Jackie Joy W is a black and white film photographer whose work moves between landscape, portraiture, and narrative self-exploration. Her images reflect an ongoing fascination with place and identity—how the environments we inhabit, design, and move through shape who we are and how we are seen. With a background in Agricultural and Environmental Plant Sciences from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, she brings a cultivated understanding of land systems, horticulture, and design into her photographic practice, often blurring the line between the constructed and the organic.
She took her first darkroom course in 2015 while at Cal Poly, where her final project—a documentary-style series on long-haul truckers along California’s Central Coast—sparked her interest in the quiet narratives that unfold in transient spaces. After college, she continued her studies under the mentorship of Professor Richard Lohmann, a student of Lyle Gomes, who in turn studied under Don Worth—who himself studied under the legendary Ansel Adams. This lineage grounded her approach in the discipline of traditional darkroom techniques and a respect for the formal and emotional possibilities of black and white film.
Jackie’s work explores subjects such as neotopographical landscapes, portraits of strangers, and narrative-driven self-portraits. Drawing inspiration from Cindy Sherman, Gregory Crewdson, Dennis Hopper, and David Lynch, she constructs photographs that exist between observation and imagination—images that suggest stories rather than tell them outright. Her current focus is a self-portrait storytelling series that examines identity, isolation, and reinvention.
Looking ahead, she plans to return to her long-haul trucker project, continuing her exploration of movement, solitude, and the quiet persistence of life on the road.
Inquiries for prints are welcome.
Exhibitions
The drawing room - San Francisco, ca
October 17, 2024 - January 3, 2025
Canessa gallery - San Francisco, ca
February 1 - 28, 2023
Avenue 25 Gallery — San Mateo, ca
March 8 — April 29, 2019
Client List
Stanford health care - Palo Alto, ca
YCH inc. — San francisco, CA