The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Today’s featured artist: Ann Hermes
For the past six years I’ve photographed local newsrooms from Alaska to Florida, documenting the dedicated but dwindling local news landscape. As a photographer with over 15 years of experience in newsrooms, I have a great deal of respect for the institutions that bring small communities the news.
An average of two newspapers shut down every week. In the wake of these closures many communities become news deserts. In their place is an information landscape of nationalized, and increasingly partisan, news that is ripe for misinformation. Studies now show that local government spending goes up, voter participation declines and cities often lose their bond rating after the loss of a local newspaper. Local Newsrooms needs to convey these insidious and largely unseen impacts.
With a growing catalog of images, video and interviews, I’m working to create a visual story of regional and national relevance. I plan to display some of this work in small town libraries, and similar spaces to make local newsrooms more visible in their neighborhoods. My goal is to use this work to engage communities in the search of and support for trusted local news while at the same time raising the importance of this issue to a national audience that may not have fully realized what has already been lost, and what is at stake.







To see more of this project, click here
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration advertising and in-house corporate industry for decades. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. Follow her on Instagram
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