Jessica Raimi | Photographer | Writer

I grew up in Rochester, New York, where I received my first serious camera for my fifteenth birthday. Encouraged by my father, who had a darkroom in the basement, and by my zany high school friends, I began taking pictures. In 1969 I moved to New York to attend Barnard College, but left school in 1971 to become a freelance photographer.

From 1972 to 1974 I attended the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, where I studied with Nathan Lyons and Ralph Gibson, and Empire State College, from which I received a B.A. with a major in photography. In 1975 I returned to New York, where I have continued to work as a photographer, as well as a writer, editor and graphic designer.

My photographs have appeared in the New York Times, the Village Voice, the Tribeca Trib, Newsday, the WBAI Folio, Columbia College Today, the Columbia Spectator, and various obscure publications both here and abroad. I have taught photography at the University of Rochester and have lectured on various subjects at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Paris at St.-Denis, the University of Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada, and the Oudaia Center in Rabat, Morocco. My work is in the collections of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Columbiana Collection of Columbia University, and various private collections. It has been featured in a number of group exhibits and solo shows at venues including the Village Green Bookstore in Rochester; J. Prendergast, Amsterdam’s Restaurant and the Interchurch Center in New York City; and the Frame Works Gallery in Bristol, Virginia.

I have been a writer most of my life. My work has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, the Palo Alto Review, Columbia College Today, Columbia Magazine, Barnard Alumnae, the Tribeca Trib, Alternative Media, and other publications. I have completed a book of stories, "She's Leaving Home." Go to my writing page to see my published work.

I am also a radio producer. My work has been broadcast on WBAI-FM, New York; KCSM, San Mateo, California; and National Public Radio. Go to my radio page for details and MP3s of my productions.