Tara Pixley

I am a visual journalist and professor based in Los Angeles, with an MFA in Photography, a Ph.D. in Communication and two decades of experience as a photographer and photo editor.  As a queer, first-generation Jamaican-American, I care deeply about the visual rhetorics of immigration/borders, Blackness, LGBTQ+ communities, diaspora, and the Global South. My visual work reframes race, gender, climate futures, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities through a liberation lens. I am currently documenting the environmental justice issue of Los Angeles urban oil production, supported by the Pulitzer Center/Diversify Photo Eyewitness Photojournalism Grant and featured by Adobe.

Previously, I created Source of Safety, an identity-aware safety resource for visual journalists, as a 2022-2023 Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow. I’ve been an IWMF NextGen Fellow, an awardee of the World Press Photo Solutions Visual Journalism Initiative (for my work on a Tijuana LGBTQ+ migrant shelter) and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

As a Founding Member and Executive Director of Authority Collective, I help build community and opportunity for women/nonbinary photographers of color while also co-producing interventions into the status quo of visual media with projects such as the the Visual Leadership Salon, VEER zine, Photo Bill of Rights and Guide to Inclusive Photography. I am also Vice President of the National Press Photographer’s Association.

For assignment inquiries and other opportunities (or just to say hello!), please get in touch. While I can work on any topic in any environment, I especially love to tell visual stories about people of color, LGBTQIA+ community, dance in its many forms, and to make portraits of all kinds for your news outlet, organization, business, non-profit or NGO.

For information on my consulting services to help your organization, film set or newsroom tell compelling visual stories for diverse audiences equitably and inclusively, click here.

tara@tarapixley.com  |  1-770-331-9107  (mobile)