The Saltzman-Leibovitz Photography Prize returns to Photo London 2026, showcasing a new generation of emerging female photographers.
Founded in 2025 by photographer and philanthropist Lisa Saltzman in collaboration with Annie Leibovitz, the prize honours the legacy of collectors Ralph and Muriel Saltzman while looking firmly forward—championing a new generation of female visual storytellers at a pivotal moment in their careers.
The 2026 edition takes inspiration from Leibovitz’s landmark book Women, foregrounding practices that expand how identity, memory and lived experience are represented through photography. A selection of works by five nominated artists will be exhibited at Olympia London from 13th–17th May, placing emerging practices in dialogue with one of the city’s most visible photography platforms.
At its core, the prize is about attention—how we look, and what we choose to see.
“I established the Saltzman Leibovitz Prize in honour of my parents… who taught me to pay attention: to art, to people, and to the world around us,”
says Saltzman.
“Annie Leibovitz has spent a lifetime doing exactly that… This prize is my way of carrying those legacies forward.”
Five Practices, Five Perspectives
Selected by an international group of nominators spanning publishing, curating and visual culture—including Zanele Muholi and Emma Bowkett—this year’s shortlist reflects a wide geographic and conceptual range.
Brooklyn-born artist Miranda Rae Barnes turns her lens on African American cotillion culture, documenting Black debutante balls through richly composed colour photography. Her images move between celebration and critique, capturing generational pride while acknowledging the historical tensions surrounding visibility, respectability and race.
From Bolivia, Marisol Mendez works at the intersection of research and fiction, layering Andean folklore with Catholic iconography. Her project MADRE combines staged and documentary imagery with family archives, building a complex portrait of matriarchal lineage and contemporary identity.
Johannesburg-based artist Cole Ndelu brings together photography, fashion and spirituality, exploring intimacy, ritual and Zulu identity. Her work moves fluidly between personal and collective experience, tracing how memory and cultural frameworks shape ways of seeing.
Self-taught photographer Lindeka Qampi documents everyday life in Khayelitsha, South Africa, where she has lived since her teens. Her images, grounded in the rhythms of township life, reveal the poetry within ordinary moments—balancing political realities with scenes of play, creativity and resilience.
Meanwhile, Franco-Uruguayan photographer Bettina Pittaluga offers a quieter, deeply intimate perspective. Working largely within her own community in Paris, her project No Body Is Just One Thing reflects on queer life beyond spectacle—foregrounding moments of rest, connection and tenderness.
A Platform for Emerging Voices
Together, the five artists articulate photography as both document and construction—an image-making practice shaped as much by personal histories as by broader cultural narratives.
The prize’s jury, including figures from publishing, curating and institutions such as Phaidon and the International Center of Photography, will select the 2026 recipient, but the exhibition itself operates as a wider platform—bringing these practices into public view at a moment when new perspectives on representation feel increasingly urgent.
As the Saltzman-Leibovitz Photography Prize enters its second year, its focus remains clear: to support artists not just as image-makers, but as storytellers navigating complex, layered worlds—where the personal, political and poetic converge.
MORE: saltzmanfamilyfoundation.org
The curator of the Saltzman-Leibovitz Photography Prize is Caterina Mestrovich, a photography curator and art advisor with over a decade of experience supporting artists and shaping exhibitions and collections internationally.
