Portrait of America A love letter to local visual journalism: CatchLight
Hammersmith Road
London W14 8UX
Kole Minor, a trick roper and whip cracker, performs a fiery set during the 70th Annual Clermont Rodeo on Sept. 20, 2025, at Clermont Lions Club Park. Brett Phelps/Mirror Indy/CatchLight Local/Report for America
A healthy democracy depends on more than information—it depends on visibility, trust, and shared understanding. Photojournalism helps make everyday life legible to the public. It can strengthen civic engagement by turning local conditions—housing, labor, protest, celebration, struggle—into something tangible and immediate. In doing so, it helps transform private experience into public awareness, and public awareness into participation.
But these democratic functions rely on conditions that are increasingly under strain. Photojournalists today work in environments shaped by physical risk, political pressure, and digital surveillance. Even where physical danger is less significant, new technological risks emerge: photographs can be cross-referenced with facial recognition systems, placing community members and sources at risk of tracking or retaliation long after publication.
Chemical irritants fill the air at the scene where an observer of immigration enforcement operations was shot and killed by a federal agent near the intersection of 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. llen Schmidt/MinnPost/CatchLight Local/Report for America
In response, local newsrooms and photojournalists are at the forefront of rethinking how images are made. Composition and lighting become tools not only of expression, but of protection—using shadow, distance, silhouette, or framing to preserve anonymity while maintaining truth. Some delay publication or avoid showing identifiable faces in vulnerable contexts. Others work more closely in collaboration with communities to reduce harm without sacrificing accountability.
As long-term, trusted witnesses, local photojournalists build relationships that allow for more careful, resonant, and context-aware storytelling. Their work can be collaborative, shaped by ongoing presence rather than brief access. In a media environment where images can easily be fabricated or manipulated, that trust becomes a form of protection—for both sources and the integrity of the story itself.
Part of the Berkeley Varsity Flag Football team poses for a group photo after Wednesday’s game. Sep. 13, 2023. Girls Flag football became a sanctioned high school sport this past February in California, following other states like Florida, Alabama, and Nevada. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight
Portrait of America brings together images by more than thirty photojournalists across the United States, celebrating their essential work documenting their own communities—from breaking news to everyday life.
At a time when trust and connection are vital, these photojournalists sustained attention to everyday moments, they make communities visible to themselves and to others, offering a record of life that is both immediate and collective.
In 2026, Portrait of America will also be on view in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, among other cities, often presented with CatchLight Live events, combining live storytelling and photo projections set to a live score.
Nan Webber, 2, swings barefoot at Mickey Markey Park in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans on November 13, 2025. It’s common for children to play barefoot at this playground. Credit: Christiana Botic/Verite News/ Catchlight Local/Report for America
CatchLight is a visual-first media organization that leverages the power of visual storytelling to
inform, connect, and transform communities. It brings resources and organizations together to
discover, develop, and amplify visual storytellers at all levels. Since 2019, CatchLight has
partnered with thirty-eight newsrooms to advance visual journalism in newsrooms and
communities across the United States. This work was created by these partners, with support
from CatchLight and Report for America.