By now, many of you have received the new Freelance Photographer Contributor Agreement from Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal. While the effective date is 2026, they are asking for signatures now.

After legal review and discussion, it is clear that this contract represents a significant step backward for freelancers. It introduces a “Work Made for Hire” clause and allows WSJ to sublicense our work to third parties for profit. They have said that they will increase the rate to $600, but we feel that is not given how much they gain from this contract as well as the increased demands for video and long hours.

Many of us have already sent individual responses, but there is power in numbers. We have drafted a collective letter to Lucy Gilmore and WSJ leadership asking them to pause the rollout and rewrite the contract with actual freelancer input.

Please read the letter below and share it widely with freelance colleagues. If you agree, please add your name to the list https://forms.gle/BZHh3nzYdFMS7a4V9 by midnight PST on December 23rd, 2025.

We value our relationship with the WSJ, but we need to stand together to ensure it remains sustainable.

Hello, colleagues.

The new WSJ freelance contract is yet another example of a national newspaper not compensating photographers fairly (not to mention the effects of inflation and ACA premium increases).

We’re writing to flag critical issues we should all be aware of before signing this new contract effective Jan 1, 2026. 

Afterall, the WSJ has no staff photographers. Freelancers and wires illustrate 99.99999999% of their stories.

We hope this can be an opportunity for the WSJ to do the right thing. We need to push back collectively on the WFH language and the rates by emailing Timmy Huynh (timmy.huynh@wsj.com) and DoP Lucy Gilmore (lucy.gilmour@wsj.com). Also please feel free to write to other WSJ photo editors or anybody else in the industry who should see it.
You can use the language below as a template. Add what you want and tweak what you want:

Template:
I have reviewed the new contract terms and would like to discuss critical concerns regarding the “Work Made for Hire” classification, sublicensing and the current rate structure.

1. Work Made for Hire & Copyright Structure: Section 1.2 classifies our work as “Work Made for Hire.” While I appreciate the subsequent clause assigning a joint interest back to the photographer, classifying freelance work as WMFH is legally problematic for independent contractors. It alters the fundamental authorship of the work and strips creators of rights under the Copyright Act. Proposal: If Dow Jones requires joint ownership, this can be achieved through a direct assignment of specific rights rather than a Work Made for Hire framework. I ask that the WMFH language be removed in favor of a standard assignment clause.

2. Compensation & Sublicensing: The move to a co-ownership model grants Dow Jones significantly more value — specifically the right to sublicense images to third parties (Section 1.3) without paying royalties to the photographer. This is a major departure from the previous contract, which allowed secondary market sales to generate revenue for the creator.

Furthermore, the base day rate has remained static despite inflation and increased scope, specifically:

* Video Demands: We are increasingly asked to capture video, which adds significant workload in the field and post-production.
* Hours: Day rates often do not account for days that stretch well beyond 8 hours.

To ensure this partnership remains sustainable, we need a review of the rate and sublicensing structure and copyright language. 

Decisions regarding rights, rates, and liabilities must include the voices of the people doing the work, particularly when a new contract fundamentally shifts so far from the previous agreement.

I strongly urge Dow Jones to pause the rollout of this contract and reconsider these terms by convening a working group of regular freelancers to assist in a rewrite. If you need assistance identifying a representative group of photographers, organizations such as Women Photograph or Diversify Photo would be excellent resources to help facilitate this conversation. 

This must be the standard for any impactful contract change in the future.

 
   

Kora Shapes Snowboards
Nicholas Wolken

Heidi: Your creative world revolves around movement. How do snowboarding, photography, and design inform one another — and which came first?
Nicholas: Snowboarding shaped it first. I’ve always looked at the world through movement — asking where you can do something, how it would feel to ride or jump of something. Design slots into that as the tool that lets the idea become real — boards that make those visions possible. I see Photography as another tool: it captures the feeling the moment. All three share that when it’s right, you know it in your body before you can explain it.

What role does restraint play in your creative process? Your images feel timeless and avoid falling into overproduced snow-sports clichés.
I’m on the mountain as a rider first. So I can’t be shooting in the obvious moment or from the obvious angle when the riding is going on. On the other hand there’s no pressure for me to come home with photos — I shoot because it’s fun. I’m quick, a bit lazy with settings, and I look for angles on the go, letting the shots come to me rather than working for them. If I remember the camera, I pop it out, grab what’s there, and move on. I like the less obvious frames that feel closer to real life. The classic action snowboard shot is often similar so if you have seen a lot of them over the years a lot of them loose their uniqueness and it gets a bit repetitive and boring and it only represents a tiny slice of the reality and what it means to be in the mountains; the in-between moments say more about the day.

You studied psychology before dedicating yourself fully to riding and creative work. How does that background influence the way you approach photography?
Likely, but not in a way I can diagram. I feel like training as a psychotherapist also makes you a little bit more aware — of your own emotions, your state of mind, whats being said behind the words and awareness of the relationship. I can see how that would seep into everything, including how I sense and choose to capture a moment, but it’s more undercurrent than a aware technique.

You’ve mentioned the tension between being in the moment as a rider and documenting it as a creative. How do you navigate that balance of riding vs creating an image?
Snowboarding comes first. I use the in-between times — waiting, hiking, catching my breath — to shoot. That means I end up with more lifestyle, atmosphere, and rarely the big action frame. I’m not trying to balance anything; I’m just adding another layer of being creative and having fun to the day, zero pressure.

You’ve spoken about the psychology of attention and presence – does the camera interfere?
No not really I’d rather the camera disappear so I can stay in the flow connected to my self and my surroundings. I miss plenty of fleeting moments as is; a fast easy, tool helps me. Ironically, the best images often appear when it’s the last thing on your mind: too steep, too cold, a bit scared — that’s when the magic is happening and thats when I want a fast tool.

Your films like “Turn of Mind” connect snowboarding to environmental awareness in subtle, emotional ways. Do you see your photography as a form of activism or resistance?
Not knowingly yet, but you know I just realized I really should be using and seeing it as such and I hope it eventually will become just that, like my role within our Snowboard company eventually led us to work with 1% For the Planet or Snowboarding in movies for POW about important climate votes in Switzerland, I can see my photography eventually become a tool for change as well. Most of us in privileged positions have the ability to make change with what we already do. Thanks for reminding me of this!

Vjaybombs

Heidi: Who or what inspired you to become an activist-artist working with guerrilla projection tactics in public spaces?
Vjaybombs: We’re all filmmakers by trade, and projection bombing sits right in the sweet spot of all our skill sets – documentary filmmaking, animation, and beyond. Our first dabble in projecting in public spaces was about ten years ago. Back then, we’d throw these huge house parties and project onto nearby buildings – mostly abstract visuals, stuff we shot ourselves, mixed live with movie clips and music videos. It wasn’t until the lead-up to the 2024 election that we started using guerrilla projections as a form of peaceful protest.

Which came first, the merch or the projections as temporary canvases of dissent?
Projections came first. We only started making and selling merch as a way to help fund the project. Projections are accessible, disruptive, but not violent.

What change do you hope to see in the world through your work?
We want to show that it’s possible to make your voice heard and protest peacefully. Hopefully, we can inspire others to do the same. Right now, it feels more important than ever to use whatever skills we have to push back against the rise of fascism and fight for our freedoms. We all have more power than we think. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed or tune out, but we urge people to stay engaged. Real change doesn’t come from one big event – it comes from countless small acts that, together, move the needle.

How did the “projection bombing” concept get started for you and what does the name Vjay Bombs mean?
“Vjay” stands for “visual DJ,” and “bombs” comes from “projection bombing.” Both “VJing” and “projection bombing” have been around for a while – we didn’t come up with them ourselves.

How has your setup or equipment evolved?
Honestly, we were total novices when we started. The first time we went out projection bombing, we blew a fuse in our car trying to run power from the projector through a lighter adapter – rookie move. Luckily, a guy from a nearby bodega let us plug into his shop for a couple of hours. Since then, our setup has evolved a ton. We’ve upgraded from a cheap projector off Facebook Marketplace to a legit home theater model, and now we use a large-venue projector – the kind you’d find in a movie theater.

Can you walk us through your process from scouting a wall to pulling off a full-scale nighttime projection?
Everything starts in our group chat – that’s where all the ideas are born. We’re constantly talking about current events, sharing articles, and throwing around projection concepts. Whenever someone spots a great wall or surface, they snap a photo, drop it in the chat with the location. When something happens in the world that inspires us to respond, we start bouncing around ideas, exchanging visuals, and then move into animating the video. Depending on the concept, that process can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. That said, each piece really has its own process. There isn’t one formula that works every time – but there are certain elements we like to think about when coming up with ideas. We start by pinpointing what we’re trying to say with the projection: What aspect of an issue will resonate with people? What is the emotional reaction we would like to invoke? How can we communicate a message clearly in a matter of seconds? We’re essentially creating digital billboards, so it’s crucial to grab people’s attention immediately and deliver the message as efficiently as possible. If the piece leans more satirical, we think about how to highlight the absurdity of a situation. Sometimes humor is the easiest and most effective way to get people to engage with something serious. Ideally, each projection unfolds like a mini-story – almost like a comic strip – with a beginning, middle, and end. Once the animation is ready, we move into the projection phase. This is where the environment becomes a key part of the work. The sweet spot for us is when the architecture and the message intersect – when the building itself becomes part of the story we’re telling. If the surface somehow relates to the theme or subject of the piece, that’s double bonus points. For each projection we think about what the priority is – to get as many eyes as possible or to draw attention to a specific location. And finally, there’s the posting and social media aspect of the process. Documenting everything is very important. How can we give a piece the longest legs online. We love marrying the visuals to the perfect soundtrack. Sound adds another emotional layer – it can amplify the tone, be a punchline, and deepen the impact of the message. When all those elements align – the concept, the visuals, the location, and the music – that’s the ultimate goal.

How does projection bombing fit into the larger ecosystem of street art and activism?
Projection bombing is a really unique form of street art because it’s still so new. What we’re doing would’ve been extremely difficult ten years ago (though people were definitely doing it!). With how fast technology has advanced, you can now get powerful, compact projectors for a reasonable price – something that just wasn’t possible before. As they keep getting more accessible (and brighter), we think projection bombing will become a more common form of street art and protest.

What’s next for you?
We recently hosted our first nationwide projection protest – people from across the U.S. and Europe all went out and projected on the same night. The enthusiasm and support were unreal. Watching all the videos come in was emotional – from massive city buildings to barns in the middle of nowhere. It was truly inspiring to watch. There are a lot of people who want to contribute but don’t know how. Not everyone sees themselves as creative or has time to make protest art, but the concept of the projection protest gives people a new way to engage – and allows people to make art themselves. The animations are just the first piece of the puzzle – the projection itself, and how it’s presented, is equally important. Each person becomes their own curator and part of the artwork through their own setup and location choices. Seeing everyone’s interpretations the night of the group protest was incredible. The group protest really opened our eyes to all the ways this project can grow and connect people. We definitely want to keep mobilizing the community. We’ve talked about collaborating with other digital artists on a visual album, throwing live events, and even starting a podcast.

Part 3 in a series called Shifting Perspectives by Angie Smith

Angie: Tell me how you first discovered photography.

Oriana: I grew up in South Florida. I was 13. My dad, who as far as I’m concerned was the original geek, had gadgets everywhere. He would take apart the family computer piece by piece and put it back together again. He was always on the cutting edge of technology. He had a Wired magazine subscription that I would flip through as a kid.

I was an indoor kid for a lot of reasons I didn’t understand at the time. Growing up I just thought, ‘I’m shy. I’m scared of people. I don’t like people. I like my books. I like my quiet.’ I could control the stimuli in my room. Later I was diagnosed autistic — I got that diagnosis in 2022.

One day my dad knocked on my door and tossed this brick at me. It wasn’t an actual brick — it was an HP digital camera with 1.2 megapixels. He said, ‘Go outside and make some pictures.’

I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go outside.’

And he said, ‘You have to. Spend an hour taking pictures.’

So I stayed on our block. I avoided eye contact with people, looking down at my feet the whole time. I made pictures of shadows, dew drops on the grass and flowers– just inanimate objects that I could get close to and observe. I ended up staying outside for three hours. After that first shoot I thought, ‘Wow, that was really fun.’

I started carrying that brick everywhere I went. With a camera in my hand, I felt in control of how I was moving through the world. All of a sudden, I felt like talking to people.

That turned into me taking AP studio art in high school. I started making photographs of my friends. I got really interested in feminism at the time and how women were being portrayed in photography and in art. I ended up submitting a self-portrait to the 2006 Scholastic Art and Writing Award. I won a national silver medal for my self portrait and then matriculated into college and I got my BA in documentary photography.

Once I decided I wanted to be an artist, I thought, ‘I’ve got to get the fuck out of Florida.’

I went to Columbia College Chicago, which is a small private art school. I don’t even remember how I first heard about Columbia. We had spent quite a few holidays in Chicago—my dad still has family here—and it was a 360-degree experience compared to how I grew up in South Florida.

Museums were accessible, libraries were important, the city was vibrant.

Angie: How did you get into shooting weddings?

Oriana: I was doing weddings and food photography in Chicago from 2010 to 2014. Growing up, I loved cooking and was constantly checking out cookbooks at the library. At one point, I thought I wanted to be a pastry chef. I loved watching the Food Network.

I started doing wedding photography because I was sold on the idea that you could make good money as a wedding photographer and use that to fund the documentary work you wanted to do. I am a Black, visibly Black person walking around in the world, and most of the people I was photographing—people who were getting married—were white.

There was no amount of qualification I could give clients where I didn’t have to justify why they should pay me what I was charging. It got to the point where, in my second-to-last year of shooting weddings, I literally broke down by the hour why people were paying me $2,000 to photograph their wedding. It was exhausting. So it wasn’t surprising when the same thing happened in the editorial space. I thought, ‘Oh, this again.’

My partner at the time and I moved to Los Angeles in late 2015. I had done one portfolio review earlier that year, in March, with the photo director of Los Angeles Magazine. This person told me, ‘We actually don’t have a lot of good food photographers in Los Angeles, and the city is really starting to become a food city.’

I know that when I signed my contract with The New York Times, they were still paying $200 a day for a day rate. I was one of the few photographers willing to shoot for newspapers. Everyone else was chasing magazine jobs, which I thought was insane. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, newspapers—they go out on a regular basis.’ I understood why people didn’t do it, but because others didn’t, I ended up covering every food story in LA and Baja for The New York Times for two and a half years. That led to The Washington Post and then to digital publications. That’s when the food work really picked up.

I was really lucky to get a digital story into Lucky Peach before it folded. That was a career high, because it was one of the things I had been aiming for. I just wanted to be in an issue of Lucky Peach. But the real thing that saved me—on top of photographing for newspapers—was that I could pitch. I had ideas.

I realized, ‘This is how you get work.’ Unless we do it—as people who are not adequately represented in the industry—no one’s going to do it. When those stories get accepted, and it’s something that came from your soul and your observation of the world, it becomes more like a collaboration with the photo editor. And it’s so sweet when it gets published.

So I became a pitching monster. I was constantly pitching stories.

That’s actually how I got the piece that really broke it open for me in terms of exposure—the California Sunday Magazine feature. I loved that magazine. I loved the photography in it. I told myself, ‘I’m going to be in that magazine one day.’

I pitched them a story about chefs in South Central who were harnessing Instagram to sell their food. The story was about the chefs and their ingenuity.I sent them at least a thousand images for my wide edit. When I received their hi-res order, there were no portraits of our subjects, which I thought was extremely odd for a people centered food story. It was about the chefs more than it was about the food—it was about the role they were playing in their community. And that’s how I pitched the story. That’s how the writer pitched the story. So then when I got the high res order, I was like, something is really amiss here.

I sent them some extra pictures and told them ‘It’s kind of not cool for there to not be portraits of the people.’

In my head, I was like, there’s no fucking way this is running without these people’s portraits. This meant something to my subjects. And I wasn’t going to disappoint them because they granted me access into their lives, and that was not something that I took lightly.

It ended up being a 14-page feature. I was fucking stoked. The designer did hand-lettered writing for each chef. Everyone got their moment to shine with their portrait. The moment that story hit the presses, it was nonstop. I got an agent. The feature was submitted to the SPDs for design, and we swept.

Around that time, I had a core group of collaborators—Black women, Black fems, other Black trans people. We were like, ‘Nothing is going to change if we don’t do it ourselves. If we don’t roll up our sleeves and figure out some solutions, it’s going to continue to be really difficult.’

We started doing something that some of the white guys in the industry had long bragged about. When I went to a meeting, I would bring one of my homies’ mailers and say, ‘If I can’t shoot this, the homie can shoot this.’

We just started circulating work amongst ourselves. Then the Authority Collective came into being in 2017 and we launched in 2018. We shared work within a group of 300 people and created a space of accountability when it came to working with publications. That took off in a way I wasn’t anticipating.

Angie: So how did you come to the point where you wanted to walk away from photography even though you were experiencing a lot of success?

Oriana: By March 12, 2020, I lost all of the work I had lined up for that year—email after email after email. In one day it was gone. I thought, ‘Okay, we’re done. There’s no clearer sign that this should be over.’ I came to recognize that I had been working really hard for an industry that didn’t care about my material well-being.

Working during the first Trump administration was a fucking nightmare—working as a Black person who was visibly queer. The things I had to experience on set can only be described as absolutely egregious. And it was every job.

My crews were always majority people of color, almost always women and femme. That was something I was dedicated to. I didn’t like being on set as the only one. It didn’t make any sense to me that it was happening.

The myriad of these experiences made me realize: the problem here is the people. The problem here is a lack of self-awareness, a lack of questioning the system you live under and benefit from.

People should not constantly have to worry about housing, putting food on the table, or having healthcare. The photo industry is not equitable. We’re not getting paid fairly. This industry is deeply racist, sexist, and homophobic. Getting an assignment or not getting an assignment is the difference between keeping a roof over my head or not. This is how I feed myself. This is how I keep myself clothed and housed.

I decided, ‘This is not worth it. My health is not worth it. My sanity is not worth it.’

I’ll be 100 percent real: if you can’t respect me as a human being, you don’t get access to my labor. There’s a reason you have to hire photographers to make pictures—you have to be willing to trust the people you’re hiring.

Whether or not my images are being published does not stop me from being a photographer. I will never stop making pictures. I just don’t want to fuck with y’all anymore.

Angie: So when you moved to Chicago and stopped working in the industry, what did you do?

Oriana: One of the things I started doing in 2016 was collecting books by Black women authors. During Trump’s first presidency, I thought, ‘The censorship is going to come down any moment. This is just the fascist playbook. Let me start collecting these books.’

So when 2020 hit, I read 51 books. That’s when I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to open a bookshop. Chicago is a great place to do this. This is a city of readers.’

At the same time, I was writing my newsletter and teaching classes. I was thinking about how language works, and what it means to be Black under another wave of repression and dictatorship.

In the back of my mind I knew: ‘I want to do something different. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but I know I’m interested in ceramics. I’m interested in sound and sculpture. I’ll give myself the time and space to figure out this new practice. I’m not going to put expectations on it. I’ll try whatever I feel called to.’

My rent was really affordable and I had an entire pottery studio in the basement. What I had been asking for just fell into my lap. So I started hand-building. And I felt grounded again, in a way I had once felt when I was making photos.

When the Biden election happened, I got blindingly angry. I had to do something with that energy. I started playing with natural ink. I was making coffee, grinding that ink with some other stuff, and I just started drawing. It was helping me get the energy out. I asked myself, ‘What would I do if I wasn’t concerned about making money?’

Long story short, I fell into this new practice—works on paper, ceramics, and sound—where language itself became a medium I was using. And it had been there the whole fucking time, but I couldn’t see it because of photography. I had been laying down the groundwork for the practice without even realizing it.

So full circle, the moment I put ink to paper, I just knew: ‘This is it.’

Angie: Have you worked on any editorial jobs since you moved to Chicago and left the industry?

Oriana: I’ve had really exceptional experiences working for the Chicago Reader. The writers are exceptional. The editor-in-chief is exceptional. The moral clarity that team carries is beyond anything I had experienced before.

I documented the cover story they did on Black femme sex workers post-pandemic. It felt so good to hand someone my work and have them engage with it deeply enough to know I could handle that variety of assignments. That had not been the case when I was doing editorial before.

When you work at the level we work at, everyone is making excellent work. What distinguished me is that I like to run my mouth and I can speak in coherent paragraphs. That has always been my strength, which I now realize is directly connected to my disability. I’m hyper-verbal, autistic.

I will never stop making pictures. I’ve been deeply invested in a vernacular photography practice because I’ve been thinking a lot about archival practices Black people have that we don’t always see as part of ‘the archive’—because we’re not given that language.

But I grew up looking at my grandma’s family album. That was the first seed planted for me. And it was also my grandpa’s collection of National Geographic magazines.

Angie: At this point, would you accept editorial assignments?

Oriana: I would’ve said yes prior to the election. Now I say no. The media landscape and its acquiescing to the dismantling of a free press is frightening. It puts journalists—visual or otherwise—at deep risk.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the time I’ve been away from photography, it’s that it’s intolerable for me to have to put aside my ethics and my values. I can’t do it. I was jumping through hoops in my head around visibility and representation, telling myself, ‘These stories need to be told. These people need to be seen.’ And I do believe that’s true. But I also know that doesn’t change the material realities of the vulnerable people I was photographing. That’s a hard pill to swallow, because part of the reason we all do this is to change lives and change minds.

I think there are some things that are deeply important to consider. We’re in a crisis of conscience and a crisis of critical thinking. Pretending that what we’re living through does not have dire consequences for all of us is something I cannot participate in anymore.

It’s crazy to me for anyone to be like, ‘Okay, what’s the hottest restaurant?’ They are literally disappearing American citizens. I don’t want to talk about restaurants. I don’t want to take pictures of celebrities. How long do we do this until we can’t do it anymore? The apathy right now is truly frightening to me.

So no, I will not be picking up my camera. But I will be picking up my pen instead, because I think that actually has more power right now. I think truth-telling is an antiseptic to fascism. Artists are the ones who say, ‘This is not okay. It can’t be this way.’ That is supposed to be the role of the media and journalism.

I would not make money in this climate as an editorial photographer. I am a liability—and I’m really proud of that, actually. I don’t want to be seen as safe or as someone who would capitulate at this moment. That’s not my job as an artist.

I am the happiest I can remember being in my adult life. Every day I wake up engaged in work that is deeply meaningful and important to me. I’m not having to pretend to be palatable or behave a certain way, which is intolerable when you’re autistic. If something is wrong and makes me physically uncomfortable, I cannot deal with that, and it’s very difficult for me to pretend otherwise.

Angie: That’s a superpower. But I can also imagine it being really, really hard.

Oriana: We know how to communicate with one another and not take things personally. The fact that I get excited about believing that injustice is not something anyone should have to tolerate—that’s one of the things that makes me the artist I am. It was also the reason I was able to make photographs the way I did.

More than anything, seeing that you can have a successful career and walk away from it is probably the most deeply empowering thing I’ve done. To know that you are worthy in and of yourself, exactly as you are. That worth doesn’t need to be quantified by a paycheck. It doesn’t need to be quantified by marriage.

All of the times I was told I couldn’t survive—I have survived. And I’m thriving.

I think practicing bravery and courage is actually a deeply important practice. We don’t have many avenues to practice courage in the United States. I’m also seeing that a lot of cowards are running around, and it’s just because they don’t know they already have the power within them to be courageous. The powers that be don’t want them to recognize that.

If you decide to leave the photo industry, for whatever reason, that’s not a failure. You get to pick the life that makes you happy. And anything in your life that doesn’t make you happy—get rid of it. It’s not worth it in the end.

We have a very, very short time on this earth. If you don’t do it now, when will you do it? Just take the fucking leap. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

 

Calla Fleischer

How did you decide which images or stories would make it into the final volume?
Calla: This was an enormously difficult task. My catalog is made of thousands of images taken over many years. I worked for several months both on my own and then with the help of Greg Gorman to reduce it to a few thousand and then again with Gary Johns to get it down to these few hundred chosen. Some of the images called for others to go with them to create a story. I could easily have made a book of completely different stories, but it would have the same feeling. I could also have made a book with no stories—just beautiful images—but that would be something else altogether.

Your artist’s statement mentions exploring where “culture and humanity intersect.” Can you share a specific image from the book that best embodies that intersection for you, and what the backstory was?
My Portugal project probably embodies this best. I have for several years photographed women in the rural north and urban south to show how women struggle. Their human struggle for survival has parallels in the centuries-old tenant-farming culture of rural northern Portugal and in the sexual commerce of Lisbon. They must get up each day and make it to the next. They have very little support. The men aren’t much help, if there are any. They are captured by circumstances, but the cultures in which they live are completely unalike. Two of those images are the 99-year-old woman on page 295 and a sex worker on pages 284 and 285.

As someone born in South Africa and now living in New Hampshire, how do your personal journey and identity shape the way you see, photograph, and interpret other cultures and lives?
I have lived in South Africa, England, Hong Kong, and the United States—and within the U.S., in New York, California, and now New Hampshire. In each of these places I have had to adapt: to see, feel, and read the local culture rather than brandish my own perspective, and to make new friends on their turf. Perhaps it makes me more sensitive, more of a chameleon, more able to relate one-on-one. I think this led me to be the kind of photographer that can hang back and wait before picking up my camera.

Were there ethical or emotional challenges you encountered while photographing in communities or places far from home? How did you navigate consent, representation, and vulnerability in those moments?
It really doesn’t matter how far from home I am. Many—or even most—of the people I have photographed are grounded in their own cultures and not part of mine. I respect that, and I try to capture aspects of their humanity despite the cultural distance. I wasn’t trying for any specific representation. These are stories of individuals, or small groups of individuals. None of my work is ethnographic or political. I do not take pictures where I sense or hear any reluctance to be photographed. I learned that lesson as a child when I took a picture without permission and was severely chastised by the subject. I believe I can, with most strangers—through my expression and gestures—communicate respect and a tacit request for permission, and I’m very sensitive to their reactions. You can see it in the eyes. There have been moments where I felt a little uneasy, potentially unsafe, but not many, and I’ve been able to back away when that happened. I’m not trying to steal the image in face of resistance, though I know some photographers do. Of course, in some of the shots taken on the fly or from a distance there’s no explicit consent, but I feel those are distant enough not to be intrusive.

Looking ahead, how do you envision Stories Untold influencing your future projects—in terms of subject, style, or narrative—and what new stories are you most excited to tell next?
I will continue to photograph people as I travel, trying to tell their stories. This project could go on and on, as it already has for decades. I don’t think I need to change it. But I have worked in other genres too, and maybe my next project will be a book of figure studies, celebrating the beauty of the body.

If you could sum up Stories Untold in one emotion or feeling, what would it be—and why?
It would be “sympathetic connection” to the lives I depict. Admiration, concern, inspiration, empathy, respect, wonder, delight — all positive emotions. There’s nothing to hate or to fear or to despise. I would like people looking at my book to feel the same connection and curiosity that I have felt.

In five years, what do you hope someone will say or feel when they pick up Stories Untold for the first time?
Then, as now, I hope people will feel that everyone deserves an audience, and that our humanity transcends our circumstances. Perhaps I’d also like them to give me a pat on the back for having pulled all this together—though that’s a bit self-indulgent, it’s true.

If you could go back to the first destination you photographed for this project, what would you do differently now?
I think I would spend more time listening before photographing. Early on, I was often driven too quickly by the subject and the moment. I had to learn to be aware also of the composition, the light, the mood, as well as the immediacy of the moment. Now I understand that patience reveals deeper layers of a person’s story. I would more often slow down, wait for the light, have more conversations, and allow those connections to shape the photographs in more profound ways. I think I am more confident now so can allow this to happen.

How long is your book tour, and what are the destinations?
The book tour will last about six months. It started in New York at the Leila Heller Gallery on October 9, and will include San Francisco, Sonoma, Los Angeles, London, Lisbon, and Cape Town.