In this episode of "How You Create," I am joined by documentary photographer Wesaam Al-Badry, 2023 Google Pixel & Aperture Creator Labs Photo Fund grant recipient. Wesaam, born in Nasiriyah, Iraq, fled to Saudi Arabia and lived in refugee camps for 4 and half years at the outset of what became known as the Gulf War. In late 1994, Wesaam and his family were relocated to Lincoln, Nebraska. Both his time in refugee camps, his working class upbringing in Nebraska, and late his attainment of master’s in New Media journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute culminate in his work which depicts honest moments of the lives of those often absent from art institutes, and a deep belief in the integrity and responsibility of his work.

Wesaam urges any listeners who have questions or needs advice about work and grants to reach out to him directly at wesaamalbadry@gmail.com.

We talked deeply about the responsibility photographers has to the people in the communities photographers use in their art, why more more negatives makes more sense to him than more posting on Instagram, and how relationship and community is the most essential skill for photographers

Wesaam has worked for global media outlets, including CNN and Al-Jazeera America. His photographs have been featured in the New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Atlantic, NPR, Fortune, The Nation, and Mother Jones. Al-Badry has received The John Collier Jr. Award for Still Photography, Dorothea Lange Fellowship, the Jim Marshall Fellowship for Photography, The National Geographic Society fellowship, Magnum Foundation, and The Emerson Collective, and is currently a fellow at The Center for Visual Documentation.