I am an author and photographer who has been telling stories with images for decades. I first published my Rudyfoto.com website in the 1990s. In the fall 2019, I re-launched this site, including new photo projects I have been working on the past half-decade. My site is dedicated to telling stories with pictures and showing how I see the world.
I have a professional background in journalism, communications, public health, and international relations. I earned an MA journalism in UNC-CH and an MPH from the University of Washington. My photographic influences include the great documentary photographers of the Farm Security Administration who told the story of the Depression and recovery, Sebastião Salgado, and Bernd and Hilla Becher, among others.
Like Salgado, I view photography as an ideological expression, and it reflects who I am and what I believe. “Photography is not objective,” said the great Brazilian photographer, Salgado. “It is deeply subjective—my photography is consistent ideologically and ethically with the person I am.”
My photographs have been shown in solo shows in Seattle, Portland, and Anchorage, on topics ranging from the legacy of Nazi Germany’s human rights abuses, contemporary Greenland, community gardening projects in Seattle, and street photography spanning travel on five continents. My photographs also have been published in the New York Times, by publishing houses such as McGraw-Hill, in publications such as the Wilson Quarterly, and at non-profit facilities ranging from the Falstad Memorial and Human Rights Centre for Human Rights in Norway to the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse, Canada. My photographs also have been used for book cover illustrations, including a profile of human rights offenses in Rwanda.
I also maintain a semi-active photo blog that combines my passions of storytelling and telling stories with pictures.