Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship in Photojournalism
The Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship in Photojournalism is an important new initiative in 2024 for the Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Fund.
Acclaimed photographer Sir Don McCullin and Tina Brown CBE on stage at Truth Tellers, the Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit 2024
Photojournalism and supporting its brave and brilliant practitioners was a central passion to Sir Harry’s life as an editor. Of his 17 books, six of them were about news photography and its ethics. His 1978 book Pictures on a Page remains the definitive study on the creation and presentation of powerful pictures.
Sir Harry was one of the first trustees of London’s Photographers’ Gallery. For his decades of publishing breakthrough photojournalism and writing and teaching on the topic, he received the Hood Medal of the Royal Photographic Society and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center of Photography.
It is our deepest pleasure to announce the annual Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship in Photojournalism, thanks to the personal generosity of David Thomson, chairman of Thomson Reuters. One of the many bonds that Sir Harry and Thomson shared in their treasured friendship was a love of great photojournalism and an appreciation that its immediacy and raw power can ingrain an image for a lifetime. Thomson has curated three distinguished books of photography from his own superb collection, and a number of his close friends are world-leading conflict photographers.
“It was one of the most elating phone calls I have ever received when David contacted me out of the blue last year and said, ‘Let’s launch a photojournalism fellowship in Harry’s name’,” recalls Tina Brown. “At a time when the outlets for real photojournalism disappear every day, and it is so hard for young photographers to get bold assignments and earn a living doing it, David’s generosity will be transformational.”
The new Fellowship will be awarded after a competitive application process. Applicants will propose a compelling visual project that will be published in a double footprint by both Reuters and the Thomson organisation’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s most influential newspaper. Sir Don McCullin has agreed to be one of the judges selecting the inaugural Fellow – an extraordinary honour for the Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Fund and the winning candidate.
Reuters is a stellar place to launch a photographic career, with a global pool of 600 staff and contract photojournalists. In 2024, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography with an entry from Israel and Gaza that included the work of nine photographers.
The Globe and Mail is a picture powerhouse. Under the galvanising editorship of David Walmsley, it recently launched a network of 50 up-and-coming photographers who will be brought on and supported throughout the year by established veterans to tell stories that otherwise go unseen. The newspaper competes at the highest levels internationally. In 2023, Italian-British photographer Siegfried Modola won the 2023 Visa d’Or News Award at the International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan for his photo essay in The Globe and Mail on the killing fields of Myanmar.
At the end of the Fellowship, Durham University will partner in an exhibit of the Fellow’s work.