Dean Emeritus of ICP Fred Ritchin Joins the Bird in Flight Prize ’21 Jury

Fred Ritchin, Dean Emeritus of the International Center of Photography (ICP) of New York, joined the jury of the Bird in Flight Prize ‘21 international photography competition. He has replaced David Campany, Managing Director of Programs at ICP, who cannot participate in the jury selection process this year.

Fred Ritchin was the founding director of the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism Program at the School of ICP, which he directed from 1983 to 1986. He was appointed Dean in 2014 and Dean Emeritus in 2017. Before joining ICP, Ritchin was for 23 years a professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Ritchin also served as picture editor of the New York Times Magazine and created its first multimedia version. He conceived and edited the Times’s first non-linear online documentary project, “Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace,” nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In addition, Fred Richin was a co-founder and CEO of PixelPress, an organization experimenting with new documentary forms and working with humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF, UNFPA, and WHO. He currently lectures and teaches courses on new image-based strategies, including those related to human rights.

Ritchin is an author of photography books, including In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography, Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen and After Photography, published in seven languages.

He recently helped found the online visual journal Fotodemic.org, conceptualized the Four Corners Project to provide greater context to photographs, and launched TheFifthCorner.org, a resource for those interested in exploring the current paradigm shift in visual media.

This year, in addition to Fred Ritchin, the jury includes the following industry experts: Karen McQuaid (senior curator at The Photographers’ Gallery), Paolo Woods (photographer and co-founder of the Riverboom collective), Paola Jiménez Quispe (photographer, Bird in Flight Prize ‘20 winner), Valentin Bo (Ukrainian photographer), and Newsha Tavakolian (photographer based in Tehran and working with Magnum Photos). Besides, Swiss artists Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs will review the works of selected participants of the Bird in Flight Prize ‘21 photo contest.

Photo: Eman Helal