Photography

Jacque Rupp is a documentary and fine-art photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A visual storyteller, Rupp uses the camera to challenge and question, offering a unique perspective on the world around us. In her most recent work, Rupp focuses on womanhood, using herself and experiences. As the subject matter, Rupp ventures off in the imagined, exploring issues of identity and purpose. 

Rupp received an MBA from Santa Clara University and later worked as an executive in Silicon Valley. Building on her lifelong passion for the visual arts, Rupp studied photography at Stanford University, at the Los Angeles Center of Photography and Santa Fe Workshops. She is on the advisory board for UNAFF (United Nations Affiliated Film Festival), a documentary film festival and serves on the board of the Weston Collective, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding student access to photography. 

Her photographs are held in private collections and have been exhibited widely in juried shows and publications. Rupp’s documentary work on farmers in the Salinas Valley has been used by numerous nonprofit organizations both in print and online.

Jacque Rupp was selected as a Critical Mass finalist in both 2022 and 2023.

The arts help us to understand ourselves as they illuminate our common humanity.

As the daughter of a psychologist, I'm deeply curious about the human condition. In life and in art, I strive to connect, to understand, to find common ground. My images are uniquely personal; I’m drawn to intimacy, intensity and authenticity in my subjects. Having experienced losses early in life, I gravitate toward themes of longing and solitude but always with hints of hope and rebirth not far away.  As a woman, I am very interested in issues around female representation, especially over time.  Through my art, I both ask and consider answers to complex questions. With camera in hand, I engage with the world, ever present, and eager to capture the moments that give us all pause to reflect. I’m a storyteller. And with my lifelong love for the moving image, I often create photographs with a cinematic flare.

Pixely is a 2022 Reynolds Journalism Fellow, 2022 Pulitzer Center Grantee, a 2021 IWMF NextGen Fellow, a 2020 awardee of the World Press Photo Solutions Visual Journalism Initiative and a 2016 Visiting Knight Fellow at Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Her writing and photography have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Newsweek, Allure, HuffPost, Nieman Reports, ESPN Magazine, and the Black Scholar, among many others. Her filmic and photographic work intersect with her scholarship and advocacy, each using visual media to frame race, gender, climate futures, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities through a liberation lens. She serves as Vice President of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Board and is on the Board of stock photo co-op Stocksy United. She is also co-Founder and Director of Authority Collective — an organization dedicated to establishing equity in visual media —  and she is currently working on a book chronicling the move to decolonize the visual journalism industry.

Rosem Morton is a documentary photographer from the Philippines whose work focuses on daily life amidst gender, health, and racial adversity.

As a National Geographic Explorer and an International Women’s Media Foundation Fellow, she explores a diverse range of issues, including the effects of gender-based violence, the unheard stories of healthcare workers, and the forgotten histories that have shaped Filipino culture and migration. She has written and photographed stories for publications like National Geographic, the Washington Post, NPR, and CNN.

Her projects have been recognized by the World Press Photo 6x6 Talent, the Pictures of the Year International, and The 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch.

Her ongoing personal project, Wildflower, is the recipient of the Leica Women Photo Award and the Visa d'or Daily Press Award. She has since founded, Dear Survivor, an audio-visual resource for survivors of gender and sexual-based violence, supported by We, Women Photo.

Minoosh Zomorodinia is an Iranian-born interdisciplinary artist, educator, and curator based in the Bay Area. She explores the complex relationship between humans, nature, memory, and technology through her work. By employing psychogeography in her daily rituals, she captures the passage of time in varied environments. Her work adresse redefining borders, land colonization, and interconnectedness between humans and nature. She focuses on mapping in the digital age, merging the physical with the virtual in her investigation of space, memory, and identity. Zomorodinia co-chairs the Women Eco Artists Dialog and is a member of the Art Program Committees for several Bay Area Art Centers. She has received numerous awards and grants, such as the YBCA 100, the Lucas Artists Fellowship, the Andy Warhol Foundation grant, the Alternative Exposure Award, and the California Arts Council grant.

She has completed residencies including the Headlands Center for the Arts, Djerassi Residency, Recology Artist Residency, Kala Media Fellowship, among others. Her work has been showcased both locally and internationally at venues like the Asian Art Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, Untitled Art Miami, Isfahan Museum of Contemporary Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Pori Art Museum, and the Nevada Museum of Art. Her work has been featured in media outlets like Hyperallergic and KQED. She holds an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute, as well as a MA in Graphic Design and a BA in photography from Azad University in Tehran.

Read more about her work as a visiting artist at University of Reno, Nevada and Headland Center for the Arts.