Soda Citizen is a visual storytelling platform under the direction of Columbia, SC photojournalist Sean Rayford. Previously published as TheAngryWhale - content typically takes the form of narratives structured around the still image.
“With local news at a crisis stage, we are now at grave risk of there being no rough first draft for many communities across the United States,” writes Dan Shortridge in a 2023 editorial published in the Baltimore Sun, “The historians of 2073 will find giant gaps in their local histories from this time.”
As a photojournalist without local newspapers to work with, this is Rayford’s attempt to fill those gaps.
Rayford is a 2001 graduate of the University of South Carolina, working as a photojournalist in the South Carolina capital city for more than twenty years, now freelancing with Getty Images, The New York Times, The Associated Press, NPR, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and many more.
You can see more at www.seanrayford.com and reach him at seanrayford@gmail.com.
Rayford also offers photography workshops on the East Coast of the United States and a biannual course in Columbia, SC.
Columbia photographer makes it into TIME’s top photographs of 2021
Jasper Talks with Sean Rayford on Inspiration, Favorite Photographers, and Tiny Gallery
Meet the photographer who captured the Confederate flag’s removal
Hindsight 2020: The photographer
Sean Rayford Covers the Complexity of the Central American Caravan
Storytelling through images | As Told By You Podcast | Sean Rayford