We’re excited to announce that we’ve added photojournalist Kevin Wurm to our team. Wurm, who started July 1, joins our creative director, Andrea Morales, in telling stories of Memphis, primarily through images.
Wurm, a self-taught photographer, comes to the digital newsroom as a Report for America corps member and a CatchLight Local fellow, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. He has worked across the South with numerous publications, including The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He previously interned for Reuters in Washington, D.C. and freelanced in Nashville.
He says he wasn’t led to photography; instead, it came to him through a family history of collecting and sending photographs to each other. “So I grew up looking at these archival photos, sparking curiosity, imagination and my desire to tell stories through photographs.”
That family practice led him to have a passion in particular for portraiture. “When I would look at these old portraits, I would wonder, ‘What all have they been through? How was their mood that day? What were they thinking as this photo was made?’
“I aim to capture the layered essence of a person. I’ve grown to love environmental portraits because they weave a subject’s surroundings into the frame, adding context and depth to their story.”
So far, Wurm says, Memphis reminds him of his childhood, growing up in Nashville in the ’90s, “before the massive gentrification.”
“There’s something very familiar to Memphis that I’m starting to put my finger on,” he says. “Memphis has character, has grit, passion, pain, yet perseverance.”
This story is brought to you byMLK50: 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.