Brett Rogers, Director of the Photographer's Gallery, on how to win the BJP International Photography Award

Brett Rogers OBE, has been the director of The Photographers’ Gallery since 2006, and has spent the last decade transforming it into the celebrated London centre of photography.
She was awarded an OBE for her dedication to nurturing arts and media, where, amongst other things, she has endorsed and propelled photography to the forefront of conversation as an established art form in the UK, as well as boosting the profiles of British photographers abroad.
Before The Photographers’ Gallery, Rogers was the deputy director and head of exhibitions at the Visual Arts Department at the British Council, making her an immensely respected figure in the creative industry and an honourable figure for us to have on the IPA judging panel this year.
“The IPA provides a great opportunity to have your work appraised by a jury which represents a good range of skills across the photography sector,” says Rogers of the award. “Most of the winners go onto become well-known artists within a few years so it has certainly become an important award within the field for discovering a range of new talent.”
Even with her extensive experience, Rogers says she is always looking to be surprised.
In judging the 2017 entries, “a new approach to any subject that brings with it a fresh understanding and perspective,” is what will make things stand out.
“It doesn’t really matter what the subject it,” she says. “It’s the treatment and interpretation by the photographer in a new way that I am interested in. It would be sensible to avoid cliché, well-known formulae, hackneyed approaches to genres.”
This year, instead of two separate categories, there will be just one title awarded for the best photographic series.
In the photography director’s words, “a series offers rich opportunities to articulate a story line – weaving new narratives and reappraising different ways of story-telling across a series of images.”
Look out for our next “Meet the judges” interview, which will be online in the coming weeks.
The deadline for applications for the 2019 edition of BJP International Photography Award is 20 December 2018 – 4pm GMT.  Apply now!
 
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