BIO
Noah Winston is a portraiture and still life photographer from Oakland, California, who now resides in Texas. His work blends technique and storytelling, capturing the essence of his subjects with depth and precision.
After graduating from a school of the arts in 2018, Noah began his career as a commercial and editorial photographer, also working as a retoucher for several prominent names in the industry. He later launched and ran a YouTube channel focused on video production, where he taught techniques and showcased his commercial work.
In 2024, after nearly a decade of photographing people, he pivoted toward a career in documentary-style photography, choosing to pursue it full-time alongside video production. His current focus is on long-term storytelling projects and sharing both creative and educational content through his YouTube platform.
At present, he’s developing two major bodies of work—one exploring faith and legacy within the Black Christian community, and the other examining U.S. immigration laws and their impact on working-class individuals and families.
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Photography, for me, is less about capturing appearances than it is about excavating presence. My work begins with light and shadow, but it always arrives at the question of memory: what is preserved, what is forgotten, and how images shape the way we carry our stories forward.
Influenced by the clarity and intensity of Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn, I approach portraiture and still life with a dramatic, pared-down aesthetic—often one or two lights, shallow depth of field, and deliberate use of contrast. In this stripped-back space, every gesture, every silence, every shadow begins to speak. I am drawn to the tension between intimacy and distance, between isolation and connection, and the way photography can hold both at once.
My practice often circles around themes of resilience, vulnerability, and the traces of history—personal and collective—that live in the body. In projects such as Stories Under a Tent, I create space for everyday people to be seen and heard, offering free portraits and collecting their stories as a living archive of voices. These encounters are fleeting, yet they accumulate into testaments of humanity that remind us how deeply connected we are.
At its core, my work is not message-driven but purpose-driven: an ongoing attempt to see the world with honesty, to sit with its contradictions, and to transform moments of solitude and struggle into images of dignity and meaning. Every photograph I make carries something of myself—sometimes clarity, sometimes mystery, but always a reflection of the human need to be remembered.
Photo by Jessica Taylor
Press
DFW Press Interview with Noah Winston
by Shoutout DFW, October 2020
“To be frank, I never enter into a studio or on location, knowing what exactly I want to do. I see a type of lighting here and there, and if I like it, I create whatever comes to me at that moment.”
PATRON's December/January Issue 2018–2019
by PATRON’S, November, 2018
MySweetCharity Summer Pitch: 2018 Basically Beethoven Festival
by My Sweet Charity, July, 2018
ARTIST INTERVIEW with Noah Winston
by Voyage Dallas, May 2018
”I don’t know anyone who has ever had a smooth road ahead of them. I know for certain that I had to overcome so many challenges just stay afloat. I can’t stop imagining being where I am If I had never gone through those trials. As I got older I realized I had to start leaving things behind even people. It was hard but it was for the best.”