James Wellford is a Senior Photo Editor for Global Issues at National Geographic Magazine in Washington, DC. Prior to this, he was the Editorial Director at Visura (Visura.co) and a contributing photo editor at Foreign Policy, CNN, and Smithsonian Journeys. For 12 years he was the International Photo Editor at Newsweek Magazine and is a Knight Wallace Fellow from the University of Michigan. His collaborative work with photographers has received top honors at the Overseas Press Club, World Press Photo, POYi, American Photo, Visa Pour L’image, PX 3, and NPPA. He curates photography and multimedia shows that address topical issues in the world including most recently; “American Photography” for the Photographic Museum of Humanity. Winter 2015, “Remembering Liberia”. Photoville 2013. Brooklyn, NY. “Iraq 10 Years”. by Franco Pagetti. VII Gallery. Brooklyn, NY. 2013. “Dispatch from Tohoku: Documenting the Aftermath in Japan” New York, NY. 2012. “Generation 9/11, Ten Years of War Photography after 9/11” The Hague, Netherlands. 2011. “Projections of Reality: Encounters with the (Un)Familiar” Moscow, Russia. 2010.
James has served as a jury member for the Magnum Emergency Fund, the Tim Hetherington Trust Award, the Catchlight Awards, Visa Pour L’image, POYi, the Aperture Paris PhotoBook Award, and the Overseas Press Club and was a member of the 2012 World Press Masterclass in Amsterdam He is also on the advisory board of the Photobook Museum and is the co-founder of ScreenProjects (http://www.screenprojects.org) an organization working on ways to create, support, and deliver powerful visual and narrative stories around the world.
Picture by Adam Ferguson
