Dates: September 24th – 26th, 2025
Location:
Columbia College Chicago Student Center | 754 S Wabash Ave
Pricing:
5 for $350 | 8 for $480 | 12 for $600
*Early Discount Pricing in effect through July 1st
Student Reviews:
$40/each (email caitlin@filterphoto.org with a copy of your Student ID to register)
Participants sign up for twenty-minute face-to-face portfolio reviews and receive constructive feedback, as well as information on getting their work exhibited and published. Reviews are for emerging and established photo-based artists looking to gain insight into their work and to expand their professional network.
For the full list of reviewers and to learn more about preparing for your reviews see below.
Registration opens May 25th for Filter Photo Members, and June 1st for the general public.
Dates: September 24th – 26th, 2026
Location:
Columbia College Chicago Student Center | 754 S Wabash Ave
Pricing:
5 for $350 | 8 for $480 | 12 for $600
*Early Discount Pricing in effect through July 1st
Student Reviews:
$40/each
(email caitlin@filterphoto.org with a copy of your Student ID to register)
2026 PORTFOLIO REVIEWS
September 18 – 21, 2024
Columbia College Chicago Student Center
REVIEWER BIOS
Dan Boardman is an artist and arts administrator living and working in Elbridge, NY. Boardman received a BFA in photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2008 and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2012. Boardman is Light Work’s Executive Director, a role he has held since 2022. Light Work is a non-profit organization that, for five decades, has supported emerging and underrepresented lens-based artists.
Boardman is most interested fine art photography of all shapes and sizes, but also happy review all types of work.
Whitney Bradshaw is an artist, activist, educator, curator, former social worker, and documentary film producer whose practice is dedicated to healing and empowerment while boldly confronting systems that marginalize and oppress. She is the creator of OUTCRY, an ongoing social practice project that has been exhibited widely across the United States, with solo shows at Atlanta Contemporary, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the DePaul Art Museum, Villanova University Art Gallery, Moreau Galleries at St. Mary’s College, the 21c Museum Hotel Louisville, Wavepool Contemporary Art Fulfillment Center and more. Her photographs are held in prominent collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the DePaul Art Museum, the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, the Hall Art and Technology Foundation, the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Collection, and have been featured in Ms. Magazine, the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, NewCity Magazine, the LA Times, and Vogue. In Fall 2023, Whitney was named one of NewCity Magazine’s “50 Chicago Artists’ Artists.”
Whitney and OUTCRY are the subject of a short documentary film titled "OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage" directed by Clare Major and produced by Frankly Speaking Films. The film premiered at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco in June 2024 and was shortlisted for the International Documentary Association's Best Short Film Award of 2024.
Whitney currently serves as curator at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City, Indiana, following earlier roles as chair of the visual arts conservatory at the Chicago High School for the Arts, curator of the esteemed LaSalle Bank Photography Collection, later the Bank of America Collection, and adjunct professor of photography at Columbia College Chicago. Before her curatorial career, she worked as a social worker supporting survivors of sexual abuse and assault, families of children with disabilities, and adults with disabilities.
Bradshaw is most interested in reviewing fine art photography, and is not interested in reviewing commercial work. She is particularly interested in reviewing work by women, BIPOC, and/or queer artists; and work that engages community and seeks social justice. She is also interested in art as activism, memoir/diaristic work/family photographs, archival investigations, staged, documentary, collage, and material-based practices.
Tim Carpenter is a photographer, writer, and educator who works in Brooklyn and central Illinois. He is the author of several photobooks, among them Little (The Ice Plant); A month of Sundays (TIS books); Christmas Day, Bucks Pond Road (The Ice Plant); Local objects (The Ice Plant); township (TIS/dumbsaint); Bement grain (TIS/dumbsaint); Still feel gone (Deadbeat Club Press); The king of the birds (TIS books); and A house and a tree (TIS books). Tim received an MFA in Photography from the Hartford Art School in 2012. He is a faculty member of the Penumbra Foundation Long Term Photobook Program and serves as a mentor in the Image Threads Mentorship Program. Tim’s book-length essay “To photograph is to learn how to die” was published by The Ice Plant in Fall 2022.
Carpenter is interested in seeing all kind of photography. He really just wants to know what’s in your heart and your head that can only find expression with a camera.
Gail Fletcher is a Photo Editor at The Guardian, where she develops and produces visual stories. She is also on faculty at the International Center of Photography and was previously an Associate Photo Editor at National Geographic. Several of the projects she produced alongside editors and photographers received recognition from organizations including Pictures of the Year, ASME, and World Press Photo. She has served as a juror for the Alexia Grant, Review Santa Fe, American Photography, and others, and she regularly reviews portfolios to help photographers and artists refine their best work. Originally from South Florida, she is now based in Brooklyn, New York.
Fletcher is most interested in reviewing both in-progress and publication-ready documentary and photojournalism projects, as well as portraiture. She is particularly interested in US-based or US-related work, but also open to projects from elsewhere that carry global appeal.
Leo Hsu is the Executive Director of Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh. Silver Eye’s mission is to promote the power of contemporary photography as a fine art by supporting and sharing the work of emerging, mid-career, under-represented and under-seen artists and by supporting creative growth for all through photography. Leo has worked with Fraction Magazine, Foto8, Carnegie Mellon University, and as a news photographer, and studied humanities, anthropology, and culture and media.
Hsu is interested in the ways that we use photography to acknowledge, examine, celebrate, and critique our social connections and contexts, shared and personal histories, and the possibilities of visual communication. He is interested in seeing new work and current directions of work that speak to the artist's lived experience.
Sara Ickow is the Associate Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the International Center of Photography and the Managing Director for Women Photograph. Previously, she worked as a curatorial assistant and collections manager with the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. She holds an MA in art history from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.
Ickow is most interested in reviewing recent and new work, with a particular interest in documentary projects, photojournalism, fine art, and alternative practices and is open to reviewing all types of work.
Frances Jakubek is an image-maker, independent curator, and artist consultant. She co-founded A Yellow Rose Project, a large-scale collaboration focused on voting access and women’s rights. She previously served as Registrar and Director at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City and as Associate Curator at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts. She teaches workshops on preparing projects for exhibition and is dedicated to building relationships and fostering community among artists and administrators.
Jakubek is interested in reviewing work at any stage of development. Conceptual series that incorporate a personal narrative, documentary work, and unwieldy projects are of particular interest. She can offer guidance in identifying threads and connections among photographs and clarifying the motivations behind creating and presenting the work.Maria L. Kelly is the Assistant Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. During her time at the High, Maria has helped organize nearly thirty photography installations. Her exhibitions include Photography's New Vision: Experiments in Seeing (2025), Tyler Mitchell: Idyllic Space (2024), Underexposed: Women Photographers from the Collection (2021), What Is Near: Reflections on Home (2016), and Helen Levitt: In the Street (2015), among others. Maria established an acquisition initiative to expand the High's holdings of photography by LGBTQIA+ identifying artists, which is part of her commitment to shaping a broader history of the medium. She has independently curated exhibitions at Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, France; Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, GA; and Columbus State University, Columbus, GA.
Maria earned an M.A. from Columbia University and a B.A. from the University of Georgia, both in art history. She has held positions at The Sir Elton John Photography Collection and the Brooklyn Museum and internships at The Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Georgia Museum of Art.Kelly is most interested in reviewing work by artists looking for dialogue for in-progress or recently completed bodies of work with a strong conceptual element. She has particular interest in work employing alternative processes, considering identity, concerning the environment, or engaging with archives. She is not interested in reviewing studio portraiture or traditional nudes without a conceptual thesis and is also not interested in AI generated work.
Nick Larsen is an artist and book editor living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He studied at the University of Nevada, Reno and the Ohio State University, where he received his MFA in Sculpture. Larsen has had over a dozen solo and collaborative exhibitions, including Old Haunts, Lower Reaches at the Nevada Museum of Art, and been a part of a number of notable group exhibitions, including several editions of New American Paintings. Since 2022, he has been the managing editor at Radius Books, a nonprofit art book publisher in Santa Fe, where he has overseen the publication of over seventy photography, fine art, architecture, and poetry books.
Larsen is interested in seeing all kinds of photography, particularly fine art, mixed media, or work being prepped for publication as a book or for an exhibition context. While he's happy to look at work that is commercial, editorial, or strictly documentary in nature, those kinds of photography are not his areas of expertise.
Noa Lin is associate editor at Aperture. He has edited books by Lee Friedlander, Takuma Nakahira, and Richard Misrach, and assisted on numerous others. He is contributing editor to The PhotoBook Review in Aperture magazine. Before joining Aperture in 2022, he was an editorial assistant at Melcher Media. Noa holds a BA in studio art and English from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut.
Ben McBride is Assistant Collections Curator in the photography department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He is responsible for the permanent collection rotations in the photography galleries of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building. Additionally, he contributes to all of the department’s special exhibition projects. He assisted with the recent MFAH exhibitions Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America, 1955 (2023-2024) and Gordon Parks: Stokely Carmichael and Black Power (2022). Ben received his MA in art history from the University of Kansas, and he previously served in the works on paper department at the Spencer Museum of Art.
Ben looks forward to reviewing diverse photographic projects at any stage of development. He can assist photographers in thinking through the historical context of their work, editing, and how to best present projects to various audiences. McBride is open to seeing photographic work of any genre, as well as new media work, and is particularly interested in student work.
Emilia Mickevicius, PhD is the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography, a dual appointment shared between the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson and Phoenix Art Museum. In her role, she primarily draws from the CCP's collection to craft exhibitions for audiences in Phoenix. Her recent projects include Ecstatic Time: the Alchemy of Photography, Muscle Memory: Lens on the Body, Funny Business: Photography and Humor, and exhibitions on Laura Aguilar and Richard Avedon. From 2019 to 2023, Emmy worked in the photography department at SFMOMA, where she contributed to numerous exhibitions of work by historical and living artists.
Mickevicius is most interested in reviewing work with a strong conceptual or personal orientation, and at a variety of stages of development. She is not interested in reviewing non-conceptual nudes or landscapes.
Postlewait joined the Dayton Art Institute in 2023. She holds a BFA from Adrian College, an MA from Bowling Green State University, and a PhD from Binghamton University. Her doctoral research examined issues of authorship, class, power, and representation in Richard Avedon’s 1985 book and exhibition In the American West, a series that has influenced photographers since its debut but is rarely discussed by art historians. On her journey of doctoral research, Postlewait presented at the Symposium on the History of Art hosted by NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and the Frick Collection, and was an Ansel Adams Research Fellow at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in 2018. She earned a trustee’s award for staff excellence in 2021 in her capacity as Director of the Learning Commons at Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, where she transitioned the library to a learning commons model, created Makers’ Lunch and Vibe Check programs, a writing center, tutoring services, and visual literacy workshops, as well as an annual Faculty Teaching & Learning Series conference. In her current role, Postlewait oversees the photography and feminist art collections and has curated more than ten exhibitions with topics ranging from hand-colored photographs to Feminism 101.
Mariah is open to reviewing all types of work with a particular interest in reviewing emerging artists.
Laura Wzorek Pressley operates at the intersection of cultural production, research-driven collaboration, and program design. In 2025, she led the opening and direction of CENTER’s new exhibition space in Santa Fe, where she now curates a year-round schedule of premier photographic projects. Her expertise spans both the arts and rigorous civic research; she has served as a Senior Fellow in the University of New Mexico’s Policy & Evaluation Lab, delivering high-level quantitative and qualitative analyses for community and government organizations. As a curator and producer, Laura has shaped impactful exhibitions such as Nuclear Legacy (2025), Through the Curtain (2025), Art & Oppression (2017), and The Frontier (2016). Her reach extends globally through collaborative partnerships, including co-curating the Korea International Photo Festival, as she consistently champions art as a vehicle for social inquiry.
Laura prioritizes socially and environmentally engaged lens-based projects. Her curatorial vision centers on narratives that amplify vulnerable and underrepresented experiences, championing photography as a vital tool for community advocacy and global inquiry.
Allison Peters Quinn is a curator, writer and art administrator. Through her practice, she prioritizes civically-oriented art projects that address intersections between public space, the built environment and human agency. Over the past twenty years, she has organized significant exhibitions and published essays for emerging and established contemporary artists such as Candida Alvarez, Kelli Connell, Faheem Majeed, and Lan Tuazon. Quinn is currently the Executive Director & Chief Curator at Elmhurst Art Museum.
Caitlin Ryan is Assistant Curator in The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, where she has been on the curatorial teams for exhibition and catalogue projects, including Our Selves: Photographs by Women Artists from Helen Kornblum (2022); Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear (2022); An-My Lê: Between Two Rivers (2023); LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity (2024); and New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging (2025). Prior to joining MoMA as a Mellon Research Consortium Fellow in 2020, she held curatorial positions at the Princeton University Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and teaching roles at Princeton University and Georgia State University. She earned a PhD in Art & Archaeology from Princeton University.
Ryan is interested in reviewing photography across genres, with particular interest in conceptual documentary practices and expanded forms of photography.
Katherine Ryckman Siegwarth is the Executive Director of FotoFocus, a non-profit arts organization that champions photography and lens-based art in Cincinnati. The organization hosts a variety of signature programs including the FotoFocus Biennial and in May 2026, opened the FotoFocus Center, a new facility designed to house photographic exhibitions and year-round programs.
Previously, Siegwarth served as the Dayton Art Institute’s Kettering Curator of Photography and Special Projects, was the Assistant Director of Zhulong Gallery (Dallas, TX), Luce Curatorial Fellow of Photography at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth, TX), and held positions at the Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ). Siegwarth has a Masters of Arts in Art History and a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Arizona.
Siegwarth is most interested in reviewing landscape, reporting, and alternative process work. She is less interested in reviewing fashion or AI work.
Momo Takahashi is a first-generation Japanese American photographer and photo editor based in Queens, New York. She is currently the Assistant Photo Editor at The New Yorker. Previously, she was a Photo Editor Fellow at Business Insider and a researcher for author Min Jin Lee.
Takahashi is most interested in reviewing documentary work, photojournalism, portraiture, and fine art photography. She is not interested in reviewing fashion, sports, concert, animal, or event/wedding photography.
Garrett Walinske is the Associate Director at Kavi Gupta Gallery, a contemporary art gallery that amplifies the voices of diverse and underrepresented artists to expand the canon of art history. For the past three years, he has supported its exhibition programs, working closely with artists to realize institutional exhibitions and presentations across the gallery. He manages artist and client relationships and coordinates participation in international art fairs. Additionally, he is Director of Publishing Initiatives at Editions Kavi Gupta, the gallery’s publishing arm, producing artist editions, monographs, and exhibition catalogs. In parallel, he is Co-Founder and Director of Amateur Press, an independent press dedicated to producing lens-based editions through sustained, collaborative dialogue. Walinske studied Photography and Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he now regularly serves as a guest critic and portfolio reviewer.
Walinske is interested in reviewing conceptually grounded works, or projects that use photography as a site of poetic inquiry, or social engagement.
Sasha Wolf represents some of the foremost photographic artists, facilitating the placement of their prints in museums, university collections, private and corporate collections, as well as individual homes. Sasha frequently reviews and judges work for prestigious art institutions, universities, and fairs, while also lecturing and conducting artist workshops nationwide on professional practices and project development.
Additionally, Sasha is the Founder and Executive Director of the PhotoWork Foundation, a nonprofit foundation established to provide arts-education and mentorship to photographic artists, working in the post-documentary tradition. Sasha’s book, PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice, was published by Aperture in Fall 2019.
Wolf is interested in reviewing work in the documentary or lyrical documentary genre.
You will be asked to submit your reviewer preferences in order from 1-15, 1 being who you would like to see the most. The date you register holds your place in line and priority is given to those who register early. Schedules will be released by late August / early September.
The best way to present your work is loose prints inside a clamshell portfolio box. Time is valuable while being reviewed and you want to be sure you can easily access each print and have the ability to edit as your review is being conducted.
A typical portfolio is comprised of tightly edited images in a project or series of 15-25 prints. Take into consideration what the final print size would be for exhibiting and if it is easy to carry and handle. You will be given a standard 6ft table to present your work to the reviewer and most people show prints between 11 x 14 to 20 x 24 inches.
FAQ
The best way to have the most success with your reviews is to practice and research. Be sure you are meeting with a reviewer who is interested in your work. A good way to ensure this is to read their bio, found on our reviewers’ page, and research what type of work they generally exhibit or publish. Be sure to allow enough time for the reviewer to critique and give advice.
To make the most out of your review you should plan to bring a business card, leave behind, or a promotional piece that has current contact information and an image from your project, or series, that is being reviewed. It is also important that this piece is easy for the reviewer to take with them and can easily fit in a standard folder or envelope. Bringing a pen and pad of paper is also very useful to take down information during your review.
Refunds will be processed with a 15% fee. No refunds will be given after August 1st.
You will be asked to submit your reviewer preferences in order from 1-15, 1 being who you would like to see the most. The date you register holds your place in line and priority is given to those who register early. Schedules will be released by late August / early September.
The best way to present your work is loose prints inside a clamshell portfolio box. Time is valuable while being reviewed and you want to be sure you can easily access each print and have the ability to edit as your review is being conducted.
A typical portfolio is comprised of tightly edited images in a project or series of 15-25 prints. Take into consideration what the final print size would be for exhibiting and if it is easy to carry and handle. You will be given a standard 6ft table to present your work to the reviewer and most people show prints between 11 x 14 to 20 x 24 inches.
The best way to have the most success with your reviews is to practice and research. Be sure you are meeting with a reviewer who is interested in your work. A good way to ensure this is to read his or her bio, found on our reviewers’ page, and research what type of work they generally exhibit or publish. Be sure to allow enough time for the reviewer to critique and give advice.
To make the most out of your review you should plan to bring a business card, leave behind, or a promotional piece that has current contact information and an image from your project, or series, that is being reviewed. It is also important that this piece is easy for the reviewer to take with them and can easily fit in a standard folder or envelope. Bringing a pen and pad of paper is also very useful to take down information during your review.
Refunds will be processed with a 15% fee. No refunds will be given after August 1st.