Michaela Vatcheva

20/10/2024

I am so grateful to have met Ruth Peri on a recent assignment which was published this week in . A kind and empathetic Jewish woman, Peri thought of Israel as a place where she could find a sense of peace and belonging. That idea shattered during the past year and she left the country behind, moving to Bulgaria to keep her Palestinian husband safe and to start fresh. When she thinks of Israel today, she feels a sense of guilt.

“Few Israelis care about the fate of the Palestinians. People who call themselves leftists are suddenly saying: raze Gaza to the ground. Peri is horrified by the cruelty that seems to have gripped many of her fellow countrymen. “They were like zombies,” she says. As the death toll in Gaza rises and Israel comes under increasing criticism, a woman in Peri’s office says: “You know what our problem is? The dead children in Gaza are just too photogenic.” - read this gripping story by in this week’s der Spiegel or online at the link in my stories/highlights.

13/12/2023

Just noticed that a few of my photos made it among the San Francisco Chronicle photos of the year and photos of the month. I'm forever grateful to my editors, Ash Adams, Emily Jan, and Nicole Frugé, for trusting me with a wide variety of assignments early in my photojournalism career. I'm honored they value the work I brought back.

04/09/2022

Some of my photos in this weekend’s heat wave coverage.

Dozens of beachgoers swarmed the Bay Area coast Saturday afternoon as temperatures...

08/08/2022

I got to shoot an epic assignment on Saturday for the SF Chronicle at Outside Lands Music Festival

Learned a lot, laughed, sprinted, got to taste the VIP food, even shed a tear after leaving the Green Day photo pit. Seeing Robert Glasper live again was so beautiful. Phil Rosenthal threw tomatoes over my head. Getting home was a whole odyssey and I got to report on that, too!

My photos made it into several Chronicle articles, including A1 and C1 today 😍 and I have tons of ideas for how to streamline my workflow.

Thank you Philip Pacheco for choosing me for this opportunity! I’m growing so much from it! Thanks also to Ethan Swope and my awesome editor Anna Sarpieri!

04/08/2022

My co-director In Jeong Kim and I were selected to be among this year’s Berkeley FILM Foundation student grantees for our film The Safest Place. It’s an extremely important award for us as new filmmakers as it brings us a step closer to a sustainable practice. We’re so grateful for the faith our local film community is showing in us and look forward to sharing the film with everyone soon.

Congratulations to all amazing filmmakers who received grants this year, among them Debora Souza Silva, Rodrigo Reyes, Jalena Keane-Lee, Cameron P Nielsen, and Ley Heimgartner.

15/07/2022

This Sunday's Washington Post Magazine contains five photographers' stories about birthing and feeding babies during the pandemic. Among them is ours, photographed and written by me.

It's empowering to take up space on this international platform, to stand alongside Danielle Villasana, Tori Ferenc, Nadiya Nacorda, and Lianne Milton, and invite you all to explore your own difficult memories. To prompt you to ask the new parents in your lives questions about their vulnerable times. Please dive in and spend some time in our sleepless, bruised, lonely, privacy-deprived worlds full of love and hope.

30/04/2022

Stoked to share one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken, “The Making of a Father,” was an honorable mention in the Human category of the Whalebone photo contest. Getting a distinction in a competition of 20,543 entries from 46 countries feels like an honor! The magazine is filled with stunning, emotional photos.

In case you want a print for a dad in your life, I’ll put the link to the Whalebone print store in the comments. Part of the money would go to me, and part to No Kid Hungry, a campaign by nonprofit Share Our Strength working to end child hunger. 💕