Born in Berlin in 1979, Julia graduated from the University of the Arts, London, UK, in 2003, with a BA in Film & Video Studies. First based in Berlin, then London and now Amsterdam, she worked as a spark on feature films, tv shows and commercials. After a year in Cape Town working for a production company in 2008 she started shifting gears to concentrate solely on photography. Aside from her commercial work Julia devotes her time to her personal projects, which take her across the world in search of people who need a voice.
2013 - GUP New Dutch Photography Talent, 2013 - LensCulture Exposure Awards, 2014 - New York Photo Festival @ PhotoWorld, 2015 - Kuala Lumpur International Photo Award, 2015 - Moscow International Photo Awards, 2015 - New York Photo Festival @ The Last Picture Show, 2016 - Head On Portrait Prize, 2016 - Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Exhibition, 2016 - FC Barcelona Photo Awards, 2017 - Head On Portrait Prize, 2017 - Felix Schoeller Photo Award
The Black Mambas, Balule Nature Reserve, South Africa, 2015. The Black Mambas are an almost exclusively female anti poaching unit which operates, unarmed, in Balule Nature Reserve, near Kruger National Park, in north-eastern South Africa. Their efforts are guided by the philosophy that the war against poaching cannot be won with guns and bullets, but through social advancement and the education of communities surrounding nature reserves. Awarded with the UN’s top environmental award, “Champions of the Earth”, the Black Mambas act as role models in their own communities (where many of the poachers live). As women and mothers, they command a form of respect that the heavily armed, most male anti-poaching units, do not.
Rainbow Girls, South Africa, 2013. Despite a constitution widely regarded as the most progressive in the world, and which supposedly safeguards women’s and children’s rights, the Rainbow Nation, as South Africa is unofficially known, is home to high levels of violence against the LGBTQI. Your degree of sexual freedom is based on the color of your skin, and to which social group you belong. If you are white, being LGBTQI in South Africa is no different than in the US or UK: difficult at times, but a personal struggle for acceptance by family or friends. In poor and black communities being LGBTQI can mean exile, rape or death. In South Africa, predominantly black lesbian women are subjected to the shocking practice of corrective rape: a truly awful hate crime in which the perpetrator tries to ‘cure’ the victim of his or her homosexuality.
On the pitch at St. Andrew’s International High School, Blantyre, Malawi, 2016. The Malawian Under 19 Women’s Cricket Team is not only a ‘first’ in a country where women remain disadvantaged in almost all aspects of daily life, but it is also an attempt to change a quintessential gentlemen’s game into a truly inclusive sport.