Girls In Memory
By Karla-Elisabeth Oder
This project focuses on girlhood in rural Uzbekistan, as it looks at growing up between personal dreams and expectations surrounding femininity, family, and marriage.
IN PROGRESS
Membership
Publishing is free. The community is what you pay for.
Anyone can make work on Duckling without paying us anything. What membership buys is the part that is hard to get anywhere else: people who see your work before the world does, money to get a story made, and someone to talk to when it is not working.
Next sessionNothing scheduled
This grant round closesOctober 31
Ask the community
Where to take a project, what to do next in your working life, or simply which lens to bring. Ask here, and anybody in the community can answer. Answers usually take a day or two.
Asking the community takes a community membership.
Seed Grant
Up to 1.300 euros a month, for stories that need making. Apply as often as you like.
Applying for a Seed Grant takes a community membership.
Funded this round
Cheminova
By Bertil Konow & Ingrid Olesen
This documentary follows a long-time worker at FMC Rønland in Denmark ahead of its 2026 closure, exploring the ties between work, identity, and a community shaped by industry and environmental controversy.
IN PROGRESS
Community Sessions
Coming up
Nothing in the calendar yet. The next one will be up soon.
Every session, and the rest of the room
A community membership opens all the sessions, along with mentors, the Seed Grant and the member network.
Mentor sessions
One-on-one, for as long as you need it. Bring an idea, a rough edit, or a portfolio.
Kamilla Gamborg Isaksen
Editor-in-Chief & Co-founder
I can help you find the angle in a story, turn an idea into something real, or figure out where you want to go next in journalism and media. My expertise lies in rethinking how we do journalism for the next generation, combining the core principles of traditional journalism with new formats and ways of telling stories. After a decade in journalism for children and young people at DR Ultra Nyt, DR P3 and TV 2 Fyn, I founded Duckling. I studied photography and communication in Auckland and was a fellow at Constructive Institute in Aarhus. Let me help you: • Find the angle & common thread in your story • Turn your ideas into something concrete and visual • Figure out where you fit in by exploring opportunities, identifying your strengths, and finding your own path in journalism and media. Languages: Danish and English
Bjarke Winding
CEO & Co-founder
I started Duckling, and before that I spent my career getting visual stories conceptualised, funded, produced, and seen. I was Executive Editor at Magnum Photos in New York, where I built the agency’s online business and launched Magnum In Motion, and I was a fellow at MIT in Boston, and at the Constructive Institute at Aarhus University. I have also founded three media startups. As a juror for World Press Photo, IDFA and Tribeca, I have sat on both sides of the table: the one that pitches and the one that decides. Book a session with me if you need help with: • Sharpening a concept before you pitch it • Fundraising, budgets and business models • Producing a multimedia story Languages: Danish & English
Laura Riis
Photojournalist & Head of Seed Grant
I have spent several years documenting how people respond to cultural and systemic challenges across Latin America and Asia. My most recent project was Highly Commended by the Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant, nominated for UNICEF Photo of the Year twice, received the Gentex Award, and was exhibited internationally. I hold a master’s degree in Photojournalism from Magnum Photos & Spéos. I help photographers with: • How to organise a photo project • How to visualise the key questions of a project • How to make images work together as a story Languages: Danish & English
Marie Pastré
Journalist & Head of Community
I write and edit stories in our editorial feed. I use the techniques of narrative journalism in all my writing, from my Pulitzer-funded investigation of the Ethiopian flower industry to my series on children’s use of phones and social media told from their perspective. I’ve worked as a freelancer for several Danish media outlets, such as the daily newspaper Information and the investigative media Danwatch. I work closely with photojournalists and therefore have experience in balancing text and visuals. Book a session with me if you need help with: • Feedback on a written text • Going from project description to article • Preparing for interviews Languages: Danish & English
Christian Moorman
Photographer & Duckling Editor
Before transitioning to a career in photography, I was in the academic world, as a scholar of ethics and human rights law. That work took me from Edinburgh, to Oxford, to Vienna, before I changed careers and obtained a master’s in documentary photography with Magnum and Spéos in Paris. My project The Sigh of History, which focused on the lowest-paid workers in Guyana’s sugar cane industry, was awarded at CPOY 2025, shortlisted at Belfast Photo Festival, and has been exhibited in Guadeloupe. Book a session with me if you need help with: • Photo sequencing • Clarifying the concept and text of your project Languages: English
Booking a mentor takes a community membership.
The Storyteller Pact
What we owe each other, and what we will not do to a story. You signed it when you joined.
Read the Pact
Worth rereading when a story gets difficult.
This is for you if
- You are making documentary work, or you want to start, and you are doing it mostly alone.
- You have stories that never got finished, because there was no deadline and nobody waiting.
- You want your photographs seen at the size they were made for, not cropped into a feed.
- You would rather five people see your work properly than five hundred scroll past it.
- You are early in this, and you want people further along to look at what you are making.
What you gain
Response you can use
Feedback from people who make the same kind of work, specific enough to act on, before the world sees it.
A sense of where you are
An hour with working photographers and editors tells you more than a year of guessing.
Somewhere the work lives
Not a folder, not a grid. A place you can point at when someone asks what you do.
Free account
- View every story, on the web and in the app
- Publish your own stories with the basic editor, on the app or on the web
- Your stories appear in the Open feed, where our editors look
- Create your own ponds and nests
Community membership, 750 kr a year
- Everything above
- Mentor sessions: book a one-on-one for feedback on an idea, a concept or a portfolio review
- Community sessions with working documentary photographers, editors and filmmakers
- Eligible for seed grants, 1300 euro a month across two to three stories
What happens when you join
- You can put a story forward for a seed grant straight away. Every month 1300 euro goes to two or three stories that need to be told.
- You get a slot to book your first mentor session, whenever you are ready for it.
- The next community session lands in your calendar, and you can just listen if you would rather.
What we also do
- We bring members into the projects we take on, like being media partner for Roskilde Festival.
- We open routes to publishing with partners, like World's Best News.
- We pass on the jobs and commissions that come to us.
Every member signs the Storyteller Pact
What we owe each other, and what we will not do to a story. Read it before you join, not after.
The practical part
- Billed once a year. You can cancel any time and keep access until the year is up.
- Your stories stay yours. Leaving does not delete anything you made.
- Reduced rates and funded places exist. If the price is what is stopping you, write and say so.
Questions people ask
Do I need experience?
No. Some members have published for years, some are making their first story. What we ask is that you are working on something.
Do I have to be a photographer?
No. Stories on Duckling are photo, video and text together. Writers, filmmakers and photographers all fit.
How much time does it take?
As little as you want. Most members come to a session or two a month. Nothing is compulsory and nobody is counting.
Why join now, while you are still building this?
Because it is small enough that what you say still changes it. That will not be true forever.
Questions before you decide?
Write to our head of community, Marie Pastré: marie@duckling.co. She will usually answer within a few days.
Community membership750 kr / year
or 75 kr a month
Join the communityYou will create an account first, then pay. Both take about a minute.