Whether you’re just starting out, or you’re a seasoned professional, every photographer needs a community.
Speakers: Rhynna M. Santos Amy Scott Ariel Zambelich
Moderators: Salgu Wissmath
Location: Online
Presented by:
Supported by:
Whether you’re just starting out, or you’re a seasoned professional, every photographer needs a community. A lively discussion with founders and leaders of Authority Collective, Bronx Women’s Photo Collective, and Queer The Lens Collective will cover the ins and outs of when, why, and how to create your photography collective.
Crafting Your Career is a web series to create pathways for freelancing visual storytellers to become successful in the photography industry. With workshops that talk about the art of the side hustle, creating collectives, and understanding contracts, these discussions and presentations from all-star and up-and-coming photographers are designed to guide members of our photographic community towards growth and success in their careers.
The workshops are especially geared towards BIPOC photographers, and are open to photographers anywhere in the world. We are here to support BIPOC and non-Western photographers to have successful careers.
Rhynna M. Santos is a Puerto Rico-born documentary photographer and teaching artist living and working in the Bronx. Ms. Santos’ art captures the beautiful, painful, funny, and endlessly complex lives and perspectives of people of color in her community.
In 2022 Ms. Santos’ work, “Reflections on Indigeneity in the Bronx,” was featured in the Photoville photography festival. Her exhibition #papielmaestro, a documentary exploration of the life of her father, jazz great, Ray Santos, was profiled by the New York Times in 2018. Later that same year, Santos was chosen as an En Foco Fellow and her work exploring the lives of Latina Muslims was exhibited at Andrew Freedman Home and featured in Nueva Luz Photographic Journal. She has also been featured in the New York Times, Race Related Instagram feed, for her project on BIPOC Star Wars fans, “Fandom, Race and the Force.” Additionally in 2018, she was recognized as a Lit List finalist by the Authority Collective. Her work has been featured in Jerome Avenue Workers Project 2015, Living Latina 2016, Photoville 2018 and Bronx Now 2018.
Santos is the founder of the Bronx Women’s Photo Collective and curator for the Instagram feed Everyday Bronx.
Amy Scott (they/them) is a queer and nonbinary commercial and advertising photographer who specializes in food, lifestyle, and agricultural storytelling.
They make images of food, the people who grow it, those who enjoy it, and its journey from the field to the table. Having been a small-scale vegetable farmer, their love affair with food is rooted in the love and admiration for those who work so hard to produce it. Whether in the studio or in the field, they strive for imagery that is vibrant, full of life, and that feels personal and tangible.
Real-world beauty, accessibility, and playfulness are the cornerstones of their work.
Amy is one of the co-founders of Queer the Lens, a growing community of
LGBTQIA+ creatives in photography and video, both on and off set. The QTL mission is to empower the creative queer community by establishing an inclusive space where we can voice our needs, create connections, and share resources.
Ariel Zambelich is a Lead Photo Editor on the National and Washington desks for the Wall Street Journal, where she collaborates to tell stories through photojournalism and design. She previously worked at The Intercept, NPR Visuals, and WIRED, and was a freelance photographer for over a decade. She is on the board of Authority Collective, an organization that amplifies the voices of female-identifying and nonbinary lens-based creators of color through community action, and was formerly an organizer with the Freelance Solidarity Project, a union for freelance media workers.
Salgu Wissmath is a nonbinary Korean American photographer from Sacramento, CA. They are currently a Hearst Photo Fellow at the San Antonio Express-News, and previously worked at The San Francisco Chronicle. They are dedicated to decolonizing visual storytelling by engaging in ethical storytelling by and for people of color and the queer community. Their personal work explores the intersections of mental health, queer identity, and faith from a conceptual documentary approach.
Salgu was recognized as AAJA’s 2022 Emerging Journalist of the Year and received the 2023 Curve Award for Emerging Journalists. They are a 2022 IWMF Gwen Ifill Fellow, a 2021 California Arts Council Emerging Artist Fellow, and a recipient of a 2021 Puffin Foundation Grant. Their work has been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, High Country News, Cal Matters, among others.
Salgu is the Communications Director for Diversify Photo, a core team member with Ethical Narrative, and a member of AAJA, NLGJA, TJA, Women Photograph, and Authority Collective.
Photo Credit: Kaitlin B. Owens
Diversify Photo is a community of BIPOC and non-Western photographers, editors, and visual producers working to break with the predominantly colonial and patriarchal eye through which history and the media have recorded the images of our time.
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
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