Launching Black Women Photographers

Our weekly audio podcast We Are Photographers brings you true stories from behind the lens and behind the lives of your favorite photographers, filmmakers, and creative industry game-changers. From their struggles to their wins, host Kenna Klosterman discovers the real human stories about why they do what they do.

Listen to this and other audio episodes on our audio Podcast page.

In this episode, we celebrate the launch day of Black Women Photographers discussing why Polly created the site and its mission. Born in Kenya, hear Polly’s story of growing up in a traditional African household in both Kansas and Oregon. She shares how photography helped her rise out of depression, offers advice for young journalists, and talks about the critical need for more diversity and representation in the journalism industry. Go behind the scenes on her role at WNYC for The Takeaway and how living a life full of intention in everything she does is her key to success.

Polly Irungu is a multimedia journalist, digital editor, and photographer and is the founder of Black Women Photographers, a new community and online database of Black women photographers. Polly is a Digital Content Editor at New York Public Radio (WYNC) for ‘The Takeaway’, a national NPR show with over 2 million listeners. As a photographer, Polly’s work has been published by NPR, The Washington Post, CNN, HuffPost, OkayAfrica. She was named one of Okay Africa’s 100 African Women to Know in 2020. Polly has spoken about social media, branding, podcasting, media diversity, COVID-19, and photojournalism on panels for Twitter, NBC News, and the National Association of Black Journalists.