Rachel Papo

American born Israeli Rachel Papo began photographing as a teenager, after switching departments from jewelry design to photography, while attending a renowned fine-arts high-school in Haifa, Israel. When she turned eighteen she served in the Israeli Air Force and was positioned in the photography department.

Rachel began working as a photojournalist in the late 1990's and graduated from the School of Visual Arts with an MFA in photography in 2005. She began photographing Israeli female soldiers in the summer of 2004 as part of her masters thesis project, and has gone back to photograph several times over a period of two years.

Rachel's photographs are included in several public and private collections, and have been exhibited and published widely. Exhibitions include the Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston; Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles; Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle; 92nd Street Y, and Hebrew Union College Museum, both in New York City. Publications include magazines in the US, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, Spain, Paris, Brazil, Estonia, Hong Kong, China and Turkey. The series has also won Rachel several awards, including a 2006 Ronnie Heyman Prize for an Emerging Jewish Visual Artist, being selected finalist for the 2006 Santa Fe Prize for Photography, and a 2006 NYFA Fellowship.