Each year, CatchLight recognizes photographers who go beyond documenting events. They collaborate closely with the people and communities they photograph, building relationships over time and sharing creative control.
At the CatchLight Visual Storytelling Summit on May 03, which coincided with World Press Freedom Day, the San Francisco–based nonprofit announced its 2025 Global Fellows – a trio of visual storytellers who are redefining what it means to make work with rather than about others.
CatchLight, known for supporting visual storytellers who use their craft to spark social conversation and connect with audiences in new ways, selects three fellows annually for its Global Fellowship.
Each recipient is awarded a $30,000 (approximately £22,400) grant and receives tailored mentorship and support from a network of collaborators. In addition to funding ambitious projects, CatchLight also aims to help photographers build sustainable practices rooted in community and impact.
This year’s fellows are addressing issues that are both local and global, such as war, labor, identity and belonging, all through projects grounded in participation and care.
In Cairo, Egypt, Rehab Eldalil is working with war survivors across Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Yemen to create images and mixed media works that challenge common narratives of victimhood.
By inviting participants to contribute directly, through drawing, writing, and collaborative image-making, her project shifts the focus to resilience and resistance.
The work will appear in public installations, street art campaigns, and interactive exhibitions designed to open dialogue and push for more nuanced representations of Arab and African communities.
Federico Estol, based in Uruguay, has spent the past eight years working alongside shoeshiners in La Paz, Bolivia, many of whom wear ski masks to avoid stigma.
Through workshops, graphic novels, music, and even a restaurant, Estol and his collaborators have built a creative platform that reframes these workers not as marginal figures but as cultural producers and entrepreneurs.
With the fellowship, the project is expanding; training a new generation of shoeshiners as visual storytellers and connecting them with similar groups across the city.
In California’s Central Valley, Adam Perez is partnering with farmworker communities to tell stories of labor, land and cultural identity.
His project, Of the Fields, follows the harvest season through video and photography, while also creating space for storytelling in the community itself through backyard gatherings, school visits, and billboards along Highway 99.
A companion zine will be distributed in fields, flea markets, and schools, keeping the work directly in the hands of the people it represents.
"This year’s Global Fellowship recipients are exceptional visual storytellers who are centering community participation and empowerment in their creative practices," says Elodie Mailliet Storm, CEO of CatchLight.
"We so look forward to supporting them in the next stages of their creative journeys through amplification and innovative engagement strategies."
At a time when journalism is increasingly shaped by speed and spectacle, the 2025 CatchLight Global Fellows are choosing a different path, one that takes time and builds trust.
You can find out more about the CatchLight Visual Storytelling Summit at the official website.
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