Meet Our Judges

Patricia Houghton Clarke
Photo by Mary Peaches Whoolilurie (age 11)

Patricia Houghton Clarke is a self-taught photographer with a background in life painting, drawing, and fabric arts. Her work explores culture, history, human nature, and the ways photography can deepen understanding across differences.

Over decades of travel through more than 40 countries, Patricia has photographed subjects ranging from the jungles of Borneo and communities in South America to migration, ecological change, and Southern California drag culture. Her internationally recognized work combines visual storytelling with a sustained interest in social justice and our shared humanity.

Patricia’s photographs have appeared in exhibitions and publications throughout the United States and Europe. Her documentation of Barack Obama’s 2007 presidential campaign and 2008 election is held by the Barack Obama Presidential Library collection at the National Archives and by the University of Chicago’s Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center.

Her current large-scale project, An American Girl, brings together photography, art, and social inquiry. Across her work, Patricia uses the camera not simply to document the world, but to look closely at the people, cultures, and places that shape it.

Charles J. Smith

Born with poor eyesight, Charles J. Smith fell in love with the visual world the moment he received his first pair of glasses. That fascination led him to Brooks Institute of Photography, where he graduated in 1977, followed by a decade as a commercial photographer.

In 1991, Charles founded Digital Stock, pioneering a new model for licensing and distributing photography digitally. The company became one of the fastest-growing private companies of the 1990s and was later acquired by Corbis.

His entrepreneurial work eventually converged with a longstanding commitment to conservation. Charles was a founder of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation and today serves as Board Chair of Nature and Culture International, which works with local communities and governments to protect biologically and culturally significant landscapes across Latin America.

Charles continues to photograph the natural world, traveling regularly to South America to document landscapes and ecosystems across the Andes and Amazon. His career has been shaped by a lifelong belief in the power of images to help us see—and value—the world more clearly.