About Me — Jerrilyn Jacobs

Interview for “Dead Center,” Fall, 2024 by David Higgins

Jerrilyn Jacobs: Photographer
What were some influences on your photography?
One of the most important aspects of my photography is relating to people, exploring their story both with words and pictures.
I grew up in Denver when it was like a friendly, small town, and my father taught me to be comfortable talking to anyone and everyone.
Later, when I was a career counselor at Radcliffe in their Alumnae Career Services, I got to ask women of all ages in all walks of life the hard questions about their work and their goals, and learn from their responses while helping them. My curiosity about how we give value to our life, how we piece together the people we are as we age, was given fuel.
When I career counseled myself, I decided to get a master’s degree in Broadcasting from Boston University to focus on communicating stories to an audience. Along the way, I taught inner city kids how to use a videocamera and interview important people in town, including Mayor Buddy Cianci and Larry Bird. I produced and shot small documentaries, then was able to get freelance jobs on features shot in New England. I put my film still camera and mobile darkroom away for a while as I worked my way through a career in video.
My inspiration as a photographer came from being a documentary videographer and always looking to see what was going to happen next so I could be ready with the camera. Video also fostered my curiosity to go exploring and my passion for storytelling. Interviews gave me a deep appreciation for the complexity and variety of the human experience as well as a lesson in bias and propaganda.
Later I transitioned into teaching in a high school media program I created at Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California. The best part was helping students find their own voice and express that message in video or with a photo. It was a Career Technical Education program, so I was able to get funds to put together a professional studio to help students develop employable skills. Finally it was time to bring photography back into my life! I had a studio, a computer lab, great cameras, super lenses, and several hours every day to wander the campus with the kids, shooting photos.

What about your street photography?
I taught studio photography, and I can do it if there’s a reason to, but my preference is street. I’m an explorer. I’m looking to find the things in the world that will make a good photograph and that will be something that I react to
and feel about, and maybe my audience will as well.
I’m really attracted to large spaces, and small people in those spaces. Just the interaction between something manmade that is kind of monolithic, and something that is very human on a very small human scale. Sometimes people look at [these pictures] and think they feel very lonely, or isolated. But I also think there’s a really positive thing about being alone, whether it’s in nature or a man-made structure. So a lot of what I try to do with the big spaces and little people is to explore the tension between those two things.

You take many different types of pictures, but I’m particularly fond of your architectural work.
My husband Matthew and I share a passion for funky architecture. So we like to take a lot of trips, or just random driving to explore areas and see what we can find in the architecture and the man-made structures. They really create visceral reactions when you look at them, and they have such personality as well, so…it’s very similar to my documentary photography of people.

Is there any place in particular you prefer?
I’m always on the lookout for people who have an interesting way other expressing themselves visually, and I’ll approach and ask to take their picture anytime, anywhere. But you find an awful lot of interesting people at flea markets. (laughs) I’ve been going to flea markets twice a month for, gosh…30 years. The only thing I let myself buy now is vintage photos, which I’m obsessively attracted to, which I’m integrating into my latest work. I always believed that photographs, those frozen moments, they can talk to each other when put together. And they build and they create, and so…this is what led me into working with composites. I’m just starting to understand what story they have to tell to a contemporary audience, and how—through time, energy and subject matter—they blend together.

Who are the photographers that have influenced you?
When I taught photography, we looked at photographers through an historical lens then tried to scratch the surface of the overwhelming number of amazing photographers practicing today. The old masters can teach about composition, the elements of art, the principles of design, and the essential moment. But the world has exploded with fine photographers of every type. With a world of photographers putting their work online every day, one humbly aspires to nothing more than making some kind of impact, however brief, however small, on the people who come across your work. I’m grateful to David and “Dead Center” for putting more eyes on my work, and I hope you’ve found something of value in how I see my world.

@jerrilynj (color) @jerrilynjacobsphotography (black and white)

~ DKH