Catherine Bauknight is an international News Photojournalist, Editorial Documentary Photographer, and Filmmaker, based in Los Angeles. She is an Adjunct Professor of Photography and a Journalist. The distinguished photographer was one of the first women photojournalists in the South from outside of New York City to Atlanta and while based in Charlotte, North Carolina she covered regional stories for Time Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, the New York Times, People Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine and published in Life Magazine and other international publications. Many assignments were based on the “Old South” transitioning to the “New South” through economic growth and social integration.

Bauknight’s philosophy is simple: “From my experiences, I believe that culture is the DNA, the common denominator for communications between all people.”

Her roots in photography began after studying oil painting at Arizona State University. She was given an older model Agfa Camera and a Photography 101 Book by her Father-in-Law, Photographer Lavoy Bauknight, for her birthday as she was getting on a plane to live in Germany for three years. It was while crossing the Tiber River Bridge of Rome a few weeks later that she was so overwhelmed by the design and beauty of the water, the sky, and the subtle colors of nature that she made an instant move for the camera and discovered the vibrant reality of the scene through the viewfinder. She shot her first photograph. In that insant, she understood her heartfelt compassion for photography which has continued throughout her career. She says that photography becomes more powerful in content and design with the understanding of a language she refers to as “light writing”. “Photography evokes joy, beauty, sorrow, empathy, unity, education, and change in the human soul”, Bauknight says.