Genesis Falls
Genesis Falls is a Chicago-based film photographer whose black-and-white practice centers on intimacy, memory, and the emotional weight carried within everyday moments. Working primarily with vintage cameras and film processes, her portraits and documentary-style images focus on people often overlooked, creating space for vulnerability, softness, and honesty to exist without performance. Inspired by early experiences photographing with her grandfather’s instant camera, she later studied Cinematography at Flashpoint Chicago, where she deepened her understanding of visual storytelling and light. Her work has been exhibited at the Evanston Art Center and through the Black Women Photographers collective, where she received the 2023 Black Women’s Photography & Flickr Grant. Influenced by Gordon Parks, Falls approaches photography as both documentation and care, using image-making to preserve humanity, resilience, and connection in their most raw and tactile forms.
A conversation on the preservation and study of photographic archives, the fine art print side of the industry, and the responsibility photographers have in preserving their own bodies of work. Bringing together practical, academic, and digital preservation perspectives, the panel covers how historical collections inform contemporary visual storytelling, how photographers choose labs, papers, and formats, and how print sales factor into a sustainable photography business.
Chicago-based film photographer and 2023 Flickr x Black Women Photographers grant recipient Genesis Falls makes a compelling argument for shooting with intention. Drawing on her practice of documenting people in their spaces exclusively on film, she explores what it means to slow down, remove the safety net of color, and commit to an image before you ever press the shutter.
Genesis Falls sets up a working 4x5 portrait studio at MODE, inviting attendees to sit for a large format portrait taken on film. Across 25 available portrait slots, participants will experience the slower, more intentional process of large format photography while Genesis walks through what she sees, how she meters light, and why she waits before pressing the shutter. The goal is to create thoughtful portraits and have prints developed locally before the festival ends.
At roughly $10 per sheet of film, shooting 4x5 large format demands a level of precision that no other format can teach you. Genesis walks participants through the full process, from focusing and metering to working with a subject in a portrait studio setting, before making actual exposures together and producing physical prints.
Past grant recipients and judges from the Flickr x Black Women Photographers program gather to reflect on the work the grant has supported and what sustained investment in underrepresented voices looks like in practice. A candid conversation about community, visibility, and the long-term impact of intentional funding in photography.
A conversation with photographers who have stayed committed to film as their primary medium, covering why they do it, how they sustain it commercially, and what the format still teaches them that digital cannot.
Space is limited. Get your passes today.
