Through her camera lens, Darcy Padilla captures not just images, but stories of beauty and resilience in the face of crushing challenges.
Approaching her subjects with empathy and understanding, Padilla witnesses the lives of those often overlooked. Her long-form narrative photography illuminates some of the most pressing social issues of our time — from the struggles of poverty, addiction, and homelessness to the ravages of HIV/AIDS.
This powerful work as earned Padilla, an associate professor with the School of Education’s Art Department, widespread recognition. She has won numerous major photography awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, three World Press Photo Awards, and the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography.
Adding to these achievements, she received the inaugural Award for Documentary Photography from the Royal Photographic Society in November. One of the world’s oldest photographic societies, the U.K.-based organization has been presenting awards since 1878.
Padilla’s honor was the first time the society has presented an award specifically for documentary photography.
Decades of dedication
Padilla will spend years, even decades, on a project — “whatever it requires,” she says.
“When I begin a project, I’m seeking answers to questions,” she explains. “As a young photographer, I just knew that finding answers would require more than one or two visits.”
For one of Padilla’s early projects, she spent two years photographing incarcerated men with HIV/AIDS in a prison isolation ward in Vacaville, California. This, she says, bolstered her commitment to her life’s work.
AIDS and its consequences continued to be a major focus for her next project, which documented the residents of transient hotels in one of San Francisco’s poorest neighborhoods for more than six years.
It was in one of these hotels that Padilla met 19-year-old Julie Baird, a new mother with HIV/AIDS, and her newborn daughter, Rachel.
“I walked in the hotel that day, and there was this beautiful couple standing in the lobby with their baby in their arms,” recalls Padilla. “(Julie) told me that she’d given birth eight days earlier, and that Rachel had given her a reason to live.”
Padilla asked for permission to photograph the family, and she continued to chronicle their lives for over two decades. The result, her acclaimed monograph, “Family Love,” is an intimate portrayal of social issues through one person’s life.
Among her more recent projects is “California Dreamin,’” which focuses on the rise in poverty and homelessness throughout the state since the Great Recession in 2008.
She is also the co-principal investigator and documentary photographer for a new three-year project in Wisconsin supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, which aims to advance the production of biofuels and biochemicals. Padilla’s work includes taking photos of scientists connected to the project, paper mill communities, and areas where logging is taking place. The goal is to create a visual resource for public engagement on climate change.
In addition to her own work, Padilla is committed to mentoring the next generation of photographers. As a faculty member, she aims to help students discover their creative potential.
“I try to see what is positive (in students’ work), and guide them to engage in a more creative and intellectual process,” she says. “The possibilities are the part that motivates me.”