Fall quarter is here, and PCNW is in the midst of another quarter filled with creativity and connections. Our members submitted interesting projects in-process and inspiring photographs over the summer, and we are excited to share them with our community. For this quarter’s Member Showcase, we’re featuring the work of Jesus Cruz, Daria Diachenko, Katrina Herzog, and Steven Ambrose. A big thank you to each of them for sharing their incredible work!
We often receive more submissions than we can feature. If you were not selected, please submit again, especially if you have new work to share. The deadline to submit for the next showcase is December 18th, 2025.
If you are a PCNW member, and would like to submit to our Member Showcase, you can do so by clicking here.
Not a member yet? Join now to access membership opportunities like this and enjoy exclusive benefits––including discounts on classes, workshops, facilities rentals, and merchandise; as well as perks like 20% off rentals, 10% off inkjet paper, 10% off darkroom paper & chemicals at Glazer’s Camera,10% Off Framing Services at Lucky Rabbet Framing, and 10% off coffee at Drip Drip coffee house.
What are you working on?
I’m currently working on a new series of blurry portraits.
In this photographic series, I examine the complex interplay between our innermost selves and their external manifestations. My work explores how our internal reality becomes shaped, distorted, or revealed through encounters with external factors, other individuals, and societal constructs. Through these images, I pose the fundamental question: To what extent is our authentic self visible through the gaze of others? This visual inquiry challenges viewers to consider the layers of identity that exist between perception and reality.
Artist Statement
The book form is especially dear to me – it can have a more complex expression than a single image, and I love the materiality of paper and ink. I find great satisfaction in printing and binding my own books as one-of-a-kind or small hand-made editions. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with book structures that can shift the scale of the viewer’s experience (especially for landscapes) and alter the normal progress through a book. The recent book, Pictures from a Train, is one attempt (see link below).
Mainly I make portraits – of people, objects, a place, a memory, a question. My commitment is to go beyond the simple appearance of things, while remaining rooted in their physical presence. I hope that my work can move others to question, wonder, explore.
Website
What are you working on?
Based in the Pacific Northwest, I frame couples in love as they wander between moss‑soft forests and gritty, neon‑and‑concrete urban landscapes—fusing fog-blanketed coastlines and city grit into heartfelt portraits. I chase all its mood-shifting light—from early‑mist silvers and rosy sunrises, to golden-hour warmth and neon‑lit street glows—striving to honor authentic connection over stiff, posed photos.
Artist Statement
Through macrophotography and my experiences in nature, I feel alive and connected to the universe. Nature has inspired me to create and continue to look closely, think more deeply. There is fragile beauty everywhere in the natural world, but it is fleeting. This moment is all there is, really. Through photography, I am able to capture the moment and meditate longer on the beautiful shapes the plant, animal, fungus or rock has to offer. By working with the image using the sun, light sensitive salts, and the slow exposures, I feel tapped into the flow of the universe and happy. The goal is to get to that flow state. These images are the output of one such flow state.
Website
What are you working on?
I’ve been making double exposures with nearly every roll of 35mm film I’ve shot over the last year and a half. Some images have come back delightfully intertwined, while others have been slightly disappointing in my mis-assessment of how the images would ultimately overlay in their compositions. It’s been a process of learning from roll to roll throughout these experiments: marking a line on the film as I load it to be able to align it for the second time through in response to frames being off kilter from one another, writing down the orientation and general content of each frame for the first time through the exposures to avoid having to choose which direction is “correct”…all the while practicing acceptance of what photographs ultimately appear.
Artist Statement
In my 20s I studied photography and worked as a documentary photographer. I focused on precision, details, and meaningful visual storytelling. In my 30s I shifted careers and became a social worker, where my focus turned toward supporting people through various healing and accessing needed resources. Utilizing creativity for my own healing and expression, I have moved toward engaging with photography as a process rather than a product — exploring through play, and therefore letting go of control of the outcome.
What are you working on?
After finishing my final project for Black and White II, prints of people riding their bikes down Commercial Street in Provincetown, MA, I’m focusing on two of my long-term projects. The first is nudes of friends, lovers, and new acquaintances, usually repeating the image of my hand on their left butt cheek. The other is a collection of party pics with an intense, in-camera flash.
Artist Statement
When I’m taking pictures, I see things somewhere between a documentarian and that kid who grew up with point and shoots and drugstore development; I see a cool moment that I want to remember later. When I’m in the darkroom, I often try to print in a way that undermines photography’s claim to fidelity with reality, making images as I see them in my head, rather than trying to represent things “as they are.” While results vary, I hope that the images I produce exist visibly in the tension between a shooting and a printing practice that are, ostensibly, at odds.
