Workshop Participants
Michele Asselin
Cinematographer, Photographer
Michele Asselin began taking pictures for the Jerusalem Bureau of the Associated Press after studying Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at NYU in Paris. She later returned to the United States to pursue editorial portrait photography.
Asselin's work has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, New York Magazine and Fortune among others and has been used in advertising campaigns for IBM, Stella Artois, Verizon, Citi Smith Barney, Choice Hotels, Best Buy and Common Wealth Bank.
In the course of her work she has created memorable imagery of many well known figures such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Condaleeza Rice, Henry Paulson, George Soros, Ian McCullen, Courtney Cox, Henry Lewis Gates Jr., Susan Sarandon, Maureen Dowd, Rick Moody, Barry Diller, Ira Glass, Jeff Koons, Kara Walker, and Paul Giometti. From Politicians to Celebrities she aims to combine psychology and design in order to create bold and honest portraits.
Asselin has been recognized by PDN as one of the top young portrait photographers to watch, and since by American Photography and Communication Arts. She is currently working on a long-term project in the city of Detroit.
She now lives and works in New York.
Asselin participated in the March 2010 MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop. She had the following to say about her experience:
On the first day of the MediaStorm workshop I understood how much was lacking in my work, by the last day I understood how much was possible. I never would have wanted to make this transition without their guidance and I have no doubt that I have learned from the best.
Roxanne Pickering is a Brooklyn resident bound by family and economics to live near the Gowanus Canal, a polluted waterway recently declared an EPA superfund site.