The Power of Visual Storytelling

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.

Cheriss May is a visual storyteller and adjunct professor at Howard University, her alma mater, in Washington D.C. She was selected by Adobe in 2019 as an education leader for her commitment to creativity in the classroom, and she trains and speaks to educators across the country. Cheriss is passionate about visual storytelling and is an advocate for diversity and inclusion in the media industry, often commissioned to speak and advise on diversification initiatives. She is the president of Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW) and co-chair of the photography committee at The National Press Club.

Cheriss has been published in O Magazine, Essence, Time, The White House Historical Association, The New York Times, Bloomberg, ESPN, and other international publications. Her work is featured in a permanent exhibit: MFON’s “In Conversation: Visual Meditations on Black Masculinity”, at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Originally from Kansas City, Mo., Cheriss is an independent photographer based in Washington, D.C. Her passion radiates through her aptitude to connect to the soul of those she photographs.

Photographer and educator Cheriss May shares her experiences covering the intersectionality of race, politics, and protest, in the wake of the national reckoning on racial injustice.