Editor’s Note: This is a recurring interview series exploring how photographers find visions of freedom through their lenses.
Ariel Cobbert’s camera is her tool for transcendence.
In the frames she makes, heavily informed by her training and experience as a photojournalist, she invites us to see how the beauty of the present can chart visions for the future.
“When I’m capturing moments, it’s like having a lens in my mind,” she said. “It’s a journey through perspectives, details and emotions. Photography helps envision the world we’re striving for. It can be a powerful tool to highlight the changes we aspire to make, to document progress or to shed light on areas that need attention.”
Cobbert started feeling this way after she learned of the camera’s magic by chance while growing up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She was on her high school’s track and field team and found herself photographing a teammate’s race with a borrowed camera.
“As I took photos, it was this rush of joy, the feeling that I was capturing something special,” she said. “It was a mix of excitement and calmness that creates a unique sense of anticipation and connection to a moment or subject.”
She focused on the value of those connections and how they “seep into the photographs themselves” during her time at the University of Mississippi, where she studied print journalism and African American studies. In between class assignments and working for the student paper, Cobbert learned of her camera’s ability to deepen her relationships in the world.
In 2019, Cobbert arrived in Memphis to start a job at The Commercial Appeal as a staff photographer. She spent her first year there defining a new discipline — the grind of a daily photojournalist — while immersing herself in Memphis’ historical music and civil rights narratives. Photographing everyday life shifted her perspective, offered her insight into the community and created powerful relationships.
“As a young Black woman from South Mississippi, I have my unique lens, yet this journey has continuously enlightened me,” she said. “Photography allows a level of intimacy and connection that’s unparalleled.”
Driving around between assignments, she found a city with landscapes that have “a sense of depth and character, enhancing the storytelling by evoking a sense of place and time.” She learned how to best work with the “distinct warmth and softness” of Memphis light.
Soon, what was her first job out of college had her working long days and nights covering the city’s story and struggle through the first few years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 protests in support of Black lives.
“Documenting events or stories that involve human suffering, tragedy or conflict can be emotionally taxing,” she said. “The weight of bearing witness to such events and the responsibility of accurately portraying these situations can be overwhelming. It’s a balance between the ethical duty to document and the emotional toll to witnesses.”
She left The Commercial Appeal in 2021; in those three years, she was also the only Black person and only woman on the newspaper’s photography staff. She continued her work as a photojournalist for outlets such as The New York Times, CNN and MLK50. She also started as the photography program curator for Memphis Public Libraries and has been instrumental in the growth and success of the community photography studio at the Cossitt Library.
Cobbert’s time at the newspaper was a huge period of growth for her as a photographer, but the professional transition has allowed her to refocus her personal practice.
Her more recent portrait and installation work celebrates the radiance of Black people, their culture and their imaginations. The resulting images use the familiarity of the every day that invites us to step toward a reality built by freedom and light.
When asked to describe the world channeled in the images, Cobbert replied:
“A world where activists aren’t marching across bridges, organizers aren’t rallying outside police stations and mothers aren’t clutching images of their children at candlelight vigils; a world that feels like a neighborhood block party, where joy is more frequent than pain.”
Andrea Morales is the visuals director for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Email her at andrea.morales@mlk50.com
This story is brought to you by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom focused on poverty, power and policy in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today. MLK50 is also supported by these generous donors.