Christina Assi is a Lebanese photojournalist and photo editor. After losing a leg in an Israeli tank attack in southern Lebanon in October 2023, she began campaigning for journalists' safety.

Christina was born in Lebanon. Growing up there in the 1990s, she lived through the instability of the civil war that she documented in multiple stories. In 2005 she moved to Doha, capital city of Qatar, with her family. Christina graduated from the Notre Dame University-Louaize in Lebanon with a bachelor's degree in communications and journalism. In 2018, she began to work for Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Cyprus as a photo editor.

On 13 October 2023, while live reporting on a column of smoke on the Israeli-Lebanese border along with six other journalists, she was a victim of an Israeli tank shell attack in Alma al-Shaab. The attack involved two strikes and resulted in Christina losing her right leg.One of the two explosions killed her best friend, Reuters correspondent Issam Abdallah. Five more of their colleagues were wounded. All journalists were wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, clearly marked as press. Christina demands that the attack be considered a war crime.

Since then, Christina became a campaigner for journalists' safety, giving numerous interviews and propelling a rehabilitation programme for people with similar life-altering injuries. On 21 July 2024, with colleague, journalist Dylan Collins, she carried the torch in Vincennes, France, ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympic games, representing the journalists who died in the line of duty.

At the end of 2024, the BBC included Assi in its list 100 Women, which recognises the most influential women in the world each year.

On episode 292, Christina discusses, among other things:

• Early memories of growing up in Lebanon
• Her first job as a photo Editor for AFP in Cypress
• Buying her first camera with the prize money from a photography competition
• First opportunites with photography assignments
• Being sent to Lebanon in the aftermath of the October 7th terrorist attacks by Hamas
• The story of the day of the attack that changed her life
• Waking up in hospital and trying to make sense of what had happeneed
• finding out her close friend Issam Abdallah had been killied
• The killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqla
• Her insight into how inaccessible the world is to wheelchair users
• Recuperation and recovery
• Documenting herself
• Her new relationship with the camera… and letting go of perfectionism
• Making a short film about her experience
• Her advocacy work for the protection of journalists and demand for accountability
• The way in which her experience has changed her perception of the kind of stories she wants to cover

Instagram | CPJ piece (with links)

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Reuben Wu is a multidisciplinary artist who explores new ways of telling compelling stories about the world we inhabit.

His work with aerial lighting and long-exposure photography has defined a singular style in contemporary landscape photography and belongs in the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the MoMA.

His practice spans fine art and creative collaborations with brands.

Reuben was born in Liverpool to parents who had immigrated from Hong Kong. Following their guidance, he pursued Industrial Design at university, though his academic focus often took a backseat to DJing, collecting records and enjoying Sheffield’s vibrant music scene.

After graduating, his passion for music led him back to Liverpool’s creative community, and with Daniel Hunt, Mira Aroyo, and Helen Marnie, he formed the band Ladytron in 1999. Their first single earned Single of the Week in the NME. Soon they were signed to a label and invited on a world tour, at which point Reuben left his job at an industrial design consultancy to dedicate the next decade to music.

When Ladytron took a break, Reuben again faced the challenge of reinvention. Though uncertain, he committed to pursuing photography professionally. After years of persistence and occasional strokes of luck, he established himself in the field, bringing his own visual perspective shaped by his design and musical background.

Reuben works globally and lives in Chicago, USA.

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Richard Sharum is an editorial and documentary photographer based in upstate New York. Mainly focusing on socio-economic or social justice dilemmas concerning the human condition, his work has been regarded as in-depth, up-close and personal.

Selected exhibitions have occurred in Kyoto, Japan, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Reggio Emilia, Italy, New York City, Boston, Chicago and Dallas, and his work has been added to the permanent collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and The Wittliff Collection, as well as others.

Richard's commissions include those by The Meadows Foundation, Centers for Community Cooperation, Harvard Law School, Student Conservation Association, Children's Medical Center (Oncology), Children's Cancer Fund.

His publications include those by LFI (Leica International), British Journal of Photography, LensCulture, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Publico (Portugal), El Pais (Spain), Observer (UK), The Wall Street Journal, B+W Photo Magazine, Huck Magazine, Glasstire, PATRON, Creative Review, among others.

Richard has published two photobooks, Campesina Cuba and Spina Americana, both with GOST. His third, American Homicide, will be released early in 2027, also by GOST. The last two of these titles will be joined in 2028 by American Avenue, to form a trilogy of books entitled Of Thee I Sing.

He is represented by The Hulett Collection, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

On episode 290, Richard discusses, among other things:

• His goal of reaching a wider audience among the general public.
• Team window vs. team mirror
• His new book American Homocide
• The fascination for true crime among the public
• How murder affects all the groups involved
• Getting access to the detective squad he embedded with
• The portrayal of violence on screen
• His obsession with time
• The need to be empathetic and open
• The impact of being exposed so many murder victims
• The murder detectives he got to know and photograph
• Corresponding with the perpetrators
• Part three of his planned trilogy, American Avenue
• The state of the photobook industry and the unfairness of the current system

Referenced:

• W Eugene Smith
• Sebastião Salgado
• James Nachtwey
• Larry Towell
• Leonard Freed
• Susan Meiselas
• Gordon Parks

Website | Instagram | Lecture at Columbia

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Iva Sidash is an independent documentary photographer and visual storyteller from Ukraine. Born in 1995, she focuses on deeply personal narratives shaped by the realities of war. Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, she has documented intimate stories of fragility, resistance, and memory that unfold behind the frontlines.

Her work merges artistic sensibility with documentary practice, revealing the human experience through a lens of emotion, nuance, and resilience.

A graduate of the International Center of Photography in New York, Iva is a member of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers and Women Photograph. She is the recipient of the 2024 Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant, a Women Photograph fellowship, and the Chris Hondros Award at the Eddie Adams Workshop.

Her photographs have been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, INSIDER, Der Spiegel, and The Financial Times. Her exhibitions span both solo and group presentations across the United States and Europe, highlighting her growing
international recognition as a compelling voice in documentary photography.

On episode 291, Iva discusses, among other things:

• Daily normality in Kyiv
• How a car accident led her to street photography
• How she transitioned from street photography to documenting the war
• The power of trying to portray life during wartime
• Ethical concerns
• Her project What Is Unseen and what the title means
• Winning the Ian Parry Grant (and being in that ‘family’)...
• …And the Chris Hondras award
• Going to the ICP in New York
• Her story there about injured Ukrainian soldiers undergoing rehabilitation on Staten Island
• Future plans for other projects she’s interested in, including diaristic work

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Clémentine Schneidermann is a French photographer living and working between Paris and South Wales. She recently completed a practice-based PhD at the University of South Wales, Cardiff entitled Photographing Children in a Social Context: Narratives and Strategies (2021). Clémentine works on long term projects & commissions and is interested in new creative practices in social documentary photography. Her approach is collaborative and playful, with an interest in communities and childhood, as well as our relationship to identity and culture. She is a co-founder of Bleak Fabulous with Charlotte James, a photography-based creative studio working across different disciplines with an emphasis on communities and collaboration.

On episode 289, Clémentine discusses, among other things:

• How having a camera made it acceptable to stare at people
• Studying in Switzerland… and then Newport, Wales
• Falling in love with Wales immediately
• Her book project, I Call Her Lisa Marie
• Her project Ffasiwn
• Collaborating with kids… and Charlotte James
• Getting involved with Alexander MacQueen
• Her forthcoming book marking ten year of Ffasiwn
• Bleak Fabulous - trying to create stable income
• Winning the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize
• Work she has done in Greenland
• Her other collaboration: The Emmas

Referenced:

• Mary Ellen Mark
• Sebastian Bruno
• Bruce Davidson
• David Barnes
• Ken Grant
• Paul Reas
• Lina Hashim
• Jacob Aue Sobol

Website | Instagram

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Aria Shahrokhshahi (b. 1996) is a British-Iranian multi-disciplinary artist, whose practice has been shaped by a deep fascination with the intricate dynamics of diverse communities and the complexities of the human condition. With a focus on social structures and the human experience, Shahrokhshahi's work serves as a critical exploration of the relationships and power dynamics that inform everyday life.

Aria’s debut photobook, Wet Ground, featuring images from Ukraine shot over a period of several years both before and after the Russian invasion in Feburary 2022, was published in April 2026 by Loose Joints.

He is currently putting the finishing touches to a feature documentary film entitled While We Heal, which also focusses on the war in Ukraine and explores the themes of healing, loss, and resilience.

On episode 288, Aria discusses, among other things:

• Formative experiences (11 different schools!) growing up in Nottingham
• How walking around the city with a camera was the start of his photography journey
• Negative feedback Facebook group / YouTube channel
• Early education at the Photo Parlour lab (later named Sequence) from Dan Wheelan
• Using large format and why the decision to shoot B&W came out of the cost of film
• Falling in love with Ukraine
• It not being enough to just take pictures
• Why ‘Ukraine, I guess?’ was an informal category of picture during editing
• Having nothing to say about war but being interested in what happens around it
• The way in which war rearranges the social hierarchy
• Poem by Charlotte Shevchenko-Knight
• How the title ‘Wet Ground’, and the book itself, came about
• The importance of collaboration
• The feature length doc he is making in Ukraine
• The importance of having a commercial practice

Referenced:

• Lee Friedlander
• Laytoya Ruby Frazer
• Don McCullin
• Tim Hetherington (Which Way Is The Front Line From Here)
• Shelby Lee Adams
• Minor White
• Alec Soth
• Gregory Halpern
• Nigel Shafran
• Alessandra Sanguinetti
• Myriam Boulos
• Sohrab Hura
• Lightwork

Website | Instagram

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Lorenzo Meloni is an Italian photographer.

He has documented some of the defining conflicts of the 21st century across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. For more than a decade, he has worked in territories marked by wars, revolutions and profound political and social transformations, developing a visual practice that views conflict not merely as an event, but as a historical, material and cultural process.

In recent years, his work has expanded beyond the battlefield. Revelation, an ongoing project, explores how science and technology are changing our relationship to the material world.

In 2022, he published the monograph We Don’t Say Goodbye, a fragmented narrative on the rise, dominance and fall of the Islamic State as a territorial entity. TIME named it one of the 20 Best Photobooks of 2022.

On episode 287, Lorenzo discusses, among other things:

• How he has changed his way of working
• 'Starting as a revolutionary and becoming a deserter'
• How his photography journey began in Yemen
• How the power of photography is metaphorical not descriptive
• His interest in borders and history
• His book, We Don’t Say Goodbye. The theme of repetition. And why the cover is orange
• The caliphate and Islamic State
• His now project, Revelation
• Focussing on one thing at a time
• Dealing with the instability of a freelance life and keeping some freedom

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Ximena Borrazás is a Uruguayan photographer and documentary filmmaker born in Montevideo in 1992. She focuses on armed conflicts, migration, and humanitarian crises. Her work combines visual sensitivity with a strong commitment to social justice, often addressing the experiences of women and displaced populations.

She has published with major international outlets, including National Geographic, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, DW, France 24, Al Jazeera, and the Associated Press, and has worked with institutions such as UNHCR, UNESCO, and IOM.

Ximena’s project in northern Ethiopia documents the devastating aftermath of the Tigray conflict, one of the deadliest wars of the 21st century. Her images portray survivors of sexual violence, displaced families, and the enduring effects of famine and trauma. This work earned her the 2024 Tom Stoddart Award for Excellence, the Gentex Corp Personal Safety Award from the Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant, and the Africa Mundi Award for best photographic publication in Planeta Futuro of El País.

Her long-term documentary project The Scars of War, which began in Tigray, combines photography, testimony, and documentation to investigate conflict-related sexual violence through a forensic lens. Rather than treating sexual violence as an isolated act, the project traces it as a weapon of war, examining physical, psychological, and social evidence left behind, and the systems, or lack thereof, that respond to it.

Ximena is currently based in Ukraine where, aside from continuing to photograph, she has a full-time job as a Liaison and Communications Officer with the United Nations.

On episode 286, Ximena discusses, among other things:

• Working for the UN in Ukraine
• Her first experience of visiting the Polish border
• The nature of working amidst drone warfare
• Challenges of being a freelancer in a conflict zone
• Why she doesn’t really want to be a photographer
• The experience of being in Kyiv on a daily basis
• Her life before photography
• Early forays into documentary work
• Her project in Tigray, Ethiopia and the context of the conflict there
• How she began The Scars of War, her work on conflict related sexual violence
• How serendipity on a HEFAT course led to publication in The Guardian
• How some X-rays changed everything and why they were so powerful
• How she has extended her project to other areas, and focussed on male victims
• How her job at the UN combines with her advocacy work

Website | Instagram

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