The Royal Photographic Society (RPS) Awards are the world’s longest running and most prestigious photography accolades. Now in its 144th year, the awards recognise individuals working across both still and moving image. The Awards celebrate significant achievements, showcase new and emerging talent, and highlight notable contributions from RPS members. The RPS 2022 award recipients tell remarkable stories, and their work is a testament to the power of photography to inspire, uplift, incite change and bring about personal, social, and cultural wellbeing.
The seventeen categories span different genres and applications of photography, including the recognition of achievements in moving image, new media, science and imaging, education, and curation. The categories continue to evolve to reflect new ways of seeing, making, and sharing photography.
Craig Easton. From the series Fisherwomen. Recipient of an Honorary Fellowship
The RPS Award winners 2022 are:
Progress Medal
The RPS Progress Medal goes jointly to Graham Hudson and Leonardo Chiariglione. Hudson was the founding Chairman of the original Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) Image Compression Standard. Chiariglione is also recognised for his development of international technical standards for digital media, including the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).
Centenary Medal
Destiny Deacon, for her sustained and significant contribution to photography. Deacon is an Indigenous Australian photographer and media artist who works across photography, video, sculpture, and installation to explore and satirise cliched and racist stereotypes.
Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award
Howard Greenberg is one of the world’s foremost photography dealers and is an authority on 19th and 20th century photography. In 2005, American Photo magazine proclaimed Greenberg as one of the 25 most important people in photography.
William Klein. Hat and Five Roses, 1956. Howard Greenberg, Recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award
Honorary Fellowships
Laia Abril, Dawoud Bey, Victor Burgin, Craig Easton, Jo Ractliffe, Ming Smith, Dafna Talmor, and Ajamu X for their exceptional and innovative work connected to the art or science of photography.
Lumière Award
John Akomfrah, for major achievements in film and video. Artist and filmmaker, Akomfrah’s works are characterised by their investigations into memory, postcolonialism, temporality and aesthetics and often explores the experiences of migrant diasporas globally.
Cinematic Production Award
Werner Herzog, for his sustained contribution to filmmaking. Herzog has written, produced and directed over 70 films, has published books of prose, staged over a dozen operas, acted in films and founded his own Rogue Film School.
Dafna Talmor. Untitled (HA-1212-1), 2014 From the Constructed Landscapes (Volume I) series. Recipient of an Honorary Fellowship
Hood Medal
Hoda Afshar for her work across photography and moving image that explores the representation of gender, marginality, and displacement.
Vic Odden Award
Carly Clarke, a social documentary and portrait photographer whose work focuses on social and political issues that otherwise might go unnoticed. The Vic Odden Award recognises a notable achievement in the art of photography by an individual aged 35 or under.
Editorial, Advertising and Fashion Photography Award
Nadine Ijewere for her photography that focuses on identity and diversity, her work that aims to showcase a new standard of beauty and her aim to give life to the uniqueness of disparate cultures.
Nadine Ijewere. Vogue UK, September 2020 Recipient of the Editorial, Advertising and Fashion Photography Award
Education Award
Andrew Dewdney, Professor of Educational Development at London South Bank University in the School of Arts and Creative Industries. Dewdney has played a critical role in photography education over two decades, contributing to curriculum development and photography education.
Curatorship
Anne McNeill, curator, editor and writer, is the Director and curator of Impressions Gallery, a charity that helps people understand the world through photography and acts as an agent of change.
J Dudley Johnston Award
Professor Emeritus Liz Wells, for her research in photographic culture that focuses on land, landscape, place, and environment, as well as on photographic theory and practices.
Professor Emeritus Liz Wells. Recipient of the J Dudley Johnston Award
The Selwyn Award
Edward Fry, for his published imaging science research that specialises in camera image quality, modelling and human vision. He currently works for Apple’s renowned camera team in California. The Selwyn Award is open to those within six years of completing a degree or PhD, where research and / or the application of their work to imaging, is their primary function.
Scientific Imaging Award
Babak Tafreshi, a science photographer for the National Geographic, for his merging of art and science through visual stories.
Babak Tafreshi. Death Valley. Recipient of the Scientific Imaging Award
Photographic Publishing Award
Craig Atkinson, publisher, researcher and senior lecturer in Fine Art and founder of Café Royal Books which was set up as an antidote to the slow, expensive and geographically-tied practice of the time.
Fenton Medals & RPS Members’ Award
The Fenton Medallists, awards bestowed on individuals who have provided significant service to the RPS, are Sue Brown FRPS, Robert Gates ARPS, Janet Haines ARPS, Richard Brown FRPS. The RPS Members’ Award goes to Mark Phillips FRPS.
Craig Atkinson. Factory Records 1979-1980, Café Royal Books. Recipient of the Photographic Publishing Award
The RPS host an ongoing series of events with past and present award recipients: rps.org/awardstalks
Featured image: Jo Ractliffe, Petrus Jacobus (‘Piet’) Basson reading the book of Luke, Vredesvallei (from the series The Borderlands), 2013. Recipient of an Honorary Fellowship in RPS 2022 Award
About the RPS Awards
The RPS awards selection committee is made up of members of the Royal Photographic Society and respected external advisors from all fields of photography. Nominations for 2023 are open now. Previous recipients of the RPS Awards include Sally Mann HonFRPS, Steve McCurry HonFRPS, Annie Leibovitz HonFRPS, Sir David Attenborough HonFRPS, Martin Parr HonFRPS and Sir Don McCullin HonFRPS.
Further reading:
The Royal Photographic Society: a prominent heritage of photography for all
Care home staff shoot unique RPS photo exhibition
