Alison Wright

Alison Wright, a New York based social documentary photographer, has spent a career capturing the universal human spirit through her photographs and writing. For many of her editorial and commercial projects, Wright travels to all regions of the globe photographing endangered cultures and people while cover ing is sues concerning the human condition. She has photographed for a multitude of non-governmental and humanitarian organizations with much of her work focused on post-conflict, disaster relief and human rights issues especially in the realm of women and children. In the spirit of giving back to the communities that she photographs, Wright has started her own foundation called the Faces of Hope Fund (www. facesofhope.org) that helps support women and children in crisis globally through education and healthcare.

Wright completed her photojournalism degree at Syracuse University and graduated with a master’s degree focused on visual anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, based on her years of living and working among the Himalayan cultures of Asia. She is a recipient of the Dorothea Lange Award in Documentary Photography, a two-time winner of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award, and has been named a 2013 National Geographic Traveler of the Year. Wright’s photography is represented by National Geographic Creative and has been published in numerous magazines including National Geographic, Outside, Islands, Smithsonian Magazine, American Photo, Natural History, Time, Forbes, and The New York Times. Wright has also photographed/ authored nine books including “Learning to Breathe: One Woman’s Journey of Spirit and Survival,” chronicling her physical and spiritual rehabilitation after a devastating bus accident in Laos that nearly took her life.

Wright died on March of 2022 (at age 60), in the Azores. She had been scuba diving, a great passion of hers, when she suffered a cardiac episode at sea that left her in a coma. Six days later, she passed away peacefully surrounded by her loving family.