Salgu Wissmath

Salgu Wissmath is a nonbinary Korean American photographer and videographer from Sacramento, CA. They are currently a Hearst Photo Fellow at the San Antonio Express-News, and previously worked at The San Francisco Chronicle. They are dedicated to decolonizing visual storytelling by engaging in ethical storytelling by and for people of color and the queer community. Their personal work explores the intersections of mental health, queer identity, and faith from a conceptual documentary approach. Their first narrative short film “The Side Effects of Normal” premiered at the 2022 Queer Women of Color Film Festival.

Salgu studied at U.C. Berkeley and Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication. Previously they interned at The Kodiak Daily Mirror, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and The Courier Journal. Their work has been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, High Country News, Cal Matters, among others. Salgu was recognized as AAJA’s 2022 Emerging Journalist of the Year and received the 2023 Curve Award for Emerging Journalists. They are a 2022 Gwen Ifill Fellow, 2021 California Arts Council Emerging Artist Fellow, and 2017 Women Photograph Mentee, as well as an alumnus of the Chips Quinn Scholar Program, AAJA Voices, Eddie Adams Workshop XXXI, and NLGJA’s Connect Student Journalism Project. 

Salgu is the Communications Director for Diversify Photo, a core team member with Ethical Narrative, and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), NLGJA: The Association for LGTBQ+ Journalists, Trans Journalists Association (TJA), Women Photograph, Queer the Lens, and Authority Collective.