World Press Photo and De Nieuwe Kerk are proud to present the 2026 edition of The Stories That Matter. Join award-winning photographers, industry leaders, critical thinkers, and the public as we explore the issues and narratives shaping visual journalism and the world.
This year's program highlights trust and transparency in photojournalism. In a time of rapidly advancing technology, what does it mean to trust a photograph? And what responsibilities do photographers, editors, and institutions have to maintain that trust? Join us for our main stage program as we tackle these questions.
Join a guided tour to hear directly from our 2026 Contest winners; photographers coming from 26 countries across the globe, spanning from South Africa to Sweden, Brazil to Hong Kong, and Nepal to Canada, as they speak about their work presented in the exhibition, and engage in open conversation with the audience.
As part of our interactive sessions, we'll pull back the curtain on the World Press Photo jury deliberations, exploring why openness and accountability in the process are essential to the contest's integrity. You will also be invited to slow down and turn the page with The Photography Book Club.
Program
Show and Tell: Photographer Talks
Throughout the day, the 2026 Contest winners will speak in front of their work in the exhibition. Meet the photographers and hear their stories firsthand.
Interactive Sessions
In the Jury Room
With Beatrice Harbour and Saba Askary from World Press Photo
World Press Photo juries face some of the most powerful, unsettling, and morally complex imagery of our time. They debate and disagree. They carry the responsibility of selecting which stories will reach millions of eyes worldwide. Join us for an interactive journey through the history of the World Press Photo jury; how it began, how it has evolved, and how it operates today. Along the way, we’ll place you in the jury seat to wrestle with the real dilemmas that jurors have encountered, to discover just how human the pursuit of truth in photography really is.
The Photography Book Club
With Coco Olakunle
The Photography Book Club is a community-driven initiative based in Amsterdam, centered around the collective experience of photography in its physical form. Through interactive gatherings, the club invites diverse audiences to engage with photobooks as vessels of storytelling that explore themes of identity, culture, and lived experience, with a particular focus on voices from the African diaspora. For this special edition, in collaboration with World Press Photo, you’re invited to join Coco and slow down with a photo book in your hands. The books presented will be drawn from Coco’s own collection and the World Press Photo Library. Take part in a nurturing conversation and spend a bit more time looking and seeing beyond the algorithmic scroll.
Visual Thinking Conversations
How can we dive deeper into the meanings contained inside photographs? Join us to observe closely, consider different viewpoints, and reflect on images actively and collectively. Develop your visual literacy, critical thinking, and communication skills - there are no right or wrong answers!
Main stage
14.30 - 15.00
Truth over Trust?
By Lewis Bush
Photojournalism has had a vexed relationship with the idea of truth since the field first emerged. This tension has been repeatedly reshaped over the last century by an array of technological and cultural innovations, which have sometimes seemed to furnish the means for photography to more accurately render the world, sometimes to distort it, and most often to do both. Lewis Bush will explore the ways in which photojournalism professionals understand the changing landscape of audience (dis)trust in their work, and the ways that photojournalism organizations respond, or fail to respond, to this. In it, he traces how a range of factors, including industry practices, new technologies, and public scandals, have damaged audience trust in photographs, and argues that these causes also reveal potential solutions to this problem.
15.00 - 15.30
Building Trust through Transparency in an Era of Contested Images
By Tara Pixley
Photography has never been neutral. From its colonial origins to the algorithmic present, the power to frame — to decide who is seen, how suffering is rendered, and which truths are amplified — has rested with privileged institutions that often document individuals shaped by structural inequality. In this talk, visual journalist and media scholar Tara Pixley discusses how the crisis of trust now facing photojournalism is not new, but the opportunity to address it is. Drawing on World Press Photo’s archive, visual media scholarship, and contemporary transparency practices by working photographers, Pixley makes the case that rebuilding trust requires more than verification technology or AI disclosures: it requires a reimagined civil contract between photographers, the photographed and the publics they both hope to reach.
More talks to be confirmed.
Hosted by Giya Makondo-Wills
Book signings
17.00 - 18.00
Yearbook signings
The 2026 Contest awarded photographers will be signing copies of the World Press Photo Yearbook 2026, available to purchase at De Nieuwe Kerk shop.
Portfolio Reviews
11.00 - 14.00
Portfolio reviews in collaboration with Fujifilm
We are hosting portfolio reviews for photographers in the early stages of their careers and recent graduates of photography programs in the Netherlands. In collaboration with Fujifilm in the Eggertzaal, by invitation only.
Fujifilm Touch and Try Station
10:00 - 18:00
Explore, test, and get expert tips on Fujifilm’s latest cameras
Fujifilm’s ‘touch and try’ zone will showcase the current product line-up and be an area for photographers of all levels to explore the cameras in detail. An expert from Fujifilm will be on hand to answer your questions and give you tips.
Event information
Location
Dam Square
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Opening hours
Saturday 30 May 2026
10.00 - 18.00
Tickets
Adults: €20
Youth (12-17): € 13,50
0 - 11 years; Stadspas; Museumcard; VriendenLoterij VIP-card; Iamsterdam City Card; GoCity; Members De Nieuwe Kerk; ICOM: Free
Image credits: Ruud Taal, Coco Olakunle
