Nikon-NOOR Academy | Announcing the Participants for the 2021 Masterclass

We are delighted to announce the participants selected for the 2021 Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclasses, which will take place in February and March.

The tutors of this year’s academy are Andrea Bruce, Heba Khamis, Pep Bonet, Sanne De Wilde, Jon Lowenstein, Francesco Zizola, Olga Kravets, Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen.

We would sincerely like to thank all the people who sent forward their applications and congratulate the photographers who will participate in the masterclasses.

Masterclass A taking place between February 18th to 26th:

Larkat Issam
Sebastian Steveniers
Mano Svanidze
Cletus Nelson Nwadike
Dina Oganova
Cansu Yildiran
Nadja Ellinger
Emily Garthwaite
Stefanie Kulisch
Oleksandr Rupeta
Felix Adler
Thomas Victor
Zoya Shu
Danil Usmanov
Aino Väänänen
Fedor Oshchepkov

Masterclass B taking place between March 4th to 12th:

Irina Shkoda
Ivan Tomasevic
Chloe Alexandra Davies
Mattia Marzorati
Svetlana Bulatova
Kseniia Apresian
Sofia Melikova
Olga Kuzmenkova
Alexis Pazoumian
Ilyas Hajji
Arun Nangla
Maxime Riche
Mikhail Lebedev
Sina Niemeyer
Mayya Kelova

Masterclass C taking place between March 18th to 26th:

Sinawi Medine
Ira Lupu
Matjaz Tancic
Monika Orpik
Marcin Kruk
Michaela Nagyidaiová
Ludwig Nikulski
Kseniia Ivanova
Davit Nersisyan
Robin Alysha Clemens
Ingmar Björn Nolting
Sofia Gavrilova
Amirtharaj Stephen
Maria Grigorieva
Zanda Puče

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To power the Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass applications, we teamed up with our partner Picter, an online platform hosting contests, call for applications as well as tools for professional image-makers simply their workflow.

Heba Khamis joins NOOR

We are proud to announce that Heba Khamis joins NOOR

From her series “Banned Beauty”

Egyptian visual researcher Heba Khamis' work concentrates on the sensitive, tabooed, social issues related to the body. In 2018 and 2019, her projects were awarded at the World Press Photo prize. Her work has been recognised as well with other international awards including the PHMuseum grant and the Ian Parry Scholarship award.

After graduating with a bachelor in painting, Heba Khamis had a career shift and worked as a photojournalist, covering the two revolutions in Egypt and it's aftermath. Currently, she is working on the topics of breast ironing in Cameroon, and transgenders in Egypt. Her latest series "Black Bird" uncovers stories of gay prostitution among straight refugees in Germany.

Through developing her storytelling visual language, she considers herself as a visual researcher after having working as a photojournalist, documentary photographer, and now as a storyteller. She carries the ethics of traditional documentary form with her, but believes the need to care further about the subjects while telling their stories. Beyond her usual photographic approach, she adds different elements and mediums belonging to the subjects to her stories.

Recently, she has been interested in art therapy, where she would like to involve the protagonists more, giving them the chance to express themselves and interact in telling their own story, by adding their drawings alongside her photographs. 

Heba Khamis is based between Alexandria, Egypt and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

From her series “Black Birds”

On joining the collective, Heba Khamis shares: "After many years of walking in this world and industry independently, today I am glad to part of a team of 18 individuals from all over the globe (14 photographers and 4 office staff) with different perspectives on life, to walk in hand with. We follow the same passion for storytelling and ethics . By joining the NOOR family, I believe we will inspire and feed from each other, deepening our understanding in telling meaningful stories. We will help each other to reach out and tell people’s stories that need to be told, and to share them with all those waiting to hear."

"It is a great pride that Heba joins NOOR. Her work, in addition to being visually fascinating, fills us with deep compassion for others. Her respectful approach is important and necessary. With Heba joining our collective supports further our mission and our will to tell, witness, and document issues of our time," shares NOOR Managing Director Clement Saccomani.

NOOR Author Tanya Habjouqa shares: "I had been following the work of Heba Khamis for years, with a curiosity for who this photographer was who seamlessly blended poetics and some of the more darker aspects of socio-politics and humanity. The work was brilliant, no doubt, but what took me even more aback was listening to her speech when she received her first World Press Photo award for Banned Beauty. 

"She, of course, referenced to girls and women who let her into their lives so intimately, but mentioned  her recently deceased father, reflecting how to make quality work , it can come at a personal cost. She had not made it back in time from on assignment to say a proper good by  to her father before he passed. There was not a dry eye in the place, and Heba has that affect. In person, and in her work. A kindness and soulful quiet. That rare breed of humble. And then she did it again, a consecutive World Press Photo…from diverse locations that are not close to her home or reality, but again…so intimately and respectfully she captures it. 

"She is not a one trick pony—but will continue to surprise and evolve and question our medium. And elevate the bar for all of us. An honor to have Heba in our NOOR Family."

Nikon-NOOR Academy | Talk at El Observatorio in Barcelona

During the Nikon-NOOR Academy in Barcelona, visual-storytellers Tanya Habjouqa, Sebastian Liste, and Jon Lowenstein will talk at El Observatorio on November 13, 2019, at 7:30 P.M.

The discussion will focus on the distinct approaches and styles used by each photographer when addressing subjects with global effects, in very different parts of the world: Moderated by Jessica Murray, this event is free and open to the public. The talk will be in Spanish and English with translation.

© Tanya Habjouqa

Sanne De Wilde, Sebastian Liste and Kadir van Lohuizen talk at the f2 Dortmund Festival

NOOR visual-storytellers Sanne De Wilde, Sebastián Liste and Kadir van Lohuizen will present a lecture on which form can be creatively helped to create justice at f2 Fotofestival Dortmund on November 8 and 9.

Date: Friday, November 8, 2019

10am: Sanne De Wilde

11am: Sebastian Liste

Location: FH Dortmund

Entrance fee: free entrance

Date: Saturday, November 9, 2019

6pm: Kadir van Lohuizen

Location: FH Dortmund

Entrance fee: free entrance

Kadir van Lohuizen tests Nikon's first stereoscopic imaging prototype

Today was a very inspiring day at the NOOR office in Amsterdam. Thanks to Nikon Europe and Frank Zuidweg from Nikon Professional Services and NOOR Technical Partners on FotoInMotion Project, QdepQ, Nikon Ambassador Kadir van Lohuizen was able to explore the first prototype ever done for stereo imaging.

FotoInMotion is a project born from an innovative format that transforms a single photograph into a dynamic, high quality video for storytelling and branding. The FotoInMotion tool will allow both professional content producers and creative citizens to rapidly produce videos with automated editing functions and dynamic effects driven by AI-powered object identification and advanced 3D technology.

Funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union, NOOR, as pilot partner of FotoInMotion, is very excited to have tested this new technological tool and a new way of storytelling in order to create global impact.

Bénédicte Kurzen & Sanne De Wilde present "Land of Ibeji" in Vienna, Austria

Sanne De Wilde and Benedicte Kurzen talked about their project "Land of Ibeji" at WestLicht. Schauplatz für Fotografie on October 16, as part of the World Press Photo Exhibition worldwide.

© Rachele Moriggi / WestLicht

Bénédicte Kurzen | "Violence in Nigeria" featured in MSF and exhibited in Paris

Criminal groups and extreme violence in the northwestern Nigerian state of Zamfara have caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee their villages and seek shelter in the town of Anka.

© Bénédicte Kurzen / NOOR

Bénédicte Kurzen's project on violence in Nigeria is featured in Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)'s website.

From October 1st until November 2nd, her project will be exhibited in Paris. Nikon Ambassador Bénédicte Kurzen spoke about “Violence in Nigeria” on October the 5th.

Jon Lowenstein | Exhibition at The Gallery Club in Amsterdam and Haarlem

Jon Lowenstein will exhibit his project "South Side" at The Gallery Club, a platform for photography. There will be an Open House in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on October 13, from 1 P.M. to 6 P.M. and in Haarlem on October 26, from 3 P.M. to 5 P.M.

© Jon Lowenstein / NOOR

Francesco Zizola | "In the Same Boat" exhibited at the Centre Méditerranéen de La Photographie, Corsica

Francesco Zizola will exhibit his project "In the Same Boat" at the Centre Méditerranéen de la Photographie from October 3rd until October 26.

© Francesco Zizola / NOOR

Sebastian Liste | Featured in TIME with the coverage of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest

The Amazon is 10 million years old. Home to 390 billion trees, the vast river basin reigns over South America and is an unrivaled nest of biodiversity. At current rates of deforestation, 27% of the Amazon will be without trees by 2030. Sebastián Liste went to the Amazon for TIME to see the consequences climate change has on the Amazon.

© Sebastian Liste / NOOR for TIME