Jonathan Pitts-Wiley

North Providence, RI, USA
jpw@jpittswiley.com | jpittswiley.com | IG: @jpittswiley

Practice

I am a portrait and documentary photographer working across editorial, institutional, and independent contexts. My work explores identity, belonging, and beauty through film-based, instant, and hybrid photographic processes, often within structured environments such as workplaces, cultural institutions, and performance settings.

With more than twenty years of experience in theater direction and performance practice, I approach photography through questions of presence, staging, attention, and relational exchange. I am particularly interested in the relationship between theatrical performance and instant photographic processes, where collaboration, duration, and material production become inseparable from the resulting image.

Across editorial assignments, long-term institutional collaborations, and independently developed projects, my approach remains consistent: building trust, working with attentiveness and responsiveness, and creating photographs that function within systems of communication while retaining emotional clarity, formal precision, and visual depth.

Alongside my photographic practice, I am committed to photographic education and access, sharing technical and conceptual approaches with emerging photographers and emphasizing image-making as a tool for memory, storytelling, and connection.

Selected Professional Experience

Institutional Photographer / Visual Storytelling
Barr Foundation — 2024–Present
Produces staff portraiture, event photography, and grantee documentation across multiple organizational contexts. Collaborates with communications teams to support storytelling across web, print, and internal platforms, maintaining visual consistency across varied environments and assignments.

Editorial Photographer (Commissioned Assignment)
Rhode Island Monthly — 2026
Produced a multi-location photo essay for the April 2026 issue documenting overnight labor across Rhode Island industries including healthcare, hospitality, transportation, and commercial fishing. Executed an observational documentary approach within tight editorial timelines, producing a cohesive narrative structured for long-form publication.

Photographed the feature article on the impact of ICE enforcement on immigrant communities for the July 2026 issue, creating environmental portraits and documentary images that supported reporting on immigration, community, and public policy with sensitivity and editorial rigor.

Artistic Director / Theatre Director
Mixed Magic Theatre — Pawtucket, RI | 2010–Present
Leads artistic direction across productions integrating classical and contemporary works. Selected directing credits include Richard III (2025), Letter from Birmingham City Jail (2025), Notes From the Field (2024), The Motherf*cker With the Hat* (2018), Fences (2013), and King Lear (2011). This practice reflects an interdisciplinary approach to storytelling across performance and visual narrative systems.

Workshops / Educational Practice

Leads workshops and educational sessions focused on portraiture, visual perception, and photographic practice in academic, institutional, and community settings.

Selected engagements include:
• Studio and portrait workshops in institutional and community settings
• Phone-based portrait and visual perception workshops for students and early-career professionals
• Film-based portrait and lighting workshops (small and medium format systems)
• Guest lectures and applied photography sessions in academic environments

Exhibitions

Solo

  • Bat/on — Trinity Repertory Company (2024)

  • All the Worlds — World’s Fair Gallery (2023)

Group

  • America Unfinished!? — WaterFire Arts Center (2026)

  • Growing the Networks — WaterFire Arts Center (2025)

  • Sonder — RISD Museum (2024)

  • Members’ Exhibition — Art League Rhode Island (2024)

  • Momentum – Brown University (2023)

  • Five Alive — Curiosity Store (2023)

  • Who We Are Now — City of Providence Public Art Installation (2022)

  • All Together Now — RI Center for Photographic Arts (2021)

Recognition & Collections

  • Brown University — Public Collection

  •  IShootFujifilm.com — Spotlight (2022)

  • Providence Monthly — “Raising Black Voices” Cover Feature (2022)

Education

Yale University — BA, History (2007)

Technical Approach

  • Medium and large format film systems (Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 67, Speed Graphic 4x5)

  • Hybrid analog/digital workflow (Fuji GFX 50S II)

  • Instant photographic processes and printmaking (Polaroid, Instax, gel plate, cyanotype)

  • Traditional film development and digital scanning workflows