The PhotoWork Foundation is delighted to introduce the 2025 PhotoWork Junior Fellows! Beginning in January of 2025 these six talented photographers will embark on an intensive six-month journey to develop a project of their choice, hone their artistic voices, and expand their practices under the guidance of dedicated mentors.
These Fellows were selected from an application pool of over 240 submissions from across the United States. Our esteemed jurors recognized the strength of their work as well as their unwavering commitment to their craft. Each Junior Fellow will receive a $1,000 stipend from the PhotoWork Foundation, $2,000 in-kind support from picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom and additional guidance in post-production and professional development.
Additionally, ten outstanding shortlisted applicants will receive a portfolio review with our Executive Director, Sasha Wolf.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to this year’s jurors for their dedication and invaluable contributions to the selection process: Amanda Boe, Photo Editor, The New York Times; Jenia Fridlyand, Photographer & Photo Educator; Noa Lin, Associate Editor, Aperture; Shana Lopes, Assistant Curator of Photography, SFMOMA; and Lesley A. Martin, Executive Director, Printed Matter.
Please join us in celebrating the 2025 PhotoWork Junior Fellows! Learn more about this exceptional group of photographers and their work below.
Walker Bankson
Walker Bankson is from Wilmington, North Carolina. He’s an artist working in and beyond photography. His photographs focus on how history is performed and fictionalized in contested spaces in the south; for the past few years he’s been teaching and photographing at the high school he attended in North Carolina. He intends to use the fellowship to finish that body of work and move towards publishing it as a book.
Sam Gulliver
Sam Gulliver is a photographer based in Detroit, Michigan. While he is geographically rooted in an metropolitan setting, his work often delves into the culture and experiences of rural peoples. As a product of the Rust Belt himself, Gulliver seeks to challenge the stereotypical, faceless image of the Midwest, offering a fresh and distinctive perspective on this often-overlooked region of the United States. Through the PhotoWork Junior Fellowship and the mentorship it provides, he will deepen his exploration of the history and folklore of the Midwest, while also beginning the design of the book that will culminate from this work.
Rosemary Haynes
Rosemary Haynes is a photographer and darkroom printer based in Brooklyn, New York. By means of a view camera, Haynes creates staged portraits and environmental images that are collaborative and reflexive on the photographic process. Her work is guided by the magnetic and spiritual energy of spaces, exploring concepts of gateways, transits, and desire. As a PhotoWork Junior Fellow Haynes will continue an ongoing project surrounding these themes, pinging between radiuses of Pittsburgh, PA, New York, NY and her hometown of Florence, MA.
Jasmine Huang
Jasmine Huang is a lens-based artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She grew up in the suburbs of Memphis, TN, and cites her upbringing in the South as a core part of her education. She loves bald cypresses and the heat. While the view camera is her preferred medium, her background in painting and drawing inform her practice.
In high school, she found a picture taken by photojournalist Jeff Widener of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. She saw her father standing in the center of the photograph; since then, he’s never confirmed his identity in the picture. This memory was her first introduction to the ambiguity of the camera lens—where documentary and a re-writing of truth can occur.
During the PhotoWork Junior Fellowship, Jasmine intends to continue developing her ongoing series, which examines the relationship between the subject and photographer and the blurred lines between imagination and documentation. By combining her images with family album pictures, she hopes to investigate questions of memory and mythology. Jasmine is excited to work with the PhotoWork Foundation and picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom to develop her artistic voice and narrative practice.
Jess Rhodes
Jess Rhodes (b.1987) is a photographer and editor living in the American South. Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, she spent fourteen years in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to southwest Georgia in 2021. Jess currently acts as the senior editor for Pamplemousse Magazine, a periodical highlighting contemporary film photography. She received her BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design.
She is primarily focused on long-term projects that explore ideas of timelessness, reverence, sardonicism, magical realism, near-miss moments, and the American vernacular.
Through the guidance of the PhotoWork Junior Fellowship, Jess intends to re-examine her archive, create new images, and collaborate with others in envisioning a fully realized body of work.
Lawren Simmons
Lawren Simmons is a documentary photographer currently based in Washington, D.C. Born in 2000 in Jacksonville, Florida, his work is concerned with Black American life, America as an empire, and the juxtaposition of those dueling motifs.
He views photographing as the ability to preserve his ever-fleeting surroundings and environment. During the PhotoWork Junior Fellowship, he hopes to learn more about building a narrative structure throughout a body of work and creating successful books.