EDITOR'S NOTE: As of March 2021, we are transitioning to a fully-digital News Photographer magazine after 75 glorious years of having a print magazine. I will be posting stories - like this one about CatchLight - that would have appeared in print. Look forward to the regular features such as "The Image Deconstructed" by Ross Taylor, "Career & Life Balance" by Autumn Payne, Matt Pearl's "Doing it all, doing it well," book reviews by Stephen Wolgast and much more. Thanks for your support! - Sue Morrow, editor, News Photographer
By CatchLight
May 2021 - Photojournalists have always been at the center of community-driven journalism: It’s ingrained in the way visual journalists do their work. Making photographs is intimate and collaborative work — it is dependent on being out in the community, engaging with people and building trust, which is impossible to do from behind a desk.
As newsroom staffs have declined over the last 20 years, it is no surprise that visual journalists have declined by more than half. And according to American Society of Newsroom Editors Census data, the breakdown of communities’ trust in journalism and the ability to see themselves reflected has been a detriment to our democracy and society.
The means of communication have never been more visual. Yet we are facing a crisis of high-quality, consistent and representative visual journalism. Currently, image deserts are becoming prevalent in most communities where news deserts have formed, affecting not just our understanding of our communities today, but for future generations.
CatchLight is a San Francisco-based visual-first media organization that aims to address this expanding national issue. Launched in 2019, its program CatchLight Local revives visual journalism at the local level and supports professional local visual journalists and storytellers, including photographers, multimedia producers and graphic designers. By directly connecting them with local newsrooms and community members, they work in underrepresented communities. CatchLight works with visual journalists who have a direct connection to the communities they cover and provide inclusive, in-depth, accurate and locally contextualized information to the public.
The pilot, successfully launched in the Bay Area in 2019 with four visual journalists, clearly demonstrated that access to locally sourced visual journalism changed the relationships between participating newsrooms and their constituent communities. The resulting visual stories performed above average on key audience metrics for newsroom partners such as recirculation and engaged time, as well as drew support and donations from the community and sparked direct connections between local organizations and policymakers. In 2020, the second CatchLight Local visual desk was launched in Chicago as part of CatchLight’s ambitious plans to provide more than a dozen communities in the United States with high-quality newsroom visual representation over the next 10 years. The first stories from the Chicago Local fellows were recently published in Block Club Chicago and additional visually-driven reporting projects will run through Fall 2021. The Bay Area desk will continue with new newsroom partners and fellows.
The San Francisco Bay Area CatchLight Local program focused on amplifying the voices and stories of populations experiencing structural and economic inequality through community engagement and the use of an inclusive reporting process to produce visual
stories around economic inequality in the Bay Area. Four visual journalism fellows participated in the program: Sebastián Hidalgo documented farm-working families coping with the housing crisis; Yesica Prado reported on the culture of vehicular living in unhoused communities in the Bay Area; Felix Uribe followed the lives of four residents affected by the Bay Area housing crisis; and David Rodriguez examined the pandemic’s effects on farmworkers.
CatchLight Local Fellow Sebastián Hidalgo and reporter Kate Cimini, in collaboration with CatchLight, The Salinas Californian and USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, examined how farm-working families in Salinas, California — the fifth least affordable place to live in the United States — create home in the midst of a housing crisis.
Introduce yourself: Tell us who you are in a couple of sentences.
I’m an American-born Mexican visual journalist and educator based in Chicago. For the last five years, my work has focused on a range of social issues affecting communities of color. I use photography as a tool to work with communities and newsrooms. I also teach about gentrification and hold panel discussions about trauma-informed approaches in journalism.
What was the genesis of this project?
In 2019, I was displaced from my community, Pilsen, in Chicago. But it didn’t happen right away.
Throughout the years, historical murals were painted over in gray; high price restaurants and single-family homes replaced beloved storefronts and community members. Slowly, the neighborhood turned into a place I couldn’t recognize, and I began to look outwards to see what was there. Questioning along the way, “What is a home, and how can we create and maintain it?”
A few mentors mentioned Salinas when I asked them the question. These are poets, scholars, muralists, artists, other journalists and close friends. Some were raised in the city of Salinas in the ’60s and ’70s. They shared stories about how they migrated from the farmlands that surround Salinas and were lured into the manufacturing and food industries in Chicago. It was a sort of (specifically) Mexican workers’ history of the United States. I began to research the high cost of living in the city and connected with a few people while still in Chicago. Soon after, I applied to the CatchLight Local fellowship.
My proposal examines the housing landscape and how farm-working families create a “home” amidst the housing crisis in Salinas. I took the necessary steps to ensure I was able to embed fully and be open to learn, unlearn and relearn as much as I could from the people who call the city home –– that was important to me.
What did you learn from this project and fellowship?
I learned how interconnected both Chicago and Salinas were to one another. In Salinas, much like in Chicago, there is a need for an abundance of resources like trilingual translators for the city’s indigenous population and living wages to match the high price of rent, among other needs.
I also learned about the importance of breaking monolithic narratives around issues like the housing crisis and labor. Working families are the experts of their needs but often go unheard or ignored. This trend continues to be the norm even today.
What do you think the role is of visual journalism in addressing local issues such as the housing crisis in Salinas?
Our role as visual journalists is to document the issues without dehumanizing people and their stories. Photographers have an opportunity to include and engage with the communities they are reporting in — not just on a local level but on a daily basis.
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How does your storytelling process involve and/or serve the community you are documenting?
Photography is the process. I include the audience by hosting public discussions around any given topic, conducting surveys and implementing street photography practices in order to be present. This process can look different for everyone. But for me and in this case, it looked more like consistent listening and adjusting. Being (very) dyslexic, the best way for me to learn is to experience, build relationships and trust.
How has your experience during the CL Local Fellowship impacted you and your work moving forward?
The lessons came early on in the research process. When I was living in Pilsen, I was surprised at how linked the two cities are to one another. Both have historically contributed to a range of civil rights and labor movements through art and organizing.
I am much a product of that history in the United States as much as the next person. Through those lessons, however, I redefined how change and accountability are defined in my work as a journalist.
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What has been the response and/or impact on the newsroom/community thus far?
The Salinas Californian, our partner in CatchLight’s Local initiative, had an impact viewership improving three times the normal amount. The project was recognized as “setting an example for a journalist,” according to Gannett.
Most importantly, the community now has a deeper understanding of the housing crisis, a know-your-rights tool kit for residents maneuvering the housing landscape and more.
The story also created a foundation for our newsroom partner to continue the story. They are doing the work!
Sebastián Hidalgo is an award-winning visual journalist and digital producer who uses photography to engage and explore today’s social and humanitarian issues affecting communities of color. He is also an educator and cohost of The Visual Desk, a biweekly editorial support group for freelance visual journalists interested in a more inclusive approach to serving communities they engage in.
Hidalgo comes from a hyperlocal and civic journalism background, having freelanced for more than four years in underrepresented neighborhoods in Chicago, and has also completed two City Bureau fellowship cycles. He has covered a range of stories, including the social and cultural effects of gentrification/displacement in a Mexican-American neighborhood for longtime residents, high property taxes in American suburbs, Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” pilot program and the mental toll of wrongful convictions.
Hidalgo believes in shared power with community members by growing in conjunction with the people who are in front of the camera, as a witness, a bridge and, in some cases, as a collaborator.
Sebastián Hidalgo photo courtesy of Sebastián Hidalgo
CatchLight Local Fellow and local vehicle resident Yesica Prado looked at the culture of vehicular living in the Bay Area, examining how policies and regulations such as overnight parking bans are affecting people living in their cars and RVs in Berkeley and San Francisco. Developed in partnership with the San Francisco Public Press, the project has also been featured by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and became part of the Artists Against an #Infodemic Campaign, which aims to improve access to locally relevant public health information. In a region where the cost of living has spiraled upward in the last decade, some who find themselves without housing opt for living in vehicles. Many view it as a temporary fix — an affordable shelter or intermediate stop they hope will put them on a path to stable, permanent housing.
Introduce yourself: Tell us who you are in a few sentences and give us a little background on your career path thus far.
I am a first-generation Mexican immigrant from Nezahualcoyótl, Mexico — a former informal settlement adjacent to Mexico City. At 9 years old, we left home, and I grew up undocumented in a southeast neighborhood in Chicago, Archer Heights. With limited choices for a job without a Social Security number, I ventured into photography to learn a skill, a trade. My hopes were to earn a living as an independent contractor, and I attended the University of Illinois in Chicago. But unexpectedly before turning 21, I was granted a U visa, and years later, I took advantage of this new opportunity to seek a master’s in journalism from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. After school, I began freelancing for the San Francisco Public Press. Today, I’m happy to continue working with this incredible team, documenting housing inequality in the Bay Area through the CatchLight Local fellowship.
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Can you tell us about your personal connection with your fellowship work?
In my fellowship work, I explored the culture of vehicle living in the Bay Area, hoping to shed light on the teamwork and hardships of living on public streets. In my personal experience, I have spent the last three years living on public streets. I didn’t arrive at this situation by choice. After my first semester of graduate school, I lost my housing in San Francisco while studying journalism.
I searched for all kinds of housing options in hopes to stay in school, but affordable options were very scarce. I purchased a recreational vehicle after many failed attempts to stay indoors. But while I purchased a vehicle as a means to stay alive, I was unaware of the great effort it takes to maintain this lifestyle, from avoiding the police for citations to finding places to do house chores and homework on the streets. It was difficult. It was painful. I was lost.
But after graduation day, I got a big reality check. I returned to my home to find construction notices at the Marina Boulevard parking lot, asking us to leave or be towed. No alternatives were given. And that’s when it hit me. We are not welcome here. But everyone living on that strip of land had a boiling question: Where do we go?
For years, a question without an answer. It’s unacceptable. As a journalist, I seek to find answers for my community, hoping information can bring light into our darkness.
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How did this particular project come about?
During our community displacement from the Berkeley Marina, I explored activism as a way to find a more direct path to creating change. I thought speaking directly to people in power would allow negotiations to begin and find a solution that is fair for everyone involved. But after spending a year of endless meetings, workshops, film screenings and protests, the results yielded to the City Council crafting legislation that banned overnight parking for recreational vehicles and campers. After many attempts to bridge communication, it just felt like a slap in the face.
But I am not giving up. I will continue to work until we are all heard. This project, it’s an opportunity to raise the volume on the problem and highlight the voices of my neighbors. It’s a record that we exist.
What do you think the role is of visual journalism in addressing local issues such as the housing crisis in the Bay Area?
In the Bay Area, the housing crisis is not a new problem, but continuing its documentation is crucial to finding a solution. Here, visual journalism can show our readers available housing options and how people find home in their surroundings. Through photography, we can live that experience and be inspired to find other ways to live with one another. But most importantly, we can begin to see real people in our communities and understand their feelings instead of just talking about an issue.
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How has your experience during the CL Local Fellowship impacted you and your work moving forward?
After school, I was feeling very defeated and disconnected from journalism. But being a CatchLight Local Fellow changed that for me, specifically the mentorship. It gave me a second chance to believe in myself. Looking back at where I was before (the fellowship) and where I am now, it's incredible how much I have learned, grown and been challenged. More than a hand, they handed me light when I found myself in darkness.
And most importantly, CatchLight gave me the tools and guidance to carve a path to share my community’s story. It’s been amazing to see my community story reach new audiences including a public exhibition at YBCA, a featured part of the programming in this year’s SF Urban Film Festival, and republished internationally by the BBC.
Yesica Prado is a multimedia journalist and works best with photography, video, audio and long-form writing. She is a first-generation Mexican immigrant from Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico. At the age of 9, Prado immigrated with her family to the United States. She was raised on the South Side of Chicago as an undocumented student. Before turning 21, Prado was granted a U visa and took advantage of her new opportunity, expanding her borders to seek a journalism degree.
Prado has a master’s in journalism from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor’s of fine art in photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prado focuses her reporting on issues that limit people’s access to land, such as poverty, immigration, homelessness, climate change and indigenous communities. Prado’s photography has been published by the Los Angeles Times, HuffPost and KQED.
Yesica Prado photo courtesy of Yesica Prado
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In the San Francisco Bay Area, the yawning gap between those with means and those without grows wider every year. San Francisco specifically is seeing a large-scale migration of its working-class and low-income communities of color to suburban cities like Antioch. “What it takes to stay” puts faces to statistics, offering intimate visual vignettes of the lives of four residents affected by and striving to endure the Bay Area housing crisis. The project was a partnership between lifelong Bay Area resident and CatchLight Local Fellow Felix Uribe and Bay City News Foundation’s LocalNewsMatters.org site.
Introduce yourself: Tell us who you are in a few sentences and give us a little background on your career path thus far.
My mother emigrated here from Lima, Peru, in her 20s, and my father came to the States when he was 17 from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I was born and raised in the Bay Area, and I currently live in the Tenderloin District in San Francisco. Photography has always been my passion.
How did this particular project/body of work come about?
Before moving to San Francisco in 2013, all I heard about the Tenderloin was how you shouldn’t live there because of how dangerous and dirty it is. My first experience with the Tenderloin was visiting a friend where we went to drop off some groceries to a resident at the Pacific Bay Inn, which is an SRO (single room occupancy), and it was such a different experience than what I was told, and since then, I try to share more of the beauty of the Tenderloin. This is a neighborhood of survivors, and I wanted to give an opportunity to the residents to share their experience of the TL.
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Reflecting back on this project — what were your main learnings? How did this work inform your practice as a photographer and identity?
I learned that despite 3,000 kids living in a 0.35 mile radius, the TL isn’t considered a residential neighborhood by the city of San Francisco. This helped inform my work on this project to continue to highlight the community as a residential neighborhood, which I hope can help change things from a policy level so the Tenderloin can get the services other neighborhoods get.
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How has your experience during the CL Local Fellowship impacted you and your work moving forward?
CatchLight Local brought me real connection between people and my work. I have been photographing in the Tenderloin for so long that this was an eye-opening experience of how much more my photography can grow and I can learn about visual storytelling and reporting. It helped me create a path forward to working on the kinds of visuals I wanted to make to represent my community and how I can engage and help strengthen the community in the process. I also had the opportunity to connect with members of CatchLight’s advisory network, which resulted in my first assignment for The New York Times.
Felix Uribe was born and raised in Silicon Valley and is a resident in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, where he’s committed to highlighting the beauty of his neighborhood, which is often misunderstood and ignored. Passionate about life’s “in-between moments,” Uribe through his work displays a sensitivity for true human authenticity and uniquely beautiful aesthetics. With his one-of-a-kind street portraiture, Uribe portrays people as they are while simultaneously pulling back the layers, often revealing more about the subject than text or video would be capable of sharing.
Felix Uribe photo courtesy of Felix Uribe
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The existing but often hidden struggles of Salinas families appear to be exposed and exacerbated during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and California’s shelter-in-place order. Working as a staff photographer at The Salinas Californian and with support from CatchLight Local, photojournalist David Rodriguez, who was a finalist for the pilot program and hired as a result of the process when a full-time position opened at The Salinas Californian, produced a five-part story series further examining how this pandemic has brought to light low wages and crowded living conditions, inequality in education, and food insecurities.
Introduce yourself: Tell us who you are in a few sentences and give us a little background on your career path thus far.
I’m a photojournalist based in Salinas, California, and a graduate from San Francisco State University. I was born in Orange County, raised in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and Salinas. Growing up in Mexico helped me develop my multicultural perspective, and having my first language be Spanish has truly connected to the community I now cover. I spent my early years living with my farm-working mother and learning English. After college, I interned at the Monterey County Weekly and was hired as the staff photographer for The Salinas Californian in October 2019.
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How did this particular project come about? Why were you interested in it?
The struggles of low-income, particularly farm-working, families have always been of interest to me because they were my own reality growing up in Salinas. The work of past Catchlight Local fellow Sebastian Hidalgo and Salinas Californian reporter Kate Cimini highlighting the housing crisis served as a jumping-off point for me. My project is a modified continuation of what they started: a deeper look into the housing issues they covered, along with parallel issues such as food insecurity and education inequality that plague the lives of millions of low-income people.
What do you think the role is of visual journalism in addressing local issues such as the housing crisis in Salinas?
The role of visual journalists is to hold those in power accountable for their actions. Especially now, when there is discussion about police funding going somewhere else. If you can produce impactful work, it could lead to lawmaking and major changes in your community. When protests happened nationwide after the death of George Floyd, policymakers were pressured to make systemic changes to help ensure racial equity.
My dream would be for local policymakers here in Monterey County to see the living conditions of the people working in fields that feed the nation and agree that something is wrong. Farmworkers sustain our food supply but cannot afford a lifestyle that matches the importance of their work.
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What is your relationship like (i.e., any personal connections) to the community you are documenting?
My connection is deep. After moving from Aguascalientes, Mexico, to Salinas at the age of 8 years old not knowing a lick of English, I quickly connected with the people there. Most of my classmates were also English learners who spoke Spanish, so I didn’t feel as alienated. Now I get to cover stories in the same streets where I grew into myself. It's definitely a nostalgic trip every time I’m out on an assignment. Waiting in line with my mom at food banks, not knowing what a real bed felt like for the majority of my childhood, and having to move from place to place, always single rooms or trailers, until finally we could afford somewhere with only my own family are disturbingly similar experiences of many people living in Salinas.
How does this moment impact how you view this project and/or how does your project help put this moment into perspective?
This moment has definitely brought to light the generational issues that have affected communities of color. Essential farmworkers are getting sick, which jeopardizes the food supply of our entire nation.
This moment in history should show the country the need for these workers to be in good health. It makes this project very important right now, as it is a window into the lives of people we unknowingly rely on, and yet we allow them to live in undesirable conditions.
What has been your overall experience working as a CatchLight Local Fellow?
I moved to Salinas when I was 8 years old. My mom worked in the fields to help support our family. I was inspired to document her work and our community from an early age. Fast forward to 2020, and getting the (CatchLight Local) fellowship was a dream come true. CatchLight and The Salinas Californian helped me report for the people, to be part of creating a paper for the people in Salinas. I get a flood of messages almost every day with people in my community thanking me for sharing their stories, and I tell them I don't do it alone — it is all because of the partnership and support with CatchLight and The Salinas Californian that these stories are told and shared back to the community.
David Rodriguez is a Mexican visual journalist and reporter who uses a solution journalism approach to build community. He has worked on a range of stories, including the mental toll of schizophrenia and finding peace through family; mass displacement caused by the Camp Fire, one of California’s deadliest wildfires; and housing discrimination for low-income farm-working families. His most recent projects focus on the burden that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on essential farmworkers in Salinas.
He discovered his passion for photography growing up on the East Side of Salinas. At a time where violence defined the neighborhood, he found purpose in observing the struggles of his single farm-working mother. In May 2019, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a bachelor’s degree in photojournalism. Rodriguez resides in the Alisal –– the city’s east side Mexican mecca. Currently, he is a multimedia journalist at The Salinas Californian.
Photo of David Rodriguez by Sharon Hsu
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LOCAL NEWSROOM CatchLight Local Newsrooms collaborate with visual journalists to document under-reported perspectives of critical social issues. Interested in bringing CatchLight Local to your city? Get in touch with CatchLight Editorial and Engagement Director Jenny Stratton: [email protected]
SUPPORTER Your gift will help leverage the power of visuals to inform and connect communities, reseeding visual journalism at the local level. Sign up here for CatchLight’s newsletter to follow the stories and make a donation.
EDUCATOR AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION We are building partnerships with organizations to collaborate on creative community-based practices. Interested in partnering? Get in touch: [email protected]
VISUAL JOURNALIST CatchLight Local Fellows work directly with local newsrooms and community members to strengthen trust and address critical local issues. Sign up for our newsletter for future fellowship openings.
EDITOR'S NOTE: As of March 2021, we are transitioning to a fully-digital News Photographer magazine after 75 glorious years of having a print magazine. The link above will take you to past bimonthly issues in PDF and digital forms dating to August 2018.
I will posting stories - like this one from CatchLight - that would have appeared in print. Look forward to the regular features like "The Image Deconstructed" by Ross Taylor, "Career & Life Balance" by Autumn Payne, Matt Pearl's "Doing it all, doing it well," book reviews by Stephen Wolgast and much more.
We have a team of NPPA members researching a new website for nppa.org and News Photographer. Look for updates on nppa.org, our weekly newsletter (sign up!) and social media channels - Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And hey, JOIN us! Or DONATE!
As always, if you have suggestions, questions or comments, email me at [email protected].
Thank you for your support!
Sue Morrow, Editor, News Photographer
