© Lawren Simmons
We are pleased to announce the conclusion of the 2025 PhotoWork Junior Fellowship. Over the past six months, our six Junior Fellows have flourished creatively under the guidance of their dedicated mentors. This journey of innovation and growth enabled them to push the boundaries of their practice, explore innovative approaches, and strengthen their artistic vision while creating distinctive and personal photographic projects.
The PhotoWork Junior Fellowship is a six-month mentorship program designed to support early-career photographers in developing a body of work and refining their visual voice and creative process. Grounded in the post-documentary tradition, the fellowship centers mentorship and community as essential to artistic growth.
We are deeply grateful to the six distinguished photographers who generously served as mentors this year: Kelli Connell, Carolyn Drake, Doug DuBois, Rahim Fortune, Wendy Red Star, and Bryan Schutmaat. Their insight, care, and commitment profoundly shaped the fellows’ work while modeling what it means to lead with both artistic excellence and generosity. The relationships forged throughout the program have laid the foundation for a lasting network, one that will continue to support, inspire, and strengthen each participant’s practice well beyond the fellowship, advancing our mission to nurture the next generation of photographic voices.
Congratulations to Walker Bankson, Sam Gulliver, Rosemary Haynes, Jasmine Huang, Jess Rhodes, and Lawren Simmons. Each of these six Junior Fellows demonstrated a deep commitment to advancing their creative practice with rigor, curiosity, and care, while gaining critical insight into what it means to sustain an artistic life in today’s contemporary fine art landscape.
Over the course of the program, the fellows worked diligently to produce new images and shape cohesive bodies of work. Through monthly meetings with their mentors, they engaged in thoughtful critique, editing, and conversations around vision, process, and presentation, laying the groundwork for continued growth beyond this fellowship.
In addition to a $1,000 stipend and $2,000 of in-kind post-production services, fellows participated in specially tailored sessions on professional practice, post-production, and the legal aspects of managing an artistic career.
“I’ve felt a renewed understanding of photography’s impact. This fellowship has made me a more focused, intentional, passionate, and driven artist. It’s truly an honor to be counted among such talented peers and mentors.”
-Jess Rhodes | 2025 Junior Fellow
“Being a PhotoWork Junior Fellow was an enriching and challenging experience that gave me the freedom and resources to push myself artistically and technically. I was able to expand upon my art practice and take myself out of my comfort zone, photographing in new ways and further developing how I consider image-making.”
-Jasmine Huang | 2025 Junior Fellow
The six projects developed during this year’s Junior Fellowship reflect a remarkable range of voices, perspectives, and artistic approaches. Together, they explore the complexity of the American experience, from intimate investigations of Black identity in the nation’s capital and the cultural fabric of the Midwest, to nuanced reflections on adolescence & the education system, grief, and community. Several fellows examined the shifting boundaries between fact and fiction, imagination and documentation, while another delved into the layered realities of diasporic and immigrant narratives. What unites these distinct bodies of work is a shared commitment to questioning dominant narratives and expressing a deep sense of personal belonging through photography.
Join us in celebrating the work of our six 2025 Junior Fellows.
Click images to view more.
We’d like to extend a special thanks to the New York State Council on the Arts and the William Talbott Hillman Foundation for their generous support of this program and picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom for their continued support and donation of in-kind services and comprehensive post-production guidance to each of our Junior Fellows.
View the 2025 Junior Fellowship Projects Here.