Host Michael Chovan-Dalton 0:00
Welcome to the Real Photo Show. My guest today is Elodie Mailliet Storm. Elodie is the CEO of CatchLight. CatchLight is a nonprofit media organization that discovers and develops visual storytellers through the practices of art journalism and social justice. Elodie and I talk about CatchLight’s new California Visual News Desk, which is an evolutionary next step in their goal of collaborating with local media outlets and areas that are in need of good visual storytelling partnerships. And that really is at the heart of what CatchLight does, is to develop good visual storytellers. We also talk about the history of CatchLight, and some of the stories currently being shown and how you can see them and I’ve linked to all of that in the show notes, because CatchLight does a lot. And so, you know, in order to help you kind of navigate that I’ve put some links in the show notes probably more than I usually do, but hopefully that will be very helpful. So enjoy this episode with Elodie Mailliet Storm. I know I did. And of course, thank you for listening, enjoy the show and we will talk soon.
Well, hi, everybody. Thank you for joining me today.
Elodie Mailliet Storm 2:06
Thanks so much for having me.
Host 2:07
Oh, it’s my pleasure. You are the CEO of CatchLight. CatchLight is a media organization. And how old is it now? Is it about five years or more?
Mailliet Storm 2:31
It was started in 2015. Yeah. A little over five years.
Host 2:37
Yeah. And were you involved from the very beginning.
Mailliet Storm 2:40
I was not actually. It was started by a woman named Nancy Farese, who is a photographer herself. And someone who has been involved in the media world for a long time has been on the board of many media organizations. And she’s a big philanthropist in the media space.
Host 2:57
Okay. And it has an interesting mission. CatchLight, right. It is about working with local organizations, local media outlets, right? It’s about partnering with local organizations.
Mailliet Storm 3:11
So, that’s one of the things that we do at the core of what encapsulates CatchLights mission is leveraging the power of visuals, visual communication, photography, in particular, to inform, connect and transform communities. Historically, the way that CatchLight started was by supporting the work of leaders in the field of visual storytelling, and really looking at amplifying the impact of that work. So we still give every year, $30,000 to visual storytellers, journalists around the world, doing work really meant to engage audiences and those can be international audiences, as well as local audiences.
Host 3:57
Right, that’s your fellowship program.
Mailliet Storm 3:59
Yeah, that’s right. Some of our fellows, you probably know, are people like Daniela Zalcman, who started Women Photograph. We’re working with her on how we can help build sustainability in the model that she has put forward and started. We’ve also had people like photographer Aida Muluneh, who is incredible and a powerhouse. She’s a photographer from Ethiopia. She started one of the largest photo festivals on the continent called Addis Foto Fest. Her work is incredible and at MoMA.
What we look for in our Fellows is really the willingness to really think through how they get the work in front of people that really need to see it and think and think through it. And also a generosity of spirit of wanting to move the field forwards. So that’s one piece of what we do and how we fulfill our mission and the other …
Host 5:01
It’s actually difficult to not want to say everything upfront, because you, CatchLight, does have a lot of arms and outlets in the way that it assists other organizations and photographers and visual storytellers. With the fellowship, I think one of your earliest awardees was Sarah Blesener—right?—who I’ve had on the show. Sarah Blesener is an amazing, amazing photographer and storyteller. In terms of that fellowship, I know that it’s more than just the money, right? There’s support. There’s ways to get yourself out in the world, right? It’s speaking, engagements, activities, things like that activities, talks and mentorship. In return, like what kind of follow up to that would be like, if someone were to receive that grant, you’re basing on the fact that you believe in them already. And they’re going to do this work. But is there a kind of? Well, we’d like to see this, this and this, or, you know, you mentioned, this idea of also moving the field forward, right.
Mailliet Storm 6:01
Yeah, I think you know, that the deliverables tend to vary Fellow by Fellow. And really, our goal is to help assist them in whatever goal we set out at the beginning of the fellowship, knowing that those things can change and move. But I’ll take the example of Aida because I think it’s a good example. And we’ve now been working with Aida for three years, when she came to us. She herself is a very celebrated artist. As I said, her work is at MoMA, and she’s broken many glass ceilings, as a photographer and a visual artist. But she came to us because she said, “You know, that’s not good enough for me, I really want to help raise the next generation of visual storytellers on the continent.” And so we helped her, we funded her workshops and worked with her on what is the plan for the workshops, etc.
What’s interesting to me is that, you know, I, the, the staff at CatchLight. We continue to be in constant conversation about how we leverage the infrastructure that she has built to help move the field forward on the continent. And how do we help support her to do that? And so in her case, you know, we are working with open society on trying to figure out how we bring this photo fest online so that it can reach more audiences? And so it’s continued work. But that really depends on, you know, each fellow has their own trajectory, and also, their own ways of working. And so it really depends Fellow by Fellow. Yeah, but I think at the core of what we do, it’s like, yes, it’s a significant amount of money, and hopefully one that, you know, takes the pressure off a little bit for a while. But then it’s also like, how do we help bring some of our networks and infrastructures to help move them forward? More long term?
Host 8:00
Right. And then, of course, another part of CatchLight is working locally, right? And I think I saw somewhere on your site, it says something about image deserts becoming prevalent communities, and you’re probably aware of not, you know, there was recently a story about a hedge fund organization—it was around in the Atlantic—called the Alden group or something like that. Right? And how they’re really buying and gutting local media outlets, and newspapers, particularly newspapers. Here you are creating and partnering and trying to, you know, provide resources in what, you know, you refer to as image deserts in communities. And here, they are destroying local resources and local newspapers. Do you feel like you’re, you’re fighting a kind of battle right now? Or do you feel like, you know, what you do is, is a little outside of that, and you’re having great success with it?
Mailliet Storm 9:00
I mean, I definitely think it’s a battle, and it’s a battle on a couple of different levels, again, like that goes in line with our mission, which is about how we leverage the power of visual communication to really inform and connect communities. And, you know, when we look at where are some of the biggest gaps and what are some of the biggest issues that we can address, obviously, the decline of local news is a massive problem. I think, for me personally, it’s also been one that’s been so obviously a paradox in that when local news organizations started struggling because their business model was being challenged by the rise of platforms but also internally by hedge funds coming in and trying to make as much profit as possible. The first thing that they did was usually to get rid of their visual storytelling stuff, right? Because thinking, okay, well, we now have the rise of the iPhone, which was kind of concurrent and everybody can be a photographer now. And can’t we just send reporters to take the one picture that we’ll put on the left corner of the of that little box that we’ve said where insert picture that goes with the, you know, 2000 word story.
Host 10:21
I remember that everybody was going to be able to do everything all by themselves. Right?
Mailliet Storm 10:26
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, a prime example of them, I can’t remember the exact date, but like when the Chicago Sun Times, very famously decided to fire all their visual staff, and then someone started doing a side-by-side comparison of it with the Tribune and it was quite obvious what the effect of that was, which was, you have a very impoverished product, and not a way of engaging really audiences in the way in the work that you’re doing and the information they need to consume.
And that paradox in many ways is what we have seen in recent years, you know, platforms, so the tech industry and e-commerce heavily investing in visuals. And that’s not because they want to be nice to photographers, that’s because they’re seeing a heavy return on investment. Right? And the irony there is that the media landscape that needs to address community and bring them information has not made the most of these tools, and to the opposite, has heavily invested in this space. So that’s why, you know, we said, in many ways that news deserts have essentially led the way to image deserts because there is less and less visual representation of communities to themselves. And so when looking at this issue, more broadly, we said, how can we build infrastructure that might help reverse this trend?
And, you know, it’s, it’s interesting, because there is a new wave, also in the media world that is like the rise of many startups and nonprofit organizations doing really important work at the local level. And so there was an opportunity for us, we thought to step in, and help not only fund but build on a model for sustainability, where we were like, okay, can we build a model where we can help newsrooms doing important work at the local and community level? Do so in a way that’s much more visual by providing them with the ability to tap a visual journalist, but then also, by providing a lot of editing, curation and packaging support? And then thinking through visuals as an amazing means of communication. And how do we leverage them to actually bring information to communities to public art campaigns or exhibitions or talks, etc. So that’s the model that we started testing in 2019. In the Bay Area, and that we’re testing currently in Chicago, and we’re about to launch at a much bigger scale now in California.
Host 13:13
Yes, yeah. So this is called the CatchLight Local, or is that how you refer to it?
Mailliet Storm 13:18
Yeah, so the name of the program is CatchLight Local. And what we’re building is a CatchLight Local visual desk, that will be shared between several local newsrooms in California. And so each newsroom will have access to visual storytellers, either on staff or freelance, depending a little bit on what their visual capacity is, and then we will provide them also with editing and curation as well as engagement support.
Host 13:46
Right. And, and I know, you spent something like 11 years with Getty Images, is this your initiative? I mean, is this, does this come from working in that, in that industry?
Mailliet Storm 13:57
My experience of Getty Images was amazing. I learned so much about the industry and, you know, kind of saw first hand the shift in the industry in terms of going from editorial publications that would fight over visuals, and we would compete, and we had, sometimes even, bidding wars for the best images or the most explicit images out there, between, say Time and Newsweek that weren’t still competing at the time to a world where media moved to more digital usages that were super high volumes. So you didn’t make a difference, you know, with one cover or one ad campaign or one billboard, but you’re looking at essentially feeding the digital, you know, kind of digital output that’s endless, right?
Host 14:54
And of course, Getty is also, you know, a multi-image based organization in terms of what it provides, right? I mean, it’s everything from the red carpets to local news and all those things. Right? And, and CatchLight is primarily focused on long-term documentary storytelling.
Mailliet Storm 15:15
Primarily. I mean, I think, again, our goal is really to build a new model for visual journalism and one that is sustainable in the long run. And in, you know, in this particular case, it needs to be sustainable. But we’re also operating in a nonprofit environment. I …
Host 15:34
I was gonna ask about that, because you come from the profit world with Getty Images and right. Yeah, and this is the nonprofit, you know, on a sort of more personal note, was that a conscious decision on your part to move into nonprofits or to just sort of opportunities present itself? Like, were you thinking in terms of I’d like to move towards a different model.
Mailliet Storm 15:55
I mean, I think when I worked at Getty Images, I was already involved in some nonprofit organization. I’ve been on the board of Photoville, for example, since pretty much the beginning. I’ve always kind of straddled both. I did meet Nancy, who founded CatchLight, while I was a JSK Fellow at Stanford. And a lot of what I looked at, when I was a fellow at Stanford, was this shift in the media ecosystem and the resulting shift in photography. And then she and I started having a lot of conversations, and then I, you know, I came on the advisory board of CatchLight. And then eventually, she convinced me that it would be good for me to step in as CEO, which, you know, I’m really glad I did.
It’s a very different environment, obviously, than a large corporation, we’re talking here, like a nonprofit startup. But, you know, a lot of the lessons that I learned at Getty Images I’m able to apply now. And it was also like the intimacy of my understanding of the marketplace. And a lot of, you know, the companies I looked at, and a lot of the partnerships I built help inform my work now. So I just see it as a continuum rather than a split, if you will.
Host 17:12
Yeah. Actually, I didn’t know about the Photoville connection. And that explained some of the pictures on your site from Photoville.
Mailliet Storm 17:21
It does, yes. I’ve been a big fan of Photoville and that team for a long time.
Host 17:26
Yeah. No, Photoville is wonderful. I’m fortunate to live close enough to go every year. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yes. So in terms of fellows, just to get back to back to that for a moment, it’s an application based process?
Mailliet Storm 17:42
For the CatchLight Fellowship, it’s an application based process. Yes. And we generally tend to open it towards early, early in, in the year like, January, February.
Host 17:54
Right. Is it a set committee reviewing that? Or is it people chosen every year?
Mailliet Storm 17:58
We rotate the jury every year, because it’s a lot to ask for them, for people to come back over and over again and look at 400 applications. It’s just a lot to ask.
Host 18:11
And now as you expand into this visual desk model, I want to talk about California in a moment. But will some of these fellows also be part of that? Or how are the photographers and storytellers chosen for that?
Mailliet Storm 18:26
So it’s a different, it’s a completely different application process for Local than for our Fellowship. For the Local program, for those visual journalists, in this case, they will be placed as staff members in newsrooms—and we’re partnering with Report for America actually, to do that—these visual journalists will be full-time employees of those newsrooms.
Generally speaking, for Local, what we are looking for in a visual journalist is obviously like, you know, some expertise in visual storytelling, but also, we feel it’s really important that there is an intimacy with the community that the photographer works in so that there is a deep understanding of that community, a deep respect, a collaborative approach. And the ability to really bring nuance and perspective to it.
And I think the work that our Fellows have done in the Bay Area, both David Rodriguez, Yesica Prado, Felix Uribe, as well as Sebastian (Hidalgo,) shows this really deep intimacy and incredible nuance, access, collaboration that makes for deep connection with the work.
Host 19:42
So stories may be founded in sort of both either direction, right? Stories may be something thought of at the desk and of it stories may also be presented by people who you’re representing.
Mailliet Storm 19:55
Yeah, and newsrooms, too, right? So we are working with newsrooms that are so, for example, I mean, a very concrete, I think maybe a couple of concrete examples would be helpful in this case. So in Salinas, for example, we worked as part of our pilot in the Bay Area with a newsroom in Salinas called the Salinas Californian and we really worked with them at the onset looking at, like, what stories are we going to cover in the long run. And we looked at the problem with housing of farmworkers, in particular, in Salinas, and like the cost of housing. Sebastian started doing really important work with some families there. And then David Rodriguez, step in, once Sebastian went back to Chicago. And by then, COVID hit. And so we decided with the newsroom that it was just so important for us to follow how COVID was actually going to play out for those farmworking families on a couple of different levels. One is, obviously, housing.
Those are extremely crowded environments, where COVID was spreading much faster than in other parts of the community. The other part was that farmworkers had to still go to work and that left children at home not going to school. And you know, who’s going to take care of the kids? And how are they even going to access schools and all of these things being visualized is just so important. From, you know, again, from the inside, not, not from an outsider’s perspective. And David comes from a farmworking family and had such a deep understanding and empathy, but could also see, you know, some of the beauty of the situations and how people stepped up and helped each other. And it was just really wonderful emotional reporting.
Host 21:55
The exhibition Care in the Time of COVID, that’s actually David’s work?
Mailliet Storm 21:59
That is not included in that. Yesica and Felix’s work is because they worked in San Francisco and David’s work is in Salinas.
Host 22:07
Right. So, this is at San Francisco City Hall.
Mailliet Storm 22:09
Yeah. Yesica’s work is there. Well both Yesica and Felix’s work has very similar tone to it. Yesica has an extraordinary story where she was a student at Berkeley, and when she was a student there couldn’t quite afford to pay for an apartment. And so decided that she would actually end up buying an RV so she could live in a stable situation. And she has been a very important part of the RV community since she became a CatchLight Fellow in 2019. We worked with her with the San Francisco Public Press, which is a local, nonprofit local media outlet in San Francisco. And we decided to look at the difference between parking policies between Berkeley and San Francisco, just so happens that San Francisco had much harsher parking policies than Berkeley at the time and what that meant in terms of the ability to access resources and community.
Again, this is like a very insider look at what it’s like to live in an RV, and to live through those, you know, restrictions in terms of parking. Similarly, to David when COVID hit, again, this is a community that will face much greater challenges. And so we decided that it was really important for Yesica to continue her work and give this inside perspective of what it’s like, but also to bring information back to the community because, you know, if you think about this community, when COVID it hit all the public spaces that they used to access to get the internet, so meaning like their information, to access showers, to access food, all of that, you know, kind of disappeared.
Host 24:09
Right. Parks shutdown, private parks, public parks, shutdown even at some point … I remember a story about Walmart saying they were going to start closing their parking lots where people used to just park overnight to sleep.
Mailliet Storm 24:18
Exactly. And so that created a whole other host of issues. And so we actually worked with her on both ends of the spectrum, meaning her reporting out what was going on in the community, but also her bringing information back in because she is also a trusted messenger. She is a vector of information. And so we worked with her and Dysturb, actually, to do posters that she could distribute to the unhoused community in San Francisco with, you know, clear descriptions of how to protect yourself from COVID and also how do you access resources, where do you get food, where do you shower, where can you access the internet? This particular juncture …
Host 25:03
I know people have this very romantic idea of boondocking. Right? Boondocking is when you just take your RV and you go out into a place that has no resources. It’s either public land or maybe even private land. And the downside to boondocking is you’re also very vulnerable out there. And you know that in a situation like this, it’s making people find more of their own spaces or forcing people to find their own spaces. They’re also forcing people to, you know, stay in more vulnerable places as well.
Mailliet Storm 25:30
Yeah, no, I know, that I think was very important work that Yesica did and is continuing to do. We saw a lot of pictures during that time of people describing their quarantine experiences. But, you know, we discussed with Yessica how important it was for her to actually document what it’s like when you have to quarantine in an RV. And so she did a film called “Quarantine Diary” that the San Francisco Public Press published, but actually the BBC also published and so that’s great to see the way …
Host 26:05
And you also have another fellow Samantha Cabrera who has a show right now, “Meeting History, Garfield Park Citizen Archive,” and that’s in Chicago, the Chicago Public Library. Yes. So this, this episode is, is going to air sometime later in October will those shows still be up?
Mailliet Storm 26:25
They will be up. So Samantha’s exhibition is going to be up until November. At least 15, I think is the last thing that we heard, but it might go a little longer. And then the exhibition at city hall in San Francisco Yesica. And Felix’s work as well as other San Francisco artists who have done important work during COVID will be up until April.
Host 26:49
Okay, and that show with with Samantha Cabrera involved in investigative report by ProPublica.
Mailliet Storm 26:56
That’s right. So we have set up another pilot for these trips like local program in Chicago, which has been running since the beginning of this year. And she Samantha similarly, has been collaborating with ProPublica. Also from the beginning of the desk like we do every time we pair a visual journalist with a media publication that’s local, in this case, ProPublica, Illinois. And we look at an issue in a long term, Samantha’s work follows the work of a reporter, Tony Brisco, who did work in Chicago about what happened to Garfield Park, and the fact that the city heavily invested in this neighborhood, and created a whole host of issues because of it. What Samantha did kind of in response to Tony’s work and in collaboration with Tony is go back to the community and tell the story of Garfield Park visually.
So she did portraits of some, you know, important members of the communities, pillars of the community, like Reverend hatch, but also asked them to share some of the images that they had in their personal archives of what the neighborhood has looked like through the years. And it’s a very moving work to see you know, all these community archives come together in dialogue with Samantha’s portraits. And then, you know, as we do every time we thought about, you know, how do we bring this work back to the community? So it’s obviously wonderful that it’s published in public. But how do we make sure that the residents of Garfield Park have access to the work as well? And so we, thankfully, delta connection with the Legler Public Library in Chicago, which is in Garfield Park, and right decided to put an exhibition
Host 29:01
there, and is that where the panel talk was, as well? Yeah.
Mailliet Storm 29:05
And that’s where Samantha, you know, has done tours for community members. So she set up at the farmers market there two or three times and has brought the committee members through and then we’re also talking with them to do an education program for for some of their after school students that they host at the library. That Library is a magnificent building, and it has incredible programs for residents. And so we’re weaving weaving that program in and education is something we also think about a lot and we work on actually with photo lens in terms of like how do we make sure that we also use you know, this work that we have already invested in to kind of teach the next generation of potential digital storytellers?
Host 29:54
Yeah, that’s amazing. So you know, I asked you before about how you How storytellers apply and how you find storytellers in both, you know, the fellows and in this CatchLight, local part of the operation. But, you know, talking about your partnership there with ProPublica. And this introduction of the visual desk, is there a I don’t know how to say it’s like not a vetting. But do you also look at the organization that you’d also be providing work to? Is there a kind of standard for that? Is it that do they need to be nonprofit? Are you just sort of looking for good organizations? Good, local, smaller organizations?
Mailliet Storm 30:29
That’s a very good, that’s a very good and interesting question. So I think the first criteria is to make sure that we are not helping subsidize the cut of visual storytellers and reporters in newsrooms, right. So we would not provide visual storytellers at a subsidized price. I mean, generally, we generally speaking as newsrooms to contribute to the program, because we feel like it’s a very important thing. But, you know, we don’t want to help museums cut their staff by subsidizing. Okay, so all of that to say that I don’t think we would work with an all then publication we have worked with, we have worked with for profit, as well as nonprofit organizations.
I think the first criteria for us is, are you really interested in visual storytelling? Or are you really committed to it? And not just again, because you are trying to heal that like, upper left corner of your template, but because you think that you know, this is a way to really reach audiences in a meaningful way. We asked museums, obviously, to commit a certain number of time and resources in the collaboration. It’s It’s no joke. So I think the first criteria is like, is this something you’re really interested in? The second one, and the way that we judge that is that, are you willing to commit to a certain number of hours in meetings, where we, you know, look at work review work together?
Host 31:58
Also, as it’s happening? There’s a partnership involved? Editors, I’m sure their organization, your editors?
Mailliet Storm 32:05
Yeah. So Jenny Stratton, who has been leading this program meets with newsrooms and and our fellows on a very, you know, regular basis. And then we’ve also hired them having the plan, you know, both for California, and we had in Chicago, a visual editor that’s working with those new shows and the fellows on an ongoing basis, again, that editor’s local, so he or she understands, you know, the nuance of a place much better than we would from from where we stand. But that’s a very important part. Because when we started thinking through this project, I had a couple of conversations with friends of mine that run, you know, either for profit, or nonprofit newsrooms, and some of them are saying, “I still have some digital journalists. But the problem is, I can’t keep them because I have no one to edit them, I have no one to give them feedback.” And that’s a huge issue, I have no one that’s really focused on their gross motor skills that they should acquire. And that’s something that we built and very heavily in the program, understanding that it’s not just about saying to ProPublica Here is a visual journalists have fun, but really helping shape the work and, and provide support for the fellow.
Host 33:19
That’s really interesting, because then I could see, wanting to select outlets that are that have staff that have editors who are willing to collaborate. But also, by having your editors on your side, a visual storyteller editor on your side, there’s protection for the person doing the work as well, right?
Mailliet Storm 33:42
That’s right. But it’s also, you know, it’s it’s kind of a cultural fit, too, because, you know, a lot of these newsrooms either never had a visual storyteller. So they were kind of born without anyone on staff that did visual storytelling, or, you know, have long lost them. And so there is no real culture of how do you even think about the story visually, you know, right there. It’s just so all of what we do is meeting with them and saying, you know, thinking through the story arc, which is what we do, for example, with Salinas and David, you know, David, initially, when thinking through COVID, was like, well, maybe I just need to talk to a lot of different people and photograph a lot of different people.
And we’re like, “Well, hold on a minute, because you’re not really going to be able to follow a lot of people over time. And this is a story over time. So let’s just really focus on two or three families and do that story are like that. So you can really kind of go back over and over and over, over a long period of time. And again, it’s very much meeting with a newsroom on an ongoing basis and all agreeing that this So right, that this is the right approach. Yeah. But what’s been fascinating too, is that I think because of that, or the culture of the newsroom changes. And so, you know, a lot of the newsrooms that we worked with, in the Bay Area have since moved on full time into doing a lot more visual storytelling. So, you know, Salinas has hired David full time, the San Francisco Public press hired Jessica, as both a photographer and reporter. And basically, news is actually started a visual department. So the premise was like, if we start, you know, really working together and bringing that culture back that it might very well stick and a lot of these cases did. And that’s just wonderful. Yeah,
Host 35:47
That’s, that’s fantastic. So let’s talk about the the California Visual Desk, I think I read that there’s a $2 million investment in fighting this. Wow. Tell me about it.
Mailliet Storm 35:58
Yeah. So you know, again, based on goes the success of the pilot in the Bay Area, as well as the success of Chicago, we have set out a plan and have managed to get funding to start a much more long term, shared visual desk in California, for the whole year, right. For the whole state. Yeah. And so we are, we have secured $2 million in funding for the next three years to be able to do that. And, you know, again, continue the work through those three years, so that we’re not kind of figuring out every year like how do we sustain this program. So this is much more thought out long term plan with a great commitment from funders to make this work in the long term and get to path of sustainability.
I think what we did with the pilots is show the value to funders, both in the media and kind of the creative, placemaking space. And now, based on those results, they’re ready to make much more, you know, long term investments, which is great. So the way that it’s going to work is that we are going to set up, you know, as we did for those two pilots a visual desk, where we have a visual editor, working with an executive editor, as well as an engagement person kind of on the back end. And then working with four to six newsrooms in the first year and then extending from that, in the second and third year, to create more visual storytelling and digital representation of California. And it’s very exciting for us to be able to do that. And also to have that commitment, you know, over over the years. And it lets us, you know, hopefully get to a path where this becomes, you know, like a very, very solid model that then can be replicated in other regions, we’ve had a lot of interest from other states. Oh, I bet. And we’d love to get there someday. We felt like it was important for us to kind of work on sustainability in one location, when you
Host 38:14
And you had you had a operations and experience in San Francisco. So it was, uh, you know, I guess Illinois could have been another spot, right?
Mailliet Storm 38:24
I mean, I knew we had like Colorado there know, right places doing, like, really great journalism, and we really want to get there. So that’s not we haven’t scratched those plans. But we shall like, you know, grow growing slowly, but surely is probably the right. Yeah, the right thing to stage.
Host 38:44
So I noticed, you know, funding and partnerships, some of the, you know, I recognize some of the foundations, and it makes sense, you know, with Hearst and Knight and Kresge. And you mentioned Report for America before, but I also see PhotoWings and Fujifilm and Enlight. And with Fujifilm, is it. If you don’t answer this, you don’t have to Is it money your equipment or? I mean, there’s so they’ve been so good these past few years. I’ve found here
Mailliet Storm 39:13
Fujifilm has been phenomenal. And you know, we’re so grateful they actually approached us, which is kind of unheard of thanks to mutual connection. And, you know, I think it’s very significant because it is funding but it’s also which is great. And I can’t emphasize again to funders how out there like how important it is to fund the operations of organizations like ours because it actually allows us to plan and have much, much better impact in the long run. But it’s also equipment for those visual storytellers because a lot of the it’s just so hard when you are an emerging photographer, or not even an emerging photographer, but the cost of the equipment is very significant. Newsrooms don’t necessarily have the budget to provide that, and I think, you know, this is a very important gift from Fujifilm to say, you know, we’ll provide the equipment for it.
Host 40:08
Yeah, no, I mean, thanks. Fuji is not a sponsor here. But my hat’s off to Fuji because I’ve, I’ve been involved in several other events and organizations where they have stepped up and really been helping out. I feel like they’re, they’re starting to fill a gap where other let’s just say camera manufacturers used to.
Mailliet Storm 40:27
Yeah, yes, that’s exactly right. And again, like stepping in a very important junctures and, you know, in part, ownership for a whole program, I think, is much more significant in terms of the impact that they can have also on the field, and that we can have on the field, rather than saying, you know, we’ll be sponsor for your Summit, which is great. But you know, it’s, it’s not as much of a commitment to the work that we do more holistically, right. So I mean, I’m very grateful to Fuji and then obviously, I’m very grateful to follow wings for the wings has been a partner of ours,
Host 40:59
I’m not familiar with photo wings, what kind of organization are they.
Mailliet Storm 41:03
They are an education, they are a visual kind of Education Foundation, and they like to partner with a lot of visual organizations around education programs. So they’ve been our partner on on education and bringing some of the work that we do locally to to schools. So for example, we develop curriculum around digital literacy based on on our local efforts. And that curriculum right now is used by our media, for example, which is a news organization in San Francisco and Oakland. PhotoWings has been a great partner.
Host 41:39
Yeah. Well, the California does have satellite offices, and it’s is it centrally located? Is it is it in San Francisco?
Mailliet Storm 41:46
Well, the desk will be in California is is kind of what I want to say. The visual journalists will be newsrooms across the state of California. And then the editor, you know, will the the editors will be based in California, we’re all kind of working virtually now does have an office in San Francisco, that Minnesota street projects. And it’s been a great base for us. It’s where we host a lot of our events. But we have also been working virtually mostly outside of doing deep work in communities where we have visual journalists working.
Host 42:24
Yeah. So if if people want to see the work that’s being done, the stories that are being made, is the best place the website catchLight.io.
Mailliet Storm 42:32
Yeah, I can play the radio is the best place to go, where it’s all centrally located. And then again, like City Hall and San Francisco Public Library right now in Chicago, it’s great places to and of course, experience the work in person,
Host 42:45
The work will, will be infused into other organizations. So yeah, and
Mailliet Storm 42:51
Then, you know, that’s the goal. It’s, I think it’s also interesting. For us, it’s like we have obviously our own destination and audience, you know, for CatchLight, but we’re really trying to get to to a lot of other and important audiences out there through those collaborations and partnerships.
Host 43:09
Yeah, congratulations. And it’s really an amazing organization. Thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you making time for this.
Mailliet Storm 43:16
No, this is great. Thank you. And you know, it’s always so hard to talk about people work without showing it. So. I appreciate the challenge.
Host 43:27
I am. I’m doing a radio show in about a visual world. Yes, I know.
Mailliet Storm 43:34
No, it’s great. I’m very grateful for for for you and for your support and interest.
Host 43:40
Well, thanks again,
Mailliet Storm 43:41
Man. Thank you so much. All right. Bye. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai