May
282026
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
In order to grow, both creatively and professionally, you need to connect and build community.
Presenters: Ash Ponders Darrell Miho Pu Ying Huang
Moderators: Salgu Wissmath
Location: Online
Presented by:
Supported by:
Even before remote work and digital newsrooms, photography often involved a lot of time working independently. But in order to grow, both creatively and professionally, you need to connect and build community. This session dives into where photographers are finding community today, online and IRL, and how those communities help us grow.
Panamanian tisoy multi-disciplinary artist Ash Ponders lives in the Sonoran Desert making art rooted in the history of the land & people for periodicals and galleries. Buy their prints & poetry books. Call them if you see anything pretty weird or weirdly pretty.
Bio photo by Noemi Gonzalez.
Darrell Miho is an independent photographer based in Las Vegas. His work spans five decades and has evolved from shooting for his college newspaper, the Mustang Daily in the 80s to long term documentary projects in Asia and the US photographing atomic bomb survivors and victims of Agent Orange. He is also the Co-Director of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) Photojournalists Affinity Group (PAG) where he has helped create photocentric programming to educate, motivate and inspire their visual journalist members and as a result, the PAG has grown into a network of visual journalists supporting each other across the country and into Asia.
Pu Ying Huang is the director of photography at The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit digital news organization covering Texas politics and public policy. She oversees the Tribune’s photo team, whose editors coordinate a vast network of visual journalists documenting the lives of Texans affected by the issues shaping their state, with coverage spanning the Uvalde school shooting, the impeachment of the state attorney general, and the Hill Country floods. Huang is also a safety ambassador fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation, working to help newsrooms combat threats facing journalists. Before joining the Tribune, she worked as a freelance photojournalist for local and international outlets. She is an active member of the National Press Photographers Association and the Asian American Journalists Association.
Salgu Wissmath (they/them/theirs) is a nonbinary Korean American freelance photographer based in San Antonio, TX and Sacramento, CA. Their personal work explores the intersections of mental health, queer identity, and faith from a conceptual documentary approach. They were previously a Hearst Photo Fellow at San Antonio Express-News and the San Francisco Chronicle. Salgu was recognized as AAJA’s 2022 Emerging Journalist of the Year and received the 2023 Curve Award for Emerging Journalists. They are a 2024 Lauren Brown Fellow, 2022 IWMF Gwen Ifill Fellow, a 2021 California Arts Council Emerging Artist Fellow, and a recipient of a 2021 Puffin Foundation Grant and 2025 San Antonio Artist Grant. Their work has been published in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Texas Tribune, CalMatters, San Antonio Magazine, among others. Salgu is the Communications Director for Diversify Photo and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association, NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, Trans Journalists Association, Women Photograph, and Authority Collective.
Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, NY, Photoville was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion, which we are always striving for, by ensuring that the artists we exhibit are diverse in gender, class, and race.
In pursuit of its mission, Photoville produces an annual, city-wide open air photography festival in New York City, a wide range of free educational community initiatives, and a nationwide program of public art exhibitions.
By activating public spaces, amplifying visual storytellers, and creating unique and highly innovative exhibition and programming environments, we join the cause of nurturing a new lens of representation.
Through creative partnerships with festivals, city agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, Photoville offers visual storytellers, educators, and students financial support, mentorship, and promotional & production resources, on a range of exhibition opportunities.
For more information about Photoville visit, www.photoville.com
Diversify Photo believes that a more compassionate and informed society is possible when visual media reflects the diversity and complexity of our world.
Our mission is to provide opportunities for networking, professional development, mentorship, project funding, and community-building to support and help non-western, BIPOC, and visual creatives from other underrepresented groups in the global visual media landscape grow and thrive in their careers.
Our merit-based database provides art buyers, creative directors, and photo directors an opportunity to find and connect with the most talented and highly skilled photographers, editors, and visual producers working today from groups that have historically been underrepresented in the global visual media landscape.
This website was made possible thanks to the generous support and partnership of 