CRITICAL PHOTOJOURNALISM

Co-author Tara Pixley, Ph.D. is a Jamaican-American visual journalist, Assistant Professor and Director of the Master of Journalism Program at Temple University. She is a Fulbright Specialist in Visual Media and has been a Reynolds Journalism Fellow; Pulitzer Center Grantee; IWMF NextGen Fellow; World Press Photo Solutions Visual Journalism Initiative grantee; and a Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard. She has served as Vice President of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Board and been a photo editor for the New York Times, CNN, Newsweek and The 19th. 

The interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.

Every long form visual story I’ve worked on has come from me asking follow-up questions of someone who said or did something that piqued my interest. In late 2019, I was attending a digital storytelling faculty research workshop at Loyola Marymount University where I heard a professor presenting on his work about greenwashing through the history of oil drilling in Los Angeles. I was a newcomer to LA, so I was shocked to find that the city’s wealth was originally built on oil and that today it’s the largest urban oil field in the country (possibly the world). As I dove into research on a century of oil production in Southern California, I realized this was an environmental justice issue with far-reaching impacts. Importantly, I learned that many communities had been fighting oil companies, local, and state governments for years even as they experienced the negative health effects from living in proximity to oil. 

When I began photographing my project Immersed in Oil, the majority of images on the issue of oil in LA were landscape photos of derricks near homes. There was very little work done on visualizing the people, homes and lives that were impacted and almost no coverage of the tireless community members who had been educating and advocating for their neighbors in the struggle to push oil wells far away from populated areas. 

I set out to tell that story, applying a solutions visual journalism focus on how they did this community advocacy work and who was being affected by the cancer clusters, asthma, nosebleeds, preterm birth and other health impacts caused by living in the shadow of oil production. It was the height of COVID lockdowns when I started, so I was meeting with community members and activists in parks or near oil wells, rather than inside their homes or being able to spend days alongside them. For two years, I built connections and contacts across organizations and individuals, showing up to weekly community meetings, “toxic tours” done by activists, and holiday toy drives to be a consistent presence and to hopefully build trust. I was also researching crop schedules in Kern County, soccer games in Inglewood parks, and Culver City city council meetings to know when to show up for enterprise photo opportunities and what was being discussed at the local policy level. 

I’ve been working on this project now for several years. There is still much more that could be done and many more images I want to make. But in that time, I have done enough research and spent enough time speaking to people across the region that I feel confident I know the issue inside and out. Having a high level of familiarity with the science, the political landscape and the key players working on the issue helps inform my approach to making images and helps me connect with a wide range of people who have grown to trust that I care about this work.  I feel this is really important to doing good long form work in visual journalism. Ask questions, follow-up, do your own research, be interested in and knowledgeable about a lot of different things — biology, ecology, law, psychology, urban planning, etc.  — and spend the time getting to know the people and places who are at the core of your stories. Then you can pull out your camera.