Mary Calvert is committed to using photography to affect meaningful social change and is known for producing work on gender-based human rights issues. Calvert has been focusing her journalistic attention on the continually under-reported relegation and abuse of women in the US Armed Forces. Calvert has won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award twice and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Photography. Recently, Calvert was awarded the 2015 W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Fellowship.

MaryAnne Golon is director of photography at the Washington Post. As a member of the senior management team, she supervises all aspects of photography for the daily newspaper and its digital forms: on the web, mobile and tablet. MaryAnne received an IFA Lucie award as Picture Editor of the Year in 2013. She was previously Time magazine's director of photography and co-managed the international newsweekly’s photography department for more than 15 years, and was directly involved in the production of scores of award-winning Time covers and special editions, as well as coordinating Time's photographic coverage of the Olympic Games for sixteen years. She led the photo team that produced the Hurricane Katrina and the September 11, 2001 special Time editions that each won coveted ASME National Magazine Awards. She is on the Board of Directors of the Eddie Adams Workshop.

Ron Haviv is an award-winning photojournalist and conflict photographer who as documented international and civilian conflicts around the world since the Cold War. His work on Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and the Balkan concentrates not only on the direct effects of conflict but also upon the humanitarian consequences which are longer term and continue long after the gunfire has ceased. His awards include World Press Photo, Picture of the Year, Overseas Press Club and the Leica Medal of Excellence. Appreciating the need for a different kind of photo-collective to support and market the images of photographers he co-founded VII in 2001.

Lynn Johnson is a National Geographic Photography Fellow and a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine. She is known for shooting elusive subjects—language, disease, rape, water—and for asking tough questions. Her gripping photo essays of a family struggling with AIDS, of children coping with the brain death of their mother, and transgender teens are classics of the genre. She has led workshops for refugees in Colombia and for young people at National Geographic Photo Camps.

John Moore is a senior staff photographer and special correspondent for Getty Images. He has photographed in 65 countries on six continents and was posted internationally for 17 years, first to Nicaragua, then India, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt and Pakistan. Since returning to the U.S. in 2008 he has since focused on immigration and border issues. Moore has won top awards throughout his career, including the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, World Press Photo honors, the John Faber Award and the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club, Photographer of the Year from Pictures of the Year International, the NPPA and Sony World Photography Organization.

Nichole Sobecki is a photographer and filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is represented internationally by the photo agency VII. Sobecki graduated from Tufts University before beginning her career in Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, focusing on regional issues related to identity, conflict, and human rights. From 2012-2015 Nichole led Agence France-Presse’s East Africa video bureau, and was a Rory Peck Awards News Finalist for her coverage of the Westgate mall attacks in Kenya. In 2018 she was awarded by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights prize in new media for her images documenting Europe's response to the African migration crisis. Nichole's work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year, the One World Media Awards, the Alexandra Boulat Award for Photojournalism, The Magenta Foundation, and The Jacob Burns Film Center, among others.