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Meet SheROCKS 2026 Artist: Emily Alff
With a background in broadcast journalism and years spent documenting high-intensity moments across Washington, DC and beyond, Emily Alff brings a storyteller’s instinct to every shot she composes. Her work spans protests, black-tie events, public celebrations, and intimate portraits, yet the throughline remains her ability to capture connection. In this SheROCKS 2026 Artist Q&A, Emily shares the rituals, experiences, and values that shape her perspective behind the lens.
Q: Your background in broadcast journalism gives you a unique lens on storytelling. How has that shaped the way you approach photography today?
Emily: In my career as a news and video producer, I’ve spent almost a decade learning how to identify what’s important to a story and what value the story itself brings. Those skills make me sharp in the field with my camera. I’m able to quickly react and chase a scene others haven’t seen yet.
Being a producer has also helped me define my own style! I have personal preferences around aesthetics, and that translates into my photography. As a result, I aim to not only capture the moment, but to capture it cinematically. I create what I also enjoy.
Q: You’ve photographed everything from protests to high-society events. What draws you to such a wide spectrum of human experiences, and how do you shift your perspective between them?
Emily: I’m drawn to high energy -- whether that be in a protest, a gala, or a concert. I love the feeling of crowds moving, voices rising, emotions flowing -- it fuels me. But inside that high energy, I always look for the smaller moments that others may have missed: the texture of rain on someone’s cardboard sign, the silhouette of a father and daughter taking a rest from the crowd, the light hitting a pinned sign on a protester’s clothes. In those details, I find photos that show how we’re really human.
Q: When you’re documenting a moment in real time, what’s the first thing you look for, the emotion, the composition, or the story unfolding?
Emily: I always look for moments of connection -- what is the relationship between all the elements in my frame, and how does the viewer, in turn, relate to them?
Q: Photography in DC comes with its own rhythm and energy. How does the city influence your creative process or the subjects you’re most drawn to?
Emily: People are often surprised to hear that anyone “actually lives” in DC. As a transplant myself, I can empathize with where they’re coming from. When I moved from Houston in 2019, I really struggled to adjust. To me, the city felt too small, the cars drove too slow, and the people were too stuffy. It took several years for me to really discover and appreciate the city on its own terms. But after nearly four years of living in the District, I’ve seen the resiliency, the strength, and the passion of DC residents -- and I’m drawn towards those kinds of stories. Just as I want to take photographs that show a DC beyond the Capitol, I also want to show how any community moves beyond others’ expectations. As a result, I’m always trying to find the unexpected angle, the interesting perspective to show how people exist in all their realities.
Q: What’s a story you’ve captured recently that stayed with you longer than expected?
This past June, I had the opportunity to photograph New York City’s Dyke March. The protest itself is already deeply moving, but the march ends with a spontaneous topless dance party in Washington Square Park. Every dark moment since, I’ve thought about the queer joy and love in that water fountain. I’m honored to have had the opportunity to see and document dykes so naturally and openly, and I especially hope the photos I capture create a personal connection for any viewer, beyond this specific queer community in New York City.
Q: Your work spans both public and intimate spaces. How do you build trust with subjects whether in the chaos of a protest or one-on-one session?
Emily: When I’m photographing, especially in protests, I try to build trust as quickly as I can: I make deliberate eye contact, I come with curiosity and ask sincere questions, and I actively listen to my subjects. These moments are brief -- I’m often walking backwards with a crowd, and my subject is trying to focus on the march itself -- but it’s important for me to show how seriously I consider each of my frames. Photographers “take” photos, and each image isn’t something we’re owed. I try to make my intentions to document as clear as possible, so that my subjects also feel comfortable while sensing the importance of the moment.
Q: Outside of photography, your love for books, thrifting, and walks through the city feels very observational. How do those personal rituals fuel your artistic eye?
Emily: I’m endlessly fascinated by the stories we just can’t know. When I’m holding a secondhand book or thrifting for a sweater, my imagination races to picture the lives it may have had before it got to me. The feeling motivates me even more to tell stories and to discover the lives of others.
Q: Your portfolio reflects a deep curiosity about people. What do you hope viewers understand or feel when they encounter your images?
Emily: On a daily basis, our screens are flooded with media and images, to an overwhelming extent. I hope viewers of my work see something outside the norm or something unexpected that makes them pause.
Rapid fire: Your camera bag go-to not including your camera?
Sunscreen! I know my limits.
Q: What are you most excited for audiences to experience when they see your work at the March 2026 SheROCKS showcase?
Emily: I want my audience to experience a moment of immersion. In my work, I strive to create images that create the feeling of “being there” for a distant viewer, so I hope each person feels as if they can bear witness to the image.
I’m also excited to experience an audience experiencing my work. Particularly in the digital age, being a photographer means publishing your photos to an internet void, never being able to see how it's received through the other side of the screen. In that way, I’m excited for the chance to participate as a witness myself.
Representation Still Falls Short For Black Women in Hollywood
Many questions come to mind when I reflect back to when I was a young little Black girl. I would watch Disney Channel TV shows from ICarly to Hannah Montana, and the only resemblance of something close to home was That's So Raven.
A great show in its entirety, though I've come to realize that I didn't have much representation in my youth of myself or my culture.
What started off as the best shows on television turned out to be the only shows on television.
There was never an option to switch between channels or movies of black families on Lifetime Movie Network or ABC Family. Instead, it was only on BET.
I would turn the channel to BET and watch the Awards with my mom and sister, watching Beyonce perform Deja Vu at the Grammys and Jennifer Hudson delivering powerful vocals from the film DreamGirls. Though BET had it all: live performances, black movies, and even hilarious rerun episodes of Martin and The Jamie Foxx Show - it was the only source of Black television.
And that came at a cost for Black women.
The provocative outfits of women wearing long v-neck slits across their chest dress outline or the too-tight fitted dresses that complimented their curves set a poor standard for the image of Black women.
Take, for example, R&B music videos like 50 Cent's "Candy Shop," where black women could be seen dancing sexually and acting out the submissive fantasies of men. Dancing blindly to the subliminal messages covertly intermingled with fancy cars and witty lyrics - it continues to be hard to overcome what society has deemed to be the archetype black woman.
The depiction of Black women has been hyper-sexualized for so many years throughout the media scene.
Surgically produced bodies, larger-than-life boobs, and even longer wigs, becoming the next black Barbie–THAT became the version of the Black woman most often seen in the media. No longer seeing the diversity or range that represents Black women in all our different flavors - the depiction is starting to fall far from reality.
We still don't have enough diverse representation of us in the media, and the little we do have prioritizes hypersexualization.
The management teams responsible for casting black women for roles are predominately white men, according to TheHill.com. The study also found that about 92% of CEOs in the entertainment industry are white, and 68% are white men.
It's already a slippery slope when the selected depiction of Black women is decided amongst a group that does not represent them in any way.
How do we go about this issue?
I've read numerous articles and watched countless interviews where Black artists in the entertainment industry share their frustrations.
They face encounters behind the scenes that they've expressed as "too damaging to their authentic selves."
Disney star Monique Coleman, known for her role as Taylor in High School Musical, shared in 2021 to Insider Entertainment in an article Monique Coleman reveals her High School Musical character wore headbands because the crew didn't know how to style Black hair that "We've grown a lot in this industry and we've grown a lot in representation, and we've grown a lot in terms of understanding the needs of an African American actress. But the truth is, they had done my hair, and they had done it very poorly in the front."
She then went on to mention that while playing Taylor, the team of hair stylists always insisted that she wear headbands to "maintain" her hair. Her character was always presented with straightened hair. In order to "define" her look to appear more naturally pleasing, a headband was granted by executives on the show.
Why are so many young Black women taught at a young age that their hair is "too difficult" to handle?
Gabrielle Union, well known for her role in Bring It On, stated in a discussion with Glamour that she realized too early on in the industry that "there were many people in hair and makeup trailers who were totally unqualified to do my hair." She openly shared that hairstylists would use products dedicated to white hair that would leave poor results on her black hair. Union recalled an encounter where a hair stylist used Aqua Net too frequently on her hair, causing chunks of her hair to fall out while on set.
Rather than accepting the distinction between natural black hair vs. white hair on screen and off, the "favorable" look always ends in the way of the white image.
Accurate representation and management of authentic depictions of Black women aren't just stripped away by dumbing down our appearance to meet misogynistic stereotypes or not allowing us to wear our hair in all its many textures and styles, but it's also historically lightening our skin post-edit or not having our shade of makeup on set to begin with.
Often while watching films that feature a far from diverse cast or even in magazines, Black women are seen with slight color distortions that do not match their correct skin shades. As Black women, we range in all different sizes and colors, and how we show up in films, on stage, and in photos should reflect that.
Leomie Anderson, a model for Victoria's Secret came forward in a recent Live stream via Instagram. She spoke with Insider Magazine, showing the makeup completed on her face after a day's work. What caught everyone's attention was the drastic discoloration from her normal skin tone and the orange shade that was added to her complexion. Anderson expressed her embarrassment by explaining the original look that the cosmetics team had completed on her and told the viewers that she had to fix the makeup to prevent walking out in such a disappointing way.
Since when did it become the models' or actresses' responsibility to "correct" their glam due to the lack of hair and makeup teams not being culturally fluent in their craft?
It is beyond disappointing to hear more stories about how black beauty and the representation of women who look like me are not widely recognized, understood, or embraced.
How many women will have to share their stories?
The pressure that black artists already face in the industry is overwhelming. But it becomes an ever more significant issue when many people in positions of influence have yet to acknowledge and address that this is, in fact, STILL an issue.
But, rather than pass the issue to someone else, why not strive to change it? Educate yourselves on Black beauty and the entire essence of who we really are, not what society has depicted us to be.
Bisa Butler Creates Portrait Quilts That Shares the Black Experience
This Women’s History month, we commissioned artist Aniko Aliyeva to celebrate the work of incredible women in visual arts.
Today, we recognize artist Bisa Butler. Her intricate portrait quilts tell the stories of the Black experience in technicolor. Each fabric is carefully selected as she translates historical photos into brilliant works of art.
The fiber artist has shared it can take hundreds of hours to complete just ONE quilt.
In an interview with Print Magazine, Bisa shared, “Quilts are tombs of history. Printed fabrics give you a date and time. If I’m using oranges and blues and dayglow flowers made of polyester, you know that fabric is from the 70s because they’re not making fabric like that anymore.”
The New Jersey native holds her BFA from Howard University and a Master’s in Art and Education from Montclair State University.
This April, she will be honored by the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) alongside Faith Ringgold and Brian Donnelly (KAWS) for their 60th Anniversary Gala at Gotham Hall in New York.
9 Women Artists Changing the Game
USC’s Annenberg recent Inclusion Initiative report explored artists and creators of the top 800 songs on Billboards hot 100 charts spanning from 2012 to 2019. The study found that women made up only 27.1% of artists, 12.5% of songwriters, and an astounding 2.6% are producers. Our goal is to shed light on the many women who are immensely talented music producers, composers, audio engineers, artists, songwriters, and instrumentalists changing the way we experience music for now and the future.
Here is a wrap-up of a few women you should know about that are changing the game in the music industry and paving the way for a new generation of women in music.
Women Artists Take Forefront at Biennale Arte 2022
2005 became a groundbreaking year for the 51st edition of the Biennale when Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez would become the first two women to curate the exhibition for the first time in its history.
This year, the exhibition, which features 213 artists, spotlights more than 180 women. Many of the featured artists are also indigenous, people of color, or non-binary artists. A choice which this year's curator Cecilia Alemani says is "a deliberate rethinking of man's centrality in the history of art and contemporary culture."
While women have been primary drivers in many facets of contemporary art culture, many of their stories have not been shared broadly by being given the space to exhibit at world-renown exhibitions like Biennale.
During a recent interview with ArtNews, Alemani said that she "made a point of focusing on women artists because [she] wanted to try to bring to the surface those stories that have been considered by many to be minor. Surrealism, Futurism, all those movements—they all had female artists."
In the exhibition opening to the public on April 23, there are heavy themes of surrealism and many new artists being featured alongside historic artists---quite different from the previous Biennale's. We can appreciate the space Alemani is also making for indigenous women in the arts.
"It is an important element of the show, not just because they are Indigenous, but because they bring to the forefront a different way of storytelling that is not the traditional one," she shared with Alex Greenberger for ArtNews.
The La Biennale di Venezia was set back a year due to the global pandemic, giving Alemani space and time to carefully curate this year's exhibition. In some ways, the pandemic and its impact on many of the participating artists truly influenced its direction.
The international exhibition "Milk of Dreams," titled after the book by Leonora Carrington (1917–2011), will take place in the Central Pavilion (Giardini) and in the Arsenale in Venice, Italy.
"The Milk of Dreams was conceived and organized in a period of enormous instability and uncertainty, since its development coincided with the outbreak and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. La Biennale di Venezia was forced to postpone this edition by one year, an event that had only occurred during the two World Wars since 1895. So the very fact that this exhibition can open is somewhat extraordinary: its inauguration is not exactly the symbol of a return to normal life, but rather the outcome of a collective effort that seems almost miraculous," said Alemani.
The exhibit includes 213 artists from 58 countries; 180 of these are participating for the first time in the International Exhibition. There will be 1,433 works and objects on display, and 80 new projects were conceived specifically for the Biennale Arte. More importantly, let's celebrate the fact that women artists are shining bright, loudly, and boldly at this year's exhibition.
The #SOFemART Gallery, Podcast, and Intention
On March 27, 2021, Love Life Media revealed “The State of Fem Art” (SOFA) virtual art gallery and 360 experience designed by Fatimah “Sattom” Al Asad and curated by event founder Timea Gaines to recognize visual artists being spotlighted at this year’s SheROCKS event. The experience was crafted to commission, collaborate, and spotlight women artists and boldly declare our commitment to helping women artists and creatives be seen.
“We heard so many stories about women artists and entrepreneurs who had succeeded after attending SheROCKS event. We learned of the partnerships and relationships they established through the event. We also received numerous requests to do more. So we decided to create a space to continue the conversation, but more importantly to disrupt the industry in a way that levels the playing field for women in male-dominated industries,” said Timea Gaines CEO & Founder, Love Life Media.
With the SOFA announcement, you can expect media and entertainment, events, workshops, resources, tools, grants, collaborations, and a podcast set to feature women artists and creators.
Today is the first official public viewing of the SOFA art gallery and the podcast cover, which was created to highlight women artists who were disruptors in their own right.
On the podcast cover, you will see Frida Kahlo, Yayoi Kusama, Faith Ringold, Aretha Franklin, Audrey Hepburn, Norma Merrick Sklarek, Zaha Hadid, Rei Kawakubo, Madeline Anderson, and Debbie Allen. The first episode will provide a closer look at why each artist was chosen for the cover and their inspiring stories.
To receive the latest news about #SoFemART and the podcast launch, make sure you’re following @SoFemArt on Instagram.