What is it really like to be a documentary photographer? Join us for a candid conversation with some of the best documentary photographers and photojournalists from across Southeast Asia. Our distinguished panel share their insights on the day-to-day realities of the profession: navigating ethics, safety, training, and other challenges unique to photographers in the region… and what the future could look like for the industry.
Beyond the Frame: Insights from documentary photographers in the field
📅 Sunday, 23 March 2025
⏰ 5 – 6:30pm Singapore
💻 Live via Zoom
With
✅ Wong Maye-E (USA)
✅ Veejay Villafranca (PH)
✅ Annice Lyn (MY)
✅ Joshua Irwandi (ID)
✅ Muhammad Fadli (ID)
✅ Nyimas Laula (ID)
✅ Ian Teh (MY)
✅ How Hwee Young (SG)
✅ Valeria Mongelli (TH)
For anyone serious about understanding the realities of visual journalism today, this discussion offers genuine insights into challenges faced by photographers working across our region’s diverse contexts, and what it means to document our changing world.
The In Conversation series is a POY Asia and Parallax collaboration.
Our Panelists
Wong Maye-E (USA)
Wong Maye-E is an internationally acclaimed, multi-award-winning photojournalist with over two decades of experience working internationally in breaking news, special reports, and major sporting events. Currently the Senior Editor of Reuters’ Wider Image and Special Projects, she mentors photographers all over the world in long form storytelling, and collaborates daily with journalists and editors across the newsroom to produce deep and impactful multimedia stories. Maye-E has been on World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year (POYi), and Pictures of the Year Asia (POY Asia) juries. She is a founding advisor of POY Asia, and a director on the Eddie Adams Workshop board. Maye-E is based in New York.
🔗 @w0ngmayee
Veejay Villafranca (Philippines)
Veejay Villafranca is a photographer and adjunct lecturer from the Philippines. He started his career as a staff photojournalist for the national news magazine Philippines Graphic, before working freelance with international news agencies including AFP, AP, Reuters, World Picture News (WPN), Gettyand Bloomberg, covering topics such as the evolving Filipino cultural landscape, effects of displacement on local communities, and the underbelly of gangs and secret societies. Veejay was World Press Photo’s 2024 Southeast Asia jury chair, 2023 jury member, and 2021 Southeast Asia regional coordinator. He published his first monograph, SIGNOS, with Mapa Books in 2017.
🔗 veejayvillafranca.com | @vjvillafranca
Annice Lyn (Malaysia)
Annice Lyn is a Malaysian photojournalist, former national figure skater, and architecture graduate. She has covered high-profile events, including four Olympic Games to date, while also documenting visual stories of underrepresented communities, focusing on critical narratives in sports and humanitarian contexts. A Southeast Asia Women of the Future 2020 laureate and co-founder of @womenphotographersmy, she champions inclusivity in visual storytelling. Her achievements include a TIME magazine cover in April 2021’s Climate is Everything issue and being named one of 2021’s Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia. She works extensively with the United Nations and @anocolympic, demonstrating how photography can be a transformative tool to connect and unite people.
🔗 annicelyn.com| @annicelyn
Joshua Irwandi (Indonesia)
Joshua Irwandi (Jakarta, 1991) is a documentary photographer and National Geographic Explorer based in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is part of the VII Photo Mentorship Program, and studied English Literature at the University of Exeter, before pursuing photojournalism at London College of Communication. While working in West Papua, he was embedded at the Asmat Museum, documenting the Asmat people. His project Not A Blank Canvas received a National Geographic Society grant in 2021. His work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Washington Post and others, earning recognition from World Press Photo, The Lucie Foundation, and the Pulitzer Prizes.
🔗 joshuairwandi.com | @joshirwandi
Muhammad Fadli (Indonesia)
Muhammad Fadli is a documentary photographer based in Jakarta, Indonesia. His work focuses on history, environment, and social issues, mainly in his native Indonesia, and has been published in National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Le Monde among others. He is a Climate Change reporting fellow of The Ground Truth Project, and recipient of National Geographic’s Covid-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists. He was a 2021 World Press Photo jury member.
Fadli published Rebel Riders in 2018 (Dienacht Publishing, Germany), and The Banda Journal in 2021 (JordanJordan, Indonesia) with writer Fatris MF, which won Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook of the Year 2021 Award. He is also a filmmaker, photo editor, and multimedia producer.
🔗 muhammadfadli.com | @mfimages
Nyimas Laula (Indonesia)
Nyimas Laula is an Indonesian photojournalist documenting environmental and human rights issues since 2015. Her work has appeared in Reuters, The New York Times, National Geographic, and other major publications. Notable projects include documenting Rohingya refugees (2015), Indonesia’s devastating forest fires (2015), and Bali’s plastic pollution crisis (2019). Her “INSIDE” exhibition has traveled internationally, and her work was featured at the United Nations Development Programme’s COVID-19 exhibition at Photoville Festival (2020). In 2021, she co-directed a documentary on COVID-19’s impact on coconut sugar farmers in Central Java. Nyimas is currently based in Bali.
🔗 nyimaslaula.com | @nyimaslaula
Ian Teh (Malaysia)
Ian Teh is a Malaysian-born, British documentary photographer whose work is motivated by environmental and social issues.
Ian is represented by Panos Pictures. He was twice on jury of World Press Photo, and is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center, Magnum Foundation and most recently, the National Geographic Society in 2023. His photographs have appeared in publications such as National Geographic, New Yorker Mag, Bloomberg Businessweek and Granta Magazine, reflecting his impact on environmental and social storytelling, in an era of increasing urbanisation and climate change.Ian has published three books: Undercurrents, Traces, and Confluence. His work is in the permanent collections at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Hood Museum of Art in the USA. He lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
🔗 ianteh.com | @iantehphotography
How Hwee Young (Singapore)
How Hwee Young is an award-winning Singaporean photojournalist, Senior Editor and Asia Pacific Regional Chief at EPA Images. Based in Singapore, she oversees visual journalism across the region, shaping compelling stories in news, sports, arts, and culture with over 20 years of experience. Prior to her current role, she was EPA’s China Bureau Chief (2014–2019). She has photographed some of the world’s defining moments, including the Asian Tsunami, China’s Lushan earthquake, and multiple Olympic Games. Her photography has been featured in TIME, The New York Times, and the Guardian. A recipient of the 2014 POYi Award of Excellence, she was also a 2014 World Press Photo jury member, and has exhibited globally.
🔗 @howhweeyoung
Valeria Mongelli (Thailand)
Valeria Mongelli is a freelance photojournalist and journalist currently based in Bangkok, Thailand. She works as a stringer for Bloomberg and other wire agencies. Her work is distributed by Hans Lucas Agency. Mongelli’s work has appeared in the Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El Pais among others. In 2021, two of her photos were nominated by AP for the Pulitzer Prize. Mongelli’s documentary work focuses on migration and inequality. Women are often at the centre of her stories.
🔗 valeriamongelli.com | @valeria.mongelli
