You can get to know our international jury members participating in the sixth edition of the Istanbul Street Photo Festival.
Arez Prod
Arez Prod is a street photographer born in 1982 in Livorno, Italy. After working as a fishmonger for 25 years, he discovered his creative side through hip-hop and street art, eventually falling in love with street photography in 2017. Since then, he never leaves his camera behind when he’s not working, always ready to capture extraordinary moments in everyday urban life. His approach is deeply personal—he often places himself metaphorically within his images, reflecting the influences that shaped him and the character that emerged from them. In 2022, he co-founded the Pisa Street Photography International Festival (PSPI) with his friend Mario Mencacci.
Aslı Ulaş Gönen
Aslı Ulaş Gönen is a street photographer originally from Eskişehir. Since 2007, she has been developing her observational approach as a self-taught artist, producing powerful frames through the use of dramatic light, silhouettes, and shadows. With her distinctive shadow/silhouette aesthetic, she has been actively involved in both local and international collectives such as Women in Street Turkey, and Progressive Street.
Bahar MD
Bahar MD, whose real name is Bahar Cömert, is a psychiatrist and street photographer based in Istanbul. In her photographic work, she blends her background in psychology with visual storytelling to reflect the emotional layers embedded in urban life through a simple yet powerful style. As the founder and curator of the international street photography collective @dreaminstreets, she promotes an intuitive approach to photography that prioritizes emotional insight over aesthetics.
Edas Wong
Edas Wong is a street photographer born in Hong Kong and currently based in Stockholm. He creates powerful, humorous, and at times optically illusory scenes by capturing accidental alignments between people, shadows, and urban objects. Embracing an observational approach grounded in “an empty mind and focused attention,” his photography explores the surreal within the ordinary. His work has been recognized with several international awards, including the All About Photo Merit Award (2022), 3rd place in the IPA Oneshot SP Geo (2019), and a Juror Pick in LensCulture (2016).
Forrest Walker
Forrest Walker is an American street and documentary photographer based in Portland, Oregon. Through his five-year-long project titled Major City Project, he traveled on foot through over 100 major cities across more than 75 countries, walking approximately 20 kilometers per day to authentically capture scenes of everyday life in a vivid and realistic style. This ambitious project earned him awards and finalist placements in prominent platforms such as the LensCulture Street Photography Awards, Urban Photo Awards, and the Istanbul and Brussels Street Photography Festivals.
Marina Bulduk
Marina Bulduk is a street photographer originally from Belarus and currently based in Istanbul. She prefers to capture minimalist frames from daily life in Istanbul, often focusing on geometric arrangements, silhouettes, and shadow play. After starting as an amateur, she turned her passion for photography into a professional pursuit in 2018, transforming from a passive observer into an artist who creates scenes. Her photographs convey a strong sense of aesthetic simplicity, guided by the motto “Carpe Diem.” Her work has been featured on platforms such as the Street Photographers Foundation.
Masoud Gharaei
Masoud Gharaei is an Iranian street photographer born in 1988. He captures the human stories hidden in everyday urban life in Iran with a refined color and black and white aesthetic. His work – often described as modern visual poetry – combines portraiture, the rhythm of the street, and a broader social context to create compelling narratives. He is the founder of the Street Photographers Foundation and has exhibited his work at many prestigious events.
Mehmet Serhan Karahan
Mehmet Serhan Karahan is an photographer based in Ankara. He has been photographing for many years with a deep personal interest, not only in taking pictures but also in seeing and reading about photography. His work explores the relationship between the city and its people, urban nature, and the presence of individuals within architectural structures. He often focuses on the human figure situated within the geometric order of urban environments, aiming to capture those subtle intersections where form and life converge.
Niki Gleoudi
Niki Gleoudi is an award-winning street photographer, born in Greece and currently based in both Miami and Thessaloniki. She is known for her ability to capture human relationships, emotions, and social energy through aesthetically composed street scenes. Her international recognition grew significantly after being featured in Gulnara Samoilova’s Women Street Photographers book. A graduate of Washington University, Gleoudi has participated in numerous exhibitions and has been featured on various international photography platforms.
Rafet Ertuğrul
Rafet Ertuğrul is one of the notable names in Ankara’s street and candid mobile photography scene. He gained recognition after being featured in Fisheye Magazine’s Instagram selection under the theme “Strangeness and street, or rather the strangeness of streets.” His work has also been showcased on LensCulture, particularly through projects centered around urban life in Ankara.
Rebecca Wiltshire
Rebecca Wiltshire is an experienced street photographer based in Perth, Western Australia. Having taken up photography later in life, she focuses on beach culture, social connection, and human stories bathed in warm light. Her images are rich in social interaction and often unfold in aesthetically powerful scenes set against water and summer landscapes. Rebecca is one of the co-founders of the Unexposed Collective and is actively involved with the Women in Street platform. In 2019, she was selected as a finalist in the Istanbul Street Photography Festival (ISPF) and has exhibited her work in various cities internationally.
Selnur Dinçer Okudan
Selnur Dinçer Okudan is an independent street and documentary photographer based in Turkey. She draws human narratives from urban everyday life with a black-and-white aesthetic. In 2024, she curated for Unexposed Collective, which significantly contributed to the international visibility of female street photographers from Anatolia. She is also one of the artists whose photographs have been praised and shared on The Urban Street Photography Group platform.
Shweta Agarwal
Shweta Agarwal is an artist, photographer, and curator born and raised in Patna, India. She began practicing street photography in 2012 and, after receiving photojournalism training in Mumbai, gradually became a recognized name on international platforms. She is also the founder of The HeArt Space, an independent art studio through which she brings artists together, organizes exhibitions, and hosts creative events.
Thomas Hackenberg
For Thomas Hackenberg, candid street photography is the perfect medium to embrace life and express himself. He loves that you can never tell what life has in store for you just around the next corner. It’s the magic of this ordinary – yet so special and elusive – moment when everything suddenly falls into place for a great shot, and this curiosity has lost none of its appeal for him to this day. Today he lives as a photographer in Braunschweig, Germany. His work has been featured in various international publications and exhibitions.
Zer Erdoğan
Zer Erdoğan is a street photographer born in Elbistan, Kahramanmaraş, and currently based in Istanbul. She is an active figure in the street photography scene, focusing her lens on black-and-white and women-centered urban narratives through the platforms she founded, @mystreet_bnw and @mystreet_women. In addition, she serves as a curator for international projects such as Street Macadam and Street Photography Brazil, contributing to the global visibility of street photography with a distinctive perspective.
