© Trea van Drunen
Interview with Stephen Mayes Jury Member Pride Photo Award
Stephen Mayes (UK)
chaired the Pride Photo Award jury in 2013 and was a jury member in 2011. He
was secretary of World Press Photo from 2004 to 2012 and Managing Director of
VII Photo Agency New York until 2013. Having worked with commercial, art and
fashion photographers provided him with rich experience in press and
documentary photography as well as commercial stock, art and fashion. Currently
he manages the Tim Hetherington Trust and works freelance on various projects,
including regular publications on the ethics and realities of photographic
practice.
You were a Pride Photo Award jury member in 2011
and jury chairman last year. Was it hard to choose the winning photos? Did the
entries meet your expectations?
I sometimes think
that if judges say it's easy to select winners it means that they're not working
hard enough! It's always hard to select winning photos because the
process requires the judge to examine work form many different perspectives and
often it requires us to move outside our comfort zone. It's difficult to
compare work made by different artists in different cultures and we have to
consider everything that makes the images meaningful even if they look strange
and unfamiliar. I'm happy to say that the Pride judges never had to face
the difficulty of rewarding bad photography! The standard of entries has
been very high and rising, so the challenge is to find the best of the best.
What are your thoughts about Pride Photo Award,
and your reasons for supporting it?
I'm a big
supporter of Pride Photo Awards because of the shared emphasis on photographic
quality and political significance. It's too easy for many of us living
in big European and American cities to forget that the fight for queer equality
is far from over. Many parts of the world can hardly even dream of full
LGBTQ equality and untold millions live lives that are loveless and emotionally
stunted, full of fear and physically at risk. The Pride awards reveal brave
people who challenge the orthodoxy, demanding respect and recognition, and
offering inspiration.
What do you think about the photo book project
for the 5 year anniversary of Pride Photo Award?
I look forward to
the 5th anniversary book, which will gather a diverse geographic overview of
queer experience around the world. At the same time, it will be an historical
benchmark against which to measure future progress.