Salon Style Exhibition
Feb 28, 2026 | Sat 3-5pm at PCNW
Join PCNW Alumni to celebrate the work of our community — let’s cover the walls and tables with photography!
- This is all fun, no competition, no judgement, no fee.
- In the PCNW Auditorium, hosted by PCNW Alumni.
- All PCNW students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends are welcome.
- First come, first hang. Bring one print and be ready to clip, pin or hang to the wall. Tables available for zine or maquette.
Questions? Contact Lisa Ahlberg or Gwen Emminger
Alumni Highlights
Ish Ishmael
graduated Seattle University 2009 (BFA in Photography through SU partnership with PCNW)
interview by Joan Dinkelspiel, grad 2017
Born and raised in the Midwest Rust Belt under the Pisces sun and moon, Ish Ishmael is a documentary style photographer and installation artist, and everyone’s favorite vagabond. Infatuated with exploring the diverse approaches in which humans occupy space during late-stage capitalism, Ish traverses the arteries of the USA in her Toyota minivan, seeking threads of commonality and streams of divergence within the collective ideals of our American Dream. Through the documentation of spectacle, scenes, parties, political rallies, mundanity and the every-day, Ish documents disparate culture in progress and loves to share her work with the proletariat.
The work you post on Instagram gives me a broader sense of the scope of humanity, especially a view into how people in many regions of the United States express their cultural and political allegiances. What goes into making these powerful sequences as a traveling photographer, connecting with strangers in new places and unfamiliar communities?
In the famous words of WeeGee, F8 and be there! I hardly say no to an opportunity, and love following my intuition and the leads that can catapult me into unforeseen spaces, situations, and communities. I’m equally as interested in people and my curiosity to explore both what excites us and makes us tick, as I am about experiencing the land and cityscapes that we inhabit and how they shift and transform from place to place. I don’t like to enter a situation or place with a clear plan or preconceived notion; I like taking a more organic and unexpected investigative approach. Definitely not a conceptual photographer, I find my inspiration and collaborators while in the field. This process urges me to pay attention and to say yes. I have a compulsion to photograph many different facades of a place, and I believe that the true magic lies in the sequence and editing to convey a story or feeling. I often utilize portraits amongst land and cityscapes to drive home the essence of a sequence. I like the way words play inside of an image and use them to punctuate the visual poem I am conducting; t-shirt slogans, tattoos, and graffiti are frequent motifs in my work.
Ever since I photographed a march against the Iraq war in Washington DC in 2005, I have danced around documenting political contemporary themes. From protesting The Iraq War, to the Occupy movement, to the rise of MAGA, I am interested in examining how access to political spaces of dissent help us understand and break down the structures of power that we are currently indoctrinated into. Currently I am very inquisitive about our political divide. In many ways I’m a sucker for what I was taught to be the proposed ideals of The United States of America. My heart wants to believe that we are a welcoming and loving country where we have rights to live in a democratic melting pot that celebrates our diversity and provides the opportunity to live comfortably regardless of who you are. I hope this while I simultaneously understand that we are systemically being exploited to maximize the profit of the shareholders. Not only through the exploitation of our bodies’ labor for profit but by encouraging us to consume and exploit workers in developing lands as our taste for technology and convenience devastates the natural world and further robs countries of their autonomy to profit from their resources.
I grew up in Cleveland Ohio, a working-class town that I would consider to be deep purple on the spectrum of politics before moving to the more clearly defined blue shores of the west coast. Growing up, I’d been surrounded by a vast array of viewpoints, and now often wonder how similar societal conditions can lead to very different political outlooks. How can we be from such similar realities, yet interpret things so differently? At the risk of sounding naive or cliche, I truly like to believe that people for the most part are generally good and care about their neighbors. I feel like our division is a manufactured front. I arrive at any situation with clear eyes and a full heart. I come with respect and approach people with an earnest and inquisitive nature. I always joke that I subject people to “my interviews” but often I find that people enjoy opening up and talking to a stranger about their deep thoughts. It leads me to believe that we don’t listen to each other enough, and that there is safety in exploring your beliefs with someone who has no preconceived notions of who you are and how you are supposed to be.
When I am going to a MAGA thing, I realize I am not there to change minds. I am not there to argue. I am there to observe. Political rallies and marches are places for people to come together, to show off and celebrate their ideals, and to have solidarity for one another regardless of which “side” you are on. That is essential for me or anyone to understand. That is not the space to have mind blowing epiphanies about other ways of seeing. I approach people and prefer to have consent for the images I am making. I want people to represent themselves how they want to be represented, and I find it important to have their consent regardless of if I agree with their viewpoints or not. This respect for creating a collaborative portrait is important and the baseline of my approach. I know there are photographers out there who choose to represent “the other side” in an ugly light. They use tactics to visually demonize their subjects, and I’m not really down with that in my practice. I don’t try to convince anyone to do anything they don’t want to do, and I’m not trying to be sneaky. I simply ask if I can take a picture, and perhaps I tell people what I am interested in that compels me to make the image — I like your shirt, or your style is great, often something complimentary. Or if I don’t LIKE the shirt but I’m interested in it I say something like, “Wow I haven’t seen that shirt before!”
I don’t lie. If asked, I will explain my political position. When people ask me what I am photographing for, I explain that I am documenting all sides of history. I often think about the present in the context of the future, and how it becomes nonsensical and disorienting through the archiving of images. We see images from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and say things like that image could have been taken today. I am currently building that through my own little lifetime’s worth of diary entries.
Are you still on the road most of the time these days creating these photographic vignettes? Or has your work taken on a new direction?
I am currently based in Cleveland, where I spend about 1⁄4 of the year non consecutively. I am mostly living on the road/go these days, but I check in back here to recollect myself every few weeks or months depending what is going on. I recently was in South America for a month, so I’ve been a little stagnant over the holidays while recouping financially from that journey. I build a robust schedule for myself, and pride myself on keeping it moving. Honestly, I rarely want to leave a place, but I am always happy to arrive somewhere new with different conditions. I ebb and flow between traversing the land to get somewhere at a leisurely pace and having a longer time in said place. Sometimes the journey is the destination, and other times the journey needs to get me to the destination as quickly as possible. Occasionally I am lucky and get to do both. I bookmark places to return when I have to rush. I also like to bookmark events that I think would be interesting to experience. I tend to gravitate towards similar events in different parts of the country; music festivals and concerts, county and street fairs, parades, rodeos, car races, horse races, all kinds of races, anything that will bring the community together to engage in a celebratory spectacle. I really enjoy having fun in large groups of people, and I juxtapose the dichotomy of the political and the every day in my edits. I truly believe that the lady who followed me with a crowd trying to chase me out of the Million MAGA March because she thought I was an agitator would embrace me at her county’s fair.
These days I definitely prefer to stay in places for longer periods of time as I think it allows for a deeper understanding of place, as well as provides more opportunity for the potential of unforeseen circumstances. Since that is not always possible, my MO is that I would rather have some time than no time and shorter journeys can hold inspirational space as well as provide research opportunities for a later adventure. On very rare occasions I decide I never need to return to a place or event. I will never fully trust anyone else’s opinion about an event or place. I need to make my own determination.
I think my work always dances around themes. I’m not one to work on just any one project. I think of my life as the project, and in my head photographing car races in Daytona isn’t necessarily a separate work from photographing The Blues scene in Mississippi. I am the common denominator. I feel as if my work takes a more anthropological approach. I want people to learn something or wrestle with their own perceived notions and feelings when they engage with the work. Through my lens and my interactions with people, I build a portrait of our contemporary existence. I think of my archive as an amalgamation of time and place and feel as if I am constantly building upon what already exists.
Since graduation from Seattle University (in association with PCNW) and from Cranbrook Academy of Art, it seems you’ve found your way, even while on the move, to teach, travel and make work. What are your dreams for projects and for your career moving forward?
I’m not going to lie. My crystal ball is a little muddy right now. Any substantial dream I have is currently too far in the beginning stages to publicly speak on. The severity of the moment is a little suffocating, and my current biggest agenda is to survive the next three years. As Federal Agents terrorize the populace, AI surges in popularity, and we seemingly gear up for societal battles on many fronts, I’m left contemplating the importance of my individual lens. Everyone has a camera, and the art/photo world can tend to feel a little saturated, so I try to be cognizant of that as I work. I’m not jaded when I say this; it’s simply an observation. I think it’s good we all have the ability to create our own diary entries into the human archive, and while I do think everyone has the right and ability to create and speak on subjects, some people have a closer proximity to create more powerful images in said matters. I do fear our archives will be lost and altered in the future as most everything is digitized and stored on technocratic servers and clouds. I always appreciate teaching and helping others recognize their own visions and ability to make powerful stories. Through all these feelings, I believe there is nothing to do but carry on with the work that compels me, so currently I am concentrating on making and attempting to keep organized the incredible volume of images that I have amassed. I believe that if I carry on with making the work, while supporting other people’s work, the rest will come when the time is right. I have leaned deeply into trusting destiny these days and fully trust that things are going to land where they are supposed to.
For more about Ish Ishmael:
Instagram @ishland
www.ishishmael.com (launching soon)
Ashley Miyagishima
graduated Seattle University 2024 (BFA in Photography through SU partnership with PCNW)
interview by Jenn Reidel, grad. 2000
Briefly, tell us about yourself.
I am an Asian American multidisciplinary artist working primarily with photography, ink, and installation. My practice weaves together image-making, movement, and mixed media to explore connection, memory, and transformation. Rooted in intuition and emotional resonance, my work explores the relationship between the body, place, and the subtle, unseen forces that shape human experience. Through this process, I seek to create moments of reflection and dialogue, inviting viewers into a shared space of vulnerability, presence, and imagination.
My relationship with photography began when I picked up my grandfather’s analog camera—an experience that reshaped my understanding of time, memory, and visual storytelling. Over four years in the Photographic Center Northwest program, I cultivated a deep respect for photography as a slow, tactile practice grounded in patience, precision, and intention.
What themes or ideas are you exploring in your current work?
My current work explores intergenerational trauma, identity, and cultural inheritance, particularly through the lens of the Asian American experience. These themes are a direct continuation of what I explored in school, though my approach has become more materially driven over time.
I work with Suminagashi, a traditional Japanese ink technique in which soot from pine branches is suspended on water and transferred onto paper or fabric. The fluid impressions echo the movement of water, creating rhythmic layers that mirror how trauma, memory, and history ripple through generations.
How do you find inspiration for new projects?
I’m inspired by what is often left unspoken: lost stories, forgotten traditions, and histories marginalized by assimilation or survival. As an Asian American artist, I’m acutely aware of how intergenerational trauma is frequently suppressed out of fear of negative repercussions. I draw inspiration from archival research, personal and collective memory, and conversations within the community—especially where silence exists.
While Seattle University provided an interdisciplinary conceptual foundation, PCNW grounded my practice technically and materially through darkroom work and mentorship. Studying with Claire Garoutte, Jenny Riffle, and Tara Champion was formative to my development. They each helped me foster a deep respect for craft, continuity, and intention that continues to guide my work around storytelling, identity, and generational memory.
Can you describe your creative process from idea to final work?
My process begins with listening and research, followed by intuitive formation. When working with analog photography or ink-based processes, I allow unpredictability to guide the outcome. In the darkroom or during Suminagashi printing, each layer builds slowly, demanding presence and care.
My classes at PCNW continue to shape how I think about tonal depth, layering, and final presentation. Even when working digitally, I think carefully about how images are shaped through editing, sequencing, and presentation.
What role does storytelling play in your photography and artwork?
Storytelling is foundational to my practice. My work centers on experiences that are often fragmented, inherited, or left unspoken—particularly around identity, memory, and generational history. Rather than offering a single narrative, I’m interested in how images can hold multiple truths at once, allowing viewers to enter the work through emotion, association, and reflection.
I approach storytelling as a process of accumulation: layering gestures, materials, and moments to suggest histories that extend beyond the frame. This allows the work to function as both personal reflection and collective memory, creating space for viewers to recognize their own stories within mine.
Do you have any shows in the works?
I recently exhibited work at The Fishbowl in Seattle and am currently developing a new body of work for an upcoming exhibition in Los Angeles. In parallel, I’m also working toward organizing a group exhibition with fellow PCNW alumni artists. This ongoing work continues my exploration of identity, memory, and generational narratives, and I’m excited to see how it evolves across different contexts.
Thank you again for this interview invitation. I’m deeply grateful for the mentorship I received at PCNW. It’s wonderful to see that the faculty who shaped my experience there continue to teach and support new generations of artists, making this opportunity to work with PCNW especially meaningful.
For more about Ashley Miyagishima:
Instagram @Fl.ash.photography
Website | Fl.ash.photography
LinkedIn | Ashley Miya
Alumni Updates / News / Exhibitions
Nurturance and Ambition: Motherhood in Photography Exhibit at Spokane Falls Community College
featuring work by alums Jenny Hansen Das, Holly Pendragon, and Anna Ream
18 photographers participated in the Nurturance and Ambition: Motherhood in Photography group exhibition. They were students in a course of the same name at Photographic Center Northwest. They are female-identifying caregivers, some who are mothers of children ranging from toddlers to college students, caregivers to aging parents and one is a social worker, caring for others through her profession. With the guidance of their photography instructors Annabel Clark and Anna Ream, students explored their dual roles as both caretaker and artists through photographic process.
This work was also exhibited in Seattle at The Seattle Light Room in 2025.
Daniel Gregory and Dan Hawkins at SAM Gallery
Depth of Field on view through February 1, 2026
Photographers capture moments in light, movement and hue working to find the right balance for their works of art. In Depth of Field, technique combined with storytelling comes into focus. With a variety of subject matter and situations ranging from intentional to spontaneous, this collection features the SAM Gallery photographers John Armstrong, Mel Curtis, Daniel Gregory, Dan Hawkins, and Berhanu Wells.
SAM Gallery
1300 1st Ave
Seattle, WA 98101
The Perceptive Photographer Podcast
hosted by Daniel J. Gregory, recently In Conversation with Rachel Demy
Rachel Demy Instagram Takeover
Float Magazine showcases diverse contemporary photography from global artists, emerging to established.
Rachel Demy, Joan Dinkelspiel, and Eva Sköld Westerlind at Solas Gallery
Northwest Current exhibit on view through February 20, 2026
A survey of recent work from artists based in or connected to the Pacific Northwest.
Solas Gallery
300 S Washington St Unit Z
Seattle, WA 98104
Marianne McCoy at PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris 2025
Marianne McCoy won several awards at the PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris in 2025,
including 2 bronze and 4 honorable mentions.
A Trip to Paris Photo
Marianne McCoy, grad. 2001
In November 2025, my daughter Kristie and I went to Paris for 14 days. Our purpose was to attend the awards ceremony and opening of the PX3 exhibition that was also a part of the Paris Photo scene.
PX3 (the Prix de la Photographie, Paris) is a photography award that strives to promote appreciation of photography, discover emerging talent and introduce photographers from around the world to the artistic community in Paris. The award was founded in 2007. All winners were an amazing group of photographers. I was awarded two Bronze and four Honorable Mentions.
I then joined a fun group of photographers led by Crista Dix, the Director of the Griffin Museum, for the duration of Paris Photo. Some of you may remember Crista who was a big part of PCNW and owned The Wallspace Gallery. Our group explored some galleries including Louis Vuitton’s very modern museum, Pinault Foundation and Jue de Paume Photography Center. We ate, attended book signings and were introduced to exceptional work and photographers. Jenny Hansen Das (The Seattle Light Room) was in the group too and we shared a lot of fun hanging out together! I was fortunate enough to meet Albert Watson at a friend’s gallery, Paolo Roversi (my favorite Fashion Photographer), Steve McCurry, REZA and attended Bootsy Holler’s Making It, 1992-2008 book signing (another PCNW Seattleite).
Paris Photo is the largest international art fair dedicated to photography and is held each November. The Grand Palais is where it all happens, which is old, huge and stunning. The structure is made of metal with an Art Deco design, painted a Celeste color and has a full rounded glass ceiling. The four days of the show brings together 200 plus exhibitors and galleries from around the world. Collectors and photographers are offered the most diverse and qualitative presentation of photography driven projects today. Specialized publishers and art book dealers present unique and rare editions as well as book launches and signing sessions with many renowned artists.
More about PX3 at www.px3.fr
More about Paris Photo at www.parisphoto.com
Alumni Critique Group
Are you a graduate or current student of PCNW’s Certificate in Fine Art Photography? You’re invited to join us at an Alumni Critique Group! Feel free to join in at any time and bring new work to share.
WEST SEATTLE
Meets Second Wednesday of every month @11 – 1 am
Where: West Seattle C & P Coffee, 5612 California Avenue SW, Seattle, WA
Contact Eva: eswesterlind@gmail.com
About the Alumni Association
What is the Alumni Association and who is a member? The PCNW Alumni Association includes and is for all graduates of the Certificate in Fine Art Photography. We have a volunteer leadership committee that seeks to deepen the connection between Alumni, current Certificate Students, and PCNW, and explore ways in which we can further support, elevate, and celebrate one another.
Are you a graduate who is interested in getting more involved? We intend to renew the committee on a regular basis, with new members, and think this group can lead some great initiatives. Reach out to us at alumni@pcnw.org if you’re interested in joining the leadership committee, have ideas to help foster connection and professional development, or if you’d like to support upcoming initiatives.
Are you an alum with an upcoming exhibition, book launch, lecture, portfolio review, or other
event that you’d like us to feature in a future Alumni Newsletter and/or on the PCNW Alumni
page? Tell us about what you’re up to by completing the Alumni Survey Form or e-mail us at alumni@pcnw.org.
Posting on Instagram? Add another hashtag to your work: #pcnwalumni
Thank you to our current volunteer leadership committee members: Lisa Ahlberg, Gwen Emminger, Andy Holton, Janet Politte, Matt Ragen, Anna Ream, and Al Varady. Our Chairperson is Gwen Emminger.
Additional thanks to the alumni who contributed to making this issue of the newsletter happen, especially: Lisa Ahlberg, Jennifer Brendicke, Joan Dinkelspiel, and Jenn Reidel.
