Trinity College Fellows in Photography 2025

Visual Storytelling Workshop with James Rodríguez

Trinity and U of T students are invited to participate in a two-day visual story telling workshop with renowned photographer James Rodriguez, an award-winning México-U.S. documentary photographer and filmmaker. Presented by Trinity College Fellows in Photography, the workshop is hosted by Professor Kevin Lewis O’Neill, Trinity’s Dean of Arts & Vice-Provost.

The Visual Storytelling Workshop intends to provide students with an introduction to James Rodriguez’s work, the issues he covers, and examples of his work. The goal is to learn sequencing theory, framing, and how best to edit content to transmit a message. Images that participants take will be reviewed resulting in an optimal edit of 10 photos that will provide the most powerful selection and sequence of images to tell the story photographed by each student.

• Workshop: The two-day workshop will take place on September 30, 2025 (virtual) and October 16, 2025 (in person) from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm
• Honorarium: Selected fellows will receive a $500 honorarium
• Equipment required: Laptop, and camera or mobile phone
• How to apply: Please submit a brief statement (approximately 150 words) of your current project and up to five to ten images, with at least five images of an ongoing or recent visual/photographic project to trinity.artsdean@utoronto.ca by September 18, 2025 (applications are now closed).

James Rodriguez is a Guatemala-based documentary photographer from Southern California and based in Guatemala. With 20 years of experience, James’ work focuses on post-war processes, human rights issues, migration, climate change, land tenure and social conflicts in Mexico and Central America. James has been published and/or completed assignments for the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Le Monde, New York Times, NPR, Vogue, The Guardian, Toronto Star, among others, and has collaborated with numerous Human Rights NGOs, including Amnesty International Canada. In 2020, James received a National Geographic Society COVID emergency grant. Prizes include first place in the 2015 POY Latin America in the “story with a phone camera” category and is a recipient of Mexico’s National System for Art Creators (SNCA) grant. His 2024 photobook Land of Trees documents 20 years of social conflicts and territorial resistance to extractive projects within the context of the fragile post-war processes in Guatemala. James holds a BA in Cultural Geography from UCLA (1996). More information on his work can be found at mimundo.org and on Instagram @mimundo_org.