Sabina Louise Pierce

Photojournalist

"Best of ASMP 2007"

Photography is...

My passion. It's what gets me up in the morning and what I dream of at night.
Documenting, reacting, capturing, and creating what happens in front of me is play...pure play, and I am lucky, no blessed that I can make a living doing what I love.

I picked up my first camera when I was 8. I took a picture of my little pony close-up and contorted. Though after getting the photo back from the lab it wasn't like any photo I'd ever seen, so at 8 years old I decided photography wasn't a career for me. I tore it up, put down the camera and never picked one up again.

I wish I had kept that photo.

At Temple University I signed up for Basic Photography as a filler. To this day I will always remember the photograph that changed my life- two soccer players, a ball, a line, and a referee ready to snap his flag. It captured me, enraptured me and I've never looked back.

Now years later I'm a successful photographer with images published throughout the world.

Currently I'm contracted by several news organizations, magazines and private corporate clients including The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The New York Daily News and the Associated Press, PR Week, MMM Marketing magazine, Campbell's Soup and The University of Pennsylvania's Vet School, McDonald's and Nustar energy. Some additional magazines and newspapers that my work has appeared in are Newsweek, Time, People, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, LA Times, Washington Post, Wall St. Journal, San Francisco Examiner, Germany's Glick, Australia's Good Weekend Magazine and many many others. Some of my PR clients include Verizon Wireless, The Tierney Group, Devin & Powers, Wendy's International & Vault Communications.

My most inspiring assignment so far was when I was choosen as exclusive photographer for injured Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro while he was at The University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton center. My photograph of Barbaro rising above the recovery pool was picked by Time magazine as "One of the Top Photographs of 2006". It was seen on every major news outlet including TV the next day. It was an amazing experience to be in his presence and inspired me to create a book of text and photographs about him called For the Love of Barbaro that will hopefully be published someday. Currently that photograph, Pegasus, is in the American Museum of Natural History on a 6 x7 ft panel and also with a handful of other photos on exhibit at the Racing Museum in Saratoga, NY.

Through my adventures with Barbaro I was chosen for the "Best of ASMP -2007" for my photos of his struggle to live. You may view my interview and photographs at ASMP.

Through Barbaro I was also chosen to be featured in New York Times best selling author Ellyn Spragin's book "If I Knew When" which was released this past spring and is a compilation of letters from famous woman in their 30's to their younger selves.

Lastly this past fall I completed a 3 year book project with the Philadelphia Mural Arts program documenting individuals in North Philadelphia that inspired 7 landmark murals. Based on interviews, the photographs are featured in "My North Philly" which available at http://muralarts.org/shop/