Sarah Blesener

Sarah Blesener was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She studied Linguistics and Youth Development at North Central University. While at university, she worked as a photographer for the organization Healing Haiti based in Port au Prince, Haiti, covering events surrounding the 2010 earthquake. Upon graduation in 2012, she studied at Bookvar Russian Academy in Minneapolis, concentrating on the Russian language. She is a recent graduate of the Visual Journalism and Documentary Practice program at the International Center of Photography in New York. Her latest work revolves around issues of youth culture and movements, focusing on Russia, Eastern Europe and the United States.

Brian L. Frank

b. 1979

A San Francisco native, Brian L. Frank has created social documentary projects across the Americas focusing on cultural identity, social inequality, violence, workers rights and the environment.

Most recently, he co-founded the Tacet-Eye Long Form Documentary Workshop. His recent collaboration with For Freedoms and National Geographic documents faith in the California migrant worker community. He is a Professor of Journalism and a Catchlight Global-Fellow. His work with Catchlight, The Pulitzer Center and The Marshall Project has focused on mass incarceration’s effects on minority communities and visuals-based, education curriculum development.

His 2-year project, Downstream, Death of the Colorado, is held in permanent collection at the United States Library of Congress and was recognized by POYi with the Global Vision Award. His work has been recognized with numerous other awards both nationally and internationally.

Upon completing the Journalism program at SFSU, he worked primarily for The Wall Street Journal from 2008 – 2014 and currently focuses on long-term documentary magazine features in California, the American Southwest, and Mexico.

His work has frequently appeared in most major national and international publications, including National Geographic, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The New York Times and many other publications.

Tomas Van Houtryve

After studying philosophy, Tomas developed a passion for photography while enrolled in an overseas university program in Nepal. After graduation in 1999, he moved to Latin America. In 2002, he was the first photographer to document the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay. Tomas returned to Nepal in 2004 to photograph the Maoist rebellion. The resulting photos earned the Visa pour l’Image-Perpignan Young Photographer Award and the Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents. In 2010, Tomas was named the POY Photographer of the Year. Images from Blue Sky Days were first published in Harper’s in the largest photo portfolio in the magazine’s 164-year history. The series was awarded the 2015 ICP Infinity Award, World Press Photo and other honors. Tomas has been a member of the VII Photo collective since 2010.

CatchLight

CatchLight is a San Francisco Bay Area-based non-profit that believes art is vital and the highest form of hope. They serve as a transformational force, supporting artists and creating programs that accelerate the social impact of visual storytelling to improve the world by informing how we see and understand each other.

In 2017, CatchLight launched its fellowship program, honoring three storytellers who demonstrated excellence in the use of photography and art as a catalyst to spark new conversations. Each fellow received an award of $30,000 and entered a partnership with an established media outlet to collaborate on a year-long project focused on driving social change.