallery until 29 May. ⁠
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Selected from thousands of outstanding submissions, this year’s winners have brought the theme ‘On the Cusp' to life through poignant and thought-provoking imagery.⁠
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“The two series that are recognised in this edition of Female in Focus stand at the fault lines of history, where private lives collide with vast systems of power.” says Louise Fedotov-Clements, Director of Photoworks and Female in Focus x Nikon 2025 judge. “Together, they are not only timely, they are alarms. They capture the world on the cusp of irreversible change and insist that photography remains an important tool not just for seeing, but for reckoning.”⁠
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The 21 winning single images further expand the theme, capturing lives in moments of transformation. Across the selection, sisterhood, care and intergenerational connection emerge alongside reflections on displacement, identity and belonging. ⁠
⁠
Presented in partnership with @nikon_europe, with thanks to @freshaire_ltd for producing the artwork and @hahnemuehle_uk for providing the finest quality paper for the prints. ⁠
⁠
Learn more via the link in bio. ⁠
⁠
In order of appearance: ⁠
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© Karen Paz Gonzalez (@karenpaz_g)⁠
© Nayra Aly (@nayraaly)⁠
© Angela Cappetta (@angelacappetta_)

Female in Focus x Nikon 2025 is currently on show at @1014.gallery until 29 May. ⁠
⁠
Selected from thousands of outstanding submissions, this year’s winners have brought the theme ‘On the Cusp' to life through poignant and thought-provoking imagery.⁠
⁠
“The two series that are recognised in this edition of Female in Focus stand at the fault lines of history, where private lives collide with vast systems of power.” says Louise Fedotov-Clements, Director of Photoworks and Female in Focus x Nikon 2025 judge. “Together, they are not only timely, they are alarms. They capture the world on the cusp of irreversible change and insist that photography remains an important tool not just for seeing, but for reckoning.”⁠
⁠
The 21 winning single images further expand the theme, capturing lives in moments of transformation. Across the selection, sisterhood, care and intergenerational connection emerge alongside reflections on displacement, identity and belonging. ⁠
⁠
Presented in partnership with @nikon_europe, with thanks to @freshaire_ltd for producing the artwork and @hahnemuehle_uk for providing the finest quality paper for the prints. ⁠
⁠
Learn more via the link in bio. ⁠
⁠
In order of appearance: ⁠
⁠
© Karen Paz Gonzalez (@karenpaz_g)⁠
© Nayra Aly (@nayraaly)⁠
© Angela Cappetta (@angelacappetta_)

Female in Focus x Nikon 2025 is currently on show at @1014.gallery until 29 May. ⁠
⁠
Selected from thousands of outstanding submissions, this year’s winners have brought the theme ‘On the Cusp' to life through poignant and thought-provoking imagery.⁠
⁠
“The two series that are recognised in this edition of Female in Focus stand at the fault lines of history, where private lives collide with vast systems of power.” says Louise Fedotov-Clements, Director of Photoworks and Female in Focus x Nikon 2025 judge. “Together, they are not only timely, they are alarms. They capture the world on the cusp of irreversible change and insist that photography remains an important tool not just for seeing, but for reckoning.”⁠
⁠
The 21 winning single images further expand the theme, capturing lives in moments of transformation. Across the selection, sisterhood, care and intergenerational connection emerge alongside reflections on displacement, identity and belonging. ⁠
⁠
Presented in partnership with @nikon_europe, with thanks to @freshaire_ltd for producing the artwork and @hahnemuehle_uk for providing the finest quality paper for the prints. ⁠
⁠
Learn more via the link in bio. ⁠
⁠
In order of appearance: ⁠
⁠
© Karen Paz Gonzalez (@karenpaz_g)⁠
© Nayra Aly (@nayraaly)⁠
© Angela Cappetta (@angelacappetta_)

Tudor Rhys Etchells’ practice is shaped by his former career as an immigration lawyer in Cardiff, navigating the bureaucracy around migration and citizenship. Turning his lens on the bland offices and administration centres that contribute to asylum seekers’ dehumanisation and frustration, he created the series ‘A Reasonable Degree of Likelihood’ using self-portraiture, a method he also employs in a work about buying citizenship in Turkey. ⁠
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Every year, BJP’s Ones to Watch shines a light on the photographers epitomising the talent and creativity in international photography today. Etchells was nominated in 2025 by Isaac Blease, curator at the Martin Parr Foundation. ⁠
⁠
Read more via the link in bio. ⁠
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📷️: @tudir⁠
🖊: @albie.fay

Rene Matić has won the 2026 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, against a strong shortlist also featuring Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka and Amak Mahmoodian. Matić was awarded the £30,000 prize for their exhibition AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH, which was shown at CCA Berlin, Germany from 08 November 2024 – 15 February 2025.
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Featuring intimate images of friends and chosen family framed in glass, it also included film, sound, and objects, such as a collection of black dolls found in second-hand shops. “I am interested in the line between blessing and burden,” they told BJP of the show. “How to bring things to light and dark all at once.”

Matić was nominated for the 2025 Turner Prize, and picked out for the Deutsche Börse by a jury featuring Anne-Marie Beckmann (Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation), Newsha Tavakolian, Elisa Medde (Foto Colectania Foundation), and Dr Mark Sealy (Autograph Gallery). The jury was chaired by Shoair Mavlian (The Photographers’ Gallery).

📷️: From Feelings Wheel, 2024 - 2025. Installation of glass-framed photo series and sound piece, © Rene Matić. Courtesy the Artist and Arcadia Missa, London.
🖼️: @thephotographersgallery
🖊: BJP editorial

What does it mean to photograph the world on the cusp of change?⁠
⁠ ⁠
@giyamakondowills, one of the two series winners of Female in Focus × Nikon 2025, joins portrait photographer and Female in Focus judge @carolynmendelsohn_ , and @_zoeharrison, Head of Awards & Partnerships at British Journal of Photography to reflect on this year's award theme, On the Cusp, and on what photography can tell us about living through times of change.⁠
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Tickets via link in bio ⁠
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📷️: @giyamakondowills⁠
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Born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, Arhant Shrestha used image-making to discover his city after a sheltered childhood – and then to reclaim his place in it, after a homophobic attack. “There’s always going to be a part of me that needs to be out in this city making pictures,” he says.⁠
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Every year, BJP’s Ones to Watch shines a light on the photographers epitomising the talent and creativity in international photography today. As we finalise this year's selection, we are revisiting the class of 2025 – where Shrestha was nominated by Anna Planas, artistic director of Paris Photo.⁠
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📷️: @arhantnice⁠
🖊: @isaac_hux

“It’s so much more than the five days of the fair, we want everyone to feel supported all year round. We highlight their programmes, take VIPs and collectors to their galleries, and offer talks for their artists all year round. The photography ecosystem is relatively small in comparison to the contemporary art world, so everybody wants to support each other in growing the photography market.” Sophie Parker

How is Photo London run, who visits, and what are the plans for the future? BJP sits down to find out more with Sophie Parker (director), Charlotte Jansen (Discovery section curator), and Tristan Lund (Source section curator). BJP is a Photo London media partner.

Bluff © Zygmunt Rytka, 1978. Image courtesy of the artist and Galeria Monopol, showing in the Main section of Photo London

📷️: Bluff © Zygmunt Rytka, 1978.
🖼️: @galeriamonopol
🖊: BJP editorial

Based in the Netherlands, Dunya Zita felt drawn to photographically explore her Moroccan roots and the wider SWANA region. Travelling to Lebanon, she captures the everyday life of those living in a refugee camp with her raw and honest work. “Dunya Zita uses photography, film and poetry to explore a sense of community,” explains Lisanne van Happen,⁠
who nominated her for Ones to Watch.⁠
⁠
Every year, BJP’s Ones to Watch shines a light on the photographers epitomising the talent and creativity in international photography today. As we finalise this year's selection, we are revisiting the class of 2025.⁠
⁠
Read more in the link in bio. ⁠
⁠
📷️: @dunyazita⁠
🖊: @dalia.aldu

Based in India, Jaisingh Nageswaran has been working for over 25 years, making a living through commercial projects, grants and the Bollywood film industry. Self-taught, his photographic work centres on questions of place and identity, turning the camera on himself and his homeland for his most recent series. ⁠
⁠
Every year, BJP’s Ones to Watch shines a light on the photographers epitomising the talent and creativity in international photography today. As we finalise this year's selection, we are revisiting the class of 2025 – where Nageswaran was nominated by Abhishek Khedekar, a New Delhi-based photographer.⁠
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📷️: @jaisingh_na⁠
🖊: @dismy

Brought up in Ahmedabad, a city which resisted British rule, Mila Rae Sarabhai’s work is quietly radical. Sidestepping a fixed, evidentiary scopic regime, she combines narratives into collages, and displays them in window installations which shift with the light. ⁠
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“I put my photographs through so many processes they're unrecognisable, and that’s precisely the purpose,” she says. “It’s meant to make everything slightly off-kilter, to force the viewer to really try to decipher. There is a level of obscurity to it, a question of visibility and invisibility, of how much is too much, and how much is not enough. ⁠
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On show in the KG+ Select exhibition at this year’s Kyotographie, Sarabhai’s work was selected for the BJP Mention. ⁠
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📷️: @mila.rae.n.s⁠
🖊: @dismy⁠
🖼️: @kyotographie