Portfolio Throwdown

Photography Gathering and Portfolio ThrowDown  February 6th-7th, 2026

Join the Photography Area at ECU’s School of Art for our annual Portfolio ThrowDown — a weekend celebrating photography, creativity, and professional growth.

Join us for a full day of student portfolio reviews, guest talks, demos, and exhibitions that celebrate photography in all its forms. It’s a chance for students to get real-world advice, show off their work, and connect with photographers from across the region who love what they do.

Call for Reviewers and Presenters

Calling all photographers, artists, and educators — come share what you know!
We’re looking for folks to lead portfolio reviews, and /or give 20-minute talks. Your insight helps your students find their voice and confidence as emerging professionals.

This year’s highlights include:

• Portfolio Reviews with undergraduate and graduate students

• Exhibition of Reviewers’ Work in Jenkins Fine Art Foyer Gallery

• Guest Lectures from visiting artists

• Chromoskedastic Sabattier Workshop for students

• Tintype Portrait Session

• Networking and community events throughout the weekend

Get Involved

Want in? Send your info, a quick note of interest, your short bio, and title of your proposed presentation (if applicable) by December 5, 2025.
Full schedule and registration details drop in December.

A Labor of Love

Portfolio ThrowDown is entirely volunteer-run by ECU photography faculty and a crew of generous photo pros who believe in building community and lifting up the next generation.

We’re so grateful to everyone who shows up — reviewers, presenters, students, friends — you make this thing happen every year. Come for the art, stay for the people, and leave inspired (and maybe a little sunburned from all the camera lights).

Deadline for Student Registration is January 26th, 2026. 

Registration is on first-come-first-served bases! We will do our best to schedule you with your desired reviewers. Portfolio reviews for students will be $10.50 for five 20-minute reviews. The entry fees will go toward portfolio awards, selected by the reviewers.

Reviewer Bios and Registration Form are at the bottom of the page.

Registration is not completed without registration payment. Registrations are based on first come, first served basis- in order in which we receive the registration fees, paid through Square. You will receive the Square invoice link after you complete your reviewer selection. Please make the payment as soon as convenient after receiving your invoice. 

Schedule of Events:

All of events will be on East Carolina University Campus and near-by.

Map of eateries in downtown Greenville  

Friday, February 6th:         

Evening: Informal Gathering and Kick off (Location TBD)

First Friday ArtWalk in Downtown Greenville 

Saturday, February 7th:         

9AM-11:30AM: Informal Portfolio Sharing, Workshops, Exhibitions, and Tours of the School of Art and Design (Jenkins Fine Art Center):       

Tintype Portraits Session hosted generously by Dr. Tim Christensen

Sit for a unique portrait!

Dr. Tim Christensen grew up under the big skies of the West looking at the ground. A passionate interest in living things compelled him to get his Ph.D. in Genetics from Cornell and become a biology professor at East Carolina University. His well-practiced attention to the small and unnoticed bits of nature fills his walks through North Carolina. While completing his MFA at ECU he explored historical methods including: Cyanotype, Gum Bichromate, Van Dyke, and wet plate collodion. Tim has also pushed the boundaries of digital photography with his precision work in astrophotography and the creation of micro-panoramas.

Workshop: Chromoskedastic Sabattier Process!

Alternative darkroom photography technique for creating unique, multi-colored prints from black and white silver gelatin paper. Registration coming soon! 

Lectures and Presentations  (Speight Auditorium):

9:30AM:  Rebekah Alviani

9:55AM:  Paul Farmer

10:20AM:  Georges Le Chevallier: You Don’t Look Puerto Rican: Breaking Stereotypes in Minimalism

10:45AM:  Jennifer Moore

11:10AM:  David Johnson: Glimmer and Creep: Governors Island at Night 

11:30AM-1:00PM: Lunch

1:00PM to 6:25PM: Lectures and Presentations will run concurrently with portfolio reviews in adjoining room (Jenkins Fine Art Center).

Portfolio Reviews (Jenkins Fine Art Center)

Lectures and Presentations  (Speight Auditorium):

(More added soon)

1:00PM:  Eric Pickersgill: Owning the Moment: Virality, Authorship, and Removed by Conceptual Artist Eric Pickersgill

1:25PM:  Jennifer Mace: Finding the Image

1:50PM:  Rose Jerome: Black Mountain

2:15PM: Makenzie Goodman

2:40PM: Anthony “Ant” Naimo: The Weirding Way: Queerness & Collage

3:05PM: Heather Evans Smith: Using Color to Define a Powerful Narrative 

3:30PM   Coffee Break

3:55PM:  Dana Smessaert: Grief, Photography, and a Satisfied Life.

4:20PM: Parker James Reinecker

4:45PM: Shannon Randol

5:10PM: Steven Benson: The Altered Landscape

5:35PM: Courtney Johnson: Cliche-Verre: Cycle of Cities

6:00PM: James T. Farley: Collaboration & Place – Working with a Flooded River: Gumly Gumly   

6:30PM:

Social Time

Accommodations 

Hilton Garden Inn (Downtown, 8-minute, 0.4 mile walk to Jenkins Fine Art Center)

AirBnBs in town– Good for larger shared groups: Link

Highly recommending the Music House

And for those of you who are not opposed to Camping, River Park North is a nice location:

https://www.greenvillenc.gov/government/recreation-parks/river-park-north

Portfolio Reviewers Bios:

Alviani holds an AST in Photography, a BFA in Graphic Design, and an MFA in Digital Arts. She served in the Peace Corps in Ghana as an art teacher in a school for the Deaf. She is now an artist-educator at Western Carolina University, teaching photography while continuing her visual research and art-making practice.

Greg Banks is a photo-based artist and instructor at Appalachian State University. He received his MFA in photography at East Carolina University in May 2017.  He received a B.A. in photography and a B.A. in fine art from Virginia Intermont College in 1998. Banks is a top 200 finalist in Photo Lucida’s Critical Mass in 2018. He was one of only seven artists chosen for the Light Factory’s Annuale 9 in 2017. Greg’s work was among the top 5 most popular, on the online magazine “Don’t Take Pictures” in 2017.  Greg combines everything from IPhone images to historic 19th century processes, gelatin silver printing, painting and digital printing. His current creative practice investigates family, folklore, memories, magic, Appalachia, as well as history and religion.

Steven Benson is a freelance photographer/videographer based in Orlando. He was Professor of Photography/Video and Chair of the Southeast Center for Photographic Studies, School of Photography and Media Studies at Daytona State College, as well as Chair of the Interactive Media program. He holds a BFA from the College for Creative Studies and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is the recipient of three Creative Artist Grants-Michigan Council for the Arts and a NEA/ArtsMidwest Fellowship. His work is represented in numerous collections including the Museum of Fine Art-Houston, Detroit Institute of Arts, Bibliotheque Nationale-France, Centre Georges Pompidou and the Portland Art Museum. Solo exhibitions of his photography include the Centre Georges Pompidou and photography festivals/biennials/triennials in Argentina, South Korea, Germany, Syria, Poland, China, Denmark and FotoFest (2004,2008,2026). A retrospective of his work was on view at the Southeast Museum of Photography in 2012. Recently on view: “Invented Observations”, a      35-year survey of B&W photographs at the Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, Fl 2022; ‘Highway Deconstruction’, Emory and Henry College, McGlothlin Center for the Arts, Emory, Virginia; 2023. He was named ‘International Photographer of the Year 2024’ by Exposure One Awards.
As an independent curator he has produced; “Roger Ballen: in Retrospect – Four Decades of Photography and Video”; “Mind Over Matter: The Photographs of Arno Minkkinen” for the SE Museum of Photography, among others.

Shane Booth grew up in central Nebraska where he would spend hours looking at family photos with this grandmother, sparking his love for photography.  He graduated with a BA in art from Nebraska Wesleyan University and an MFA in photography from the Savanna College of Art and Design.  Currently he is a Full Professor of photography at Fayetteville State University. His diverse body of work has taken him all over the world where he has taught workshops and exhibited work in Sweden, Africa, Taiwan, and most recently Russia.   He received a grant to  work with HIV positive orphans in Ethiopia with Artists for Charity, and was awarded a another grant by the US Embassy in Moscow to work with the LGBTQ and HIV positive people in Russia.  He has many honors including being nominated for Sweden’s favorite TV star by QX magazine for his stint on the wildly popular reality tv show Allt for Sverige, tackling the subject of being HIV positive.  It was his time on this show that took him back to his roots and he began photographing Nebraska and its people.  He also photographed Laura Bush for The National Willa Cather Foundation.   His camera of choice is an antique studio camera from 1867 which he found in a junk shop in Alma NE that he has converted to shoot 8×10 film. 

Mona Bozorgi is an artist-scholar whose interdisciplinary work examines the relationship between representation and performativity in photography. Grounded in posthuman critical theory, her practice investigates how bodies materialize and how identity is constructed, often drawing on her experience as an Iranian-born artist to challenge gender-based exclusions and explore the intersections of bodies and technology. Her research engages with marginalized and minority knowledge in popular culture. In her recent project, Threads of Freedom, Bozorgi incorporates images created and shared by Iranian women on social media, blending textiles, photography, and installation to challenge assumptions about the divide between digital immateriality and photographic materiality. Rooted in feminist pedagogy, Bozorgi’s teaching emphasizes non-canonical approaches and inclusive, non-hierarchical learning environments. She applies Art-Based Research and Research-Creation methodologies to support students’ artistic and scholarly development. Bozorgi’s artwork has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally, and her scholarship has been presented at major conferences in photography theory, feminist posthumanism, visual culture, and gender studies. Her recent publications include “Threads of Freedom: Unweaving/Reweaving Representation” (2023) in Art Journal Open and “Virtual Reality in Art Education” (2021) in Trends.

Micah Cash is a visual artist, educator, and nonprofit strategist. His projects use the visual languages of landscape and architecture to investigate narratives of culture, utilization, and economics. He has published two photography books, including the second edition of the internationally acclaimed Waffle House Vistas, published by The Bitter Southerner in 2022. His first monograph, Dangerous Waters: A Photo Essay on the Tennessee Valley Authority was published in 2017. Micah exhibits internationally, and his work is represented in private and public collections throughout North America and Europe. Micah received his MFA from the University of Connecticut and his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina.

Erika Céspedes is a Costa Rican born commercial and fine art photographer. Her fine art focuses on narrative life events in natural settings and her commercial focuses on food photography and advertising. Current courses include Traditional, Experimental, Digital photography, Design Fundamentals and Post-Editing. Her fine artwork has been displayed in galleries and museums nationwide. She believes students from all cultural backgrounds and socio-economic status deserve art in their life as a form of expression and personal growth.

Heather Evans Smith is a photo-based artist whose work reflects her southern roots, motherhood, womanhood and a whimsical imagination she relied on as an only child in a rural town. Her photographic imagery explores the ideas of memory, loss and family in conceptual settings. Smith’s work has been exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions at venues including the Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock, England, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, NC and Leica Galerie Milano in Milan, Italy. She is a Critical Mass 2014, 2018 and 2021 Top 50 recipient, 2022 Silver Listartist and the CENTER 2022 Me&Eve grant recipient. Her first monograph, Seen Not Heard, was published by Flash Powder Projects in 2016 followed by two self-published monographs, Alterations and Blue.

Heather is most interested in reviewing fine art and conceptual photography but is open to viewing all types of work. She welcomes the opportunity to offer feedback on ongoing projects and assist with planning the next steps for projects or series that are still in the conceptual stage.

Paul Farmer holds a Bachelor of Art & Design from the NCSU College of Design and a Master of Fine Arts from Western Carolina University. His artistic practice has been shaped through residencies at The Bascom Center, Vermont Studio Center, I-Park, and Keystone Art Space. Farmer’s work has been exhibited nationwide, and he currently serves as a full-time visual arts instructor at Mitchell Community College.

Michael Gaines is a photo-based artist and bookmaker residing in Boone, North Carolina. He received his BFA in Studio Art from Appalachian State in 2021 and his MFA in Photography from East Carolina in May 2024. Before moving to North Carolina, he spent 12 years in Philadelphia where his work was focused on exploring the intersections of urban life with industrial and civic decay. Over the past few years, his work has shifted towards an examination of the self and personal identity, exploring the concept of the personal myth and acts of code switching and masking, and their effects on the queer identity. He is currently an adjunct professor at Appalachian State University and Catawba Valley Community College.

Makenzie Goodman is a research-based artist living between North Carolina and Texas. She works in photography, video, and installation to question belief systems associated with specific geographic places and often creates in collaboration with other artists and within communities. Her work considers the histories, narratives, and myths of a region to explore the way humans interpret and interact with the spaces they inhabit, and what that often anthropocentric relationship means for the land. Her work has been exhibited at national and international venues, most recently at Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Los Angeles), Turchin Center for the Visual Arts (Boone, NC), and Companion (Indianapolis, IN). Recent residencies and fellowships include Stove Works (Chattanooga, TN), Plyspace (Muncie, IN), and Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency (Joshua Tree, CA). Goodman is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Appalachian State University.

Rose Jerome is a photographer whose work investigates connection, identity, and the emotional depth of personal experience. Her practice draws on traditional photographic approaches with an emphasis on portraiture. Jerome’s work has been exhibited throughout the Southeast and she was recently selected as a chosen winner for American Photography 40.

Originally from Germany and raised in Orlando, Jerome has lived in London, Brooklyn, and Woodstock and now works in Western North Carolina. She earned an Associate’s Degree in Photographic Technology from Daytona State College, a Bachelor’s in Modern Art History from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program in New York City, and an MFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is currently the Program Coordinator and Lead Instructor for Photography at Marion Technical Community College in Marion, North Carolina, and leads photography-based therapeutic workshops that integrate creativity with personal reflection.

Courtney Johnson specializes in alternative process and experimental photography and is one of the leading scholars on the photographic cliché-verre technique. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions in New York, Miami, San Francisco, Richmond, Colombia, and Germany and is in numerous permanent collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; University of Central Florida; Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale; and FOTOMUSEO, Bogotá. Johnson earned her BFA from New York University and her MFA from the University of Miami. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

David Johnson is a lens-based artist, educator, and curator.  In 2019, Johnson published his first book, Wig Heavier Than a Boot, a collaborative project with poet Philip Matthews through Kris Graves Projects. The project was later featured at the Fotofest Biennial in Houston in 2020. In 2021, Johnson’s second book, It Can Be This Way Always: Images from the Kerrville Folk Festival, was published by the University of Texas Press. Johnson’s photography has been exhibited internationally, with venues including the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, the Rathaus in Stuttgart, Germany, the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, and Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Texas.  Currently, Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Coastal Carolina University. In 2023, he founded the nonprofit Print Study for All. He has completed artist residencies at Gedok in Stuttgart, Germany (2017), the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France (2021), and the Institute for Public Architecture on Governors Island, New York (2025).

Shannon Johnstone is a photographic artist. She has had solo shows in Chicago, Rochester, New Orleans, Raleigh, and Durham. Her photography has been featured in group exhibitions nationally and internationally. She is a six time Photolucida Critical Mass Finalist (2017, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2010, 2009), and the recipient of three Creativity Grants from the Culture & Animals Foundation (2023, 2019, 2014). Johnstone’s newest work “Roadside Zoo” won Honorable Mentions in the International Photography Awards (2025 and 2021), and a Finalist in the 2023 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition. This work is the foundation for her dissertation, earning a PhD in Human-Animal Studies from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand (2025). 

Johnstone is an Associate with the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies, a Fellow with the Oxford Centre of Animal Ethics (UK), and a We Animals Media photography contributor. She is a tenured professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC.

Charity Jules is an artist, educator, and innovative arts administrator based in Eastern North Carolina. She serves as the Chair of the Fine Art and Music Departments at Pitt Community College, where she has helped grow the Associate in Fine Arts program into a strong university transfer pathway for emerging artists.

With an MFA in Photography from East Carolina University and a background in both analog and digital photographic processes, her studio practice has expanded to include mixed media, metals, glass, and wood. Over the years, she has remained committed to learning new techniques by working outside her primary discipline. Her recent work explores themes of memory, intimacy, and place through photographic and sculptural assemblages rooted in her experience of coastal environments.

Charity actively participates in regional exhibitions and community events such as ECU’s Annual Portfolio Throw Down and the Youth Arts Festival. As both a maker and advocate, she is passionate about expanding access to the arts and building sustainable creative opportunities in her community.

Sarah Lazure is an artist living in Greenville, NC who likes to get her hands dirty. Sarah’s work is a combination of traditional darkroom printing with digital manipulations, printmaking techniques, and image transfer processes. She explores creating layered imagery with textiles, mixed media, and small metals. Sarah is the Marketing & Exhibits Director at Emerge Gallery & Art Center, Home of the Pitt County Arts Council, where she enjoys the creative problem solving of artwork presentation and engagement.

Georges Le Chevallier, 2023 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant recipient, grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and studied at the prestigious Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. He earned his BFA from California State University, Long Beach, and his MFA from Hunter College in New York City. Le Chevallier has long been an advocate for challenging Latinx stereotypes through his art: exhibitions, such as You Don’t Look Puerto Rican, and Herencia: Celebrating Hispanic Heritage, examined the complexities of Latinx identity and culture. His paintings and photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally in distinguished galleries and museums, including the Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia), Taller Boricua (New York City), Museo de las Américas (San Juan), and the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh). His work has also been featured in major exhibitions such as The S Files at El Museo del Barrio (NYC), Nuestra Creación at Old Rabbit Gallery (Atlanta), and Being and Belonging: Latinx Perspectives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a public artist, Le Chevallier has collaborated with community members, town councils, and art advisory boards to create impactful murals and installations across the globe, including in France, Mexico, Canada, Guatemala, Hungary, Tanzania, Chile, and throughout the United States. He recently completed the Viva La Vida mural in Washington, North Carolina—a 30’ x 100’ artwork celebrating the Latinx community in Beaufort County. The project was funded by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and featured on PBS NC’s My Home NC: https://youtu.be/KXl-snrgWrI?si=p5yWF5jczl_JwfW0  

He currently serves as a Professor at Nash Community College, where he received the 2023 J. Edgar and Peggie T. Moore Excellence in Teaching Award.

Jennifer Mace is a graduate of Colorado State University with a BFA in Photography, and James Madison University with a MFA in Photography.  For the past 16 years, she has been teaching photography at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington NC.

Artist Statement: Born in Guam, and living in Japan as a young child, Jennifer spent her formulative years learning to notice the world around her.

“Urban spaces have been a subject matter that I have gravitated towards for a while. I’m interested in documenting everyday order so I can make sense of the places I frequent.“

Julie Snyder Mixon is a Professor of Photography at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina. Julie teaches a variety of photography courses at FMU that include topics such as darkroom, experimental, digital, photographic lighting and advanced photography. She received her MFA in Photography from East Carolina University and a BFA in Photography from Barton College. She specializes in alternative photographic processes and explores the combination of analog and digital photographic processes. Julie has exhibited her work regionally, nationally and internationally.

Anthony “Ant” Naimo (he/him; they/them), queer artist and educator. Their practice combines collage, illustration, and photography to construct fantasy worlds fabricated from unassuming materials. Naimo’s work considers the activity of acquiring objects and stories to reflect our sense of identity, the idiosyncrasies of collection, and the importance of forging fictions to propagate seedlings of a better tomorrow.

Rebecca Nolan, Professor, Graduate Program Coordinator, Savannah College of Art and Design. Rebecca Nolan received a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and an MFA from the University of Oregon, Eugene. She is excited to see all types of work.

Eric Pickersgill is a North Carolina–based conceptual artist and photographer best known for his ongoing series REMOVED, which explores the social and emotional effects of personal technology by photographing people with their devices physically taken from their hands. His work has been exhibited internationally—including at the Vitra Design Museum, MAK Lisbon, and the Ackland Art Museum—and is held in collections such as Delta Air Lines, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, JPMorgan Chase, and the Cohen Collection. Eric is represented by Rick Wester Fine Art in New York and his forthcoming book, REMOVED: elsewhere, everywhere, nowhere, will be published by Snap Collective with an introduction by Sherry Turkle. He holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BFA from Columbia College Chicago.

Parker James Reinecker is a visual artist, photographer, and educator based in Central North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia (USA). His work within the Central Piedmont region of North Carolina has spanned to now three projects, “Two Cardinals in the Thicket” (2020-2023), “Ned Peek & The Pug Mill” (2022-2024), and “To Watch the Moon Move” (2024). The work and approach to photography and mixed media installation have changed drastically over these past projects, from working through strict themes and research to a more open-ended and abstract approach to making. All of the projects work from a place of visual connection to landscape, ecology, culture, and the investigation of conceptual identity in the American South– all working to maintain a dialog in visual literacy.

Parker’s is an MFA recipient from Savannah College of Art & Design and his work has been exhibited in various galleries, museums, and institutions internationally and in the United States including High Point University, Marshall University, the Colorado Photographic Art Center, The Academy Art Museum, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. His work has also been featured in various national and international publications/platforms including C41 and Eyeshot Magazines, Dodho Magazine, and The Photo Review. Parker is a full-time Visual Arts Instructor of Lens-Based Media at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Dana Smessaert (they/them) is a photographer, writer, and death worker who explores themes of history, change, and melancholy in their work. They received their MFA in Photography from East Carolina University. They are an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University. Dana is currently on the Pride Caucus Leadership team for the Society of Photographic Education for the fourth year, working as a reviewer and newsletter writer. Dana is a juror for the SPE Media Festival LGBTQ+ Division and for ;TLDR exhibition by Midwest Nice Art. Dana enjoys practicing yoga, hiking, and reading in their free time. You can catch them at the Experimental Photography Festival in Barcelona in the summer.
www.danasmessaert.com

Dawn Surratt earned a B.A. in Studio Arts from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro and a Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Georgia. Her years of work with dying patients in hospice settings is the backbone of her imagery combining photographs with photography based book structures, installations, and objects as visual meditations exploring concepts of grief, transition, healing and spirituality. 

She has exhibited in galleries across the United States and internationally including The Center for Fine Art Photography, Griffin Museum of Photography, Maine Museum of Photography and Casa Regis Center for Culture and Contemporary Art. Her work has been widely published for book covers and publications such as Lenscratch, SHOTS, Diffusion, The Sun and The Hand.She was a 2016, 2020 and 2024 Critical Mass Finalist and her work is in collections across the United States including the Peabody Essex Museum, the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Rubinstein Library at Duke University. She is a 2018 nominee for the Royal Photography Society’s 100 Heroines.

Dawn is a full time artist living in rural North Carolina and teaches multi-media process and photography object work through Maine Media Workshops and College.

Joshua White uses wet plate collodion, cell phone photography, and traditional techniques to investigate space, memory, ecology, and place. His work has been published in National Geographic, and featured by Wired, Mother Nature Network, Scientific American, Don’t Take Pictures, The Hand, and Gizmodo. His exhibition record includes solo exhibitions across the US. White is an Associate Professor and the Photography Program Coordinator at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC.

Angela Franks Wells is a photography-based artist specializing in 19th century photographic processes. As an educator, she is committed to facilitating creative thinking and skilled making with her students. Her recent creative endeavors are about playful investigation and finding levity. Angela is an Associate Professor of Photography at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. where she enjoys the lush greenery of the south, proper weather storms, and the benefits of natural humidity in the studio.

Clayton Joe Young, a photographer and Director of Photography at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory, North Carolina, uses his documentary yet poetic lens to capture the quiet resilience and enduring beauty of the Appalachian South. His work explores the profound connection between people and their surroundings, honoring the textures of memory, landscape, and tradition that define the Southern experience.

Students: After selecting your reviewers from the list above, we strongly recommend creating a separate document with your top 20 choices, ranked in order of preference. The form below will ask you to enter these priorities. You will be assigned five reviewers based on availability.

Online Form – Portfolio ThrowDown Student Registration