Get to know me

As you can see, my name is Jesse Lopez! I’m a professional photojournalist and photographer, from Oceanside, CA, to Riverside, CA, where I’m studying Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside. I’ve been in the photography and journalism industry for 5 years. I have a variety of skills and a passion for photography, using both digital and analog formats, including film. Coming from a Mexican-American background and an Oaxaqueno, I want to incorporate my story through art and impact others. Everything is for the sacrifices generations before me have made so I can be where I am, and I will always acknowledge the power of migration and, with a kind heart, advocate for the truth and sincerity the world needs.

A little knowledge about my main project…

Thank You Very Much Project-

As I photographed my grandparents’ lives, and portraits, my Grandfather would say “Thank you very much”, because those are one of the only words he remembers in English when he was a part of the bracero program after ww2 during 1958-63. To reconnect with the past and tie my roots to my current goals. There was also a documentary filmed on my family’s town in 1973 by Giles Groulx, the documentary displayed the communal rebellion against a colonial system placed during the conquest of Mexico, the Hacienda system. Where families like mine were working endlessly for one family that owned all the land and rights to dictate how the town worked. The working people, the farmers, my abuelos, fought to bring it down. I come from revolutionaries and will carry that through my art.