Explore. Contemplate. Photograph.
Jim Gensheimer - Visual Storyteller
Portraits
Capturing heart and soul
Videos
On assignment for contract clients and the Mercury News
Living with Progressive MS: Kevin's Story
A profile on Multiple Sclerosis patient Kevin Reid
Produced for the Silicon Valley Dinner of Champions, a fundraiser for the MS Society.
Move-In Day at San José State University
Students arrive to settle into their new home away from home
A fun look at a rite of passage for college students, moving into their dorm room. Produced for the university's Strategic Communications and Marketing division.
San José State
Commencement
Highlights from the University's 2018 Fall Commencement
Scenes from five commencement ceremonies, December 2018. Produced for the university's Strategic Communications and Marketing division.
Olympic Profile
Ariel Rittenhouse, diving
Ariel Rittenhouse represented the United States at the 2008 Summer Olympics in diving where she ultimately placed 4th in the synchronized springboard. Produced for the Mercury News.
Alzheimer's Disease
Activity Center supports families
Alzheimer’s sufferer Alvern Woods attends the Alzheimer’s Activity Center in San Jose, and that allows her daughter, Loretta Worthy, to work as well as get a break from the 24-hour care Woods needs. Produced for the Mercury News' Wishbook, an annual holiday season fundraiser.
Swift Water
The Dangerously attractive waters of Yosemite
Late-spring melt-off turns some favorite summer swimming holes into potential death traps, leading Yosemite’s rangers to launch a public campaign to keep people away from the water’s edge. Produced for the Mercury News.
Medicine is this
2022 Stanford Medicine Year-End Video
A salute to the people whose passion and commitment drive Stanford Medicine forward, and a wish for a happy and healthy 2023. Photographed for Stanford Medicine.
Moments
When a single photograph says it all.
Olympic Portraits
San Francisco Bay Area Olympic athletes
About Jim Gensheimer
A photographic passion
I believe in listening with my eyes, capturing a moment that speaks a universal truth. I believe in making the world a better place by bringing awareness to an issue, or making a visually entertaining photograph. I believe in celebrating everyday heroes who inspire us to achieve. I believe in creating photographs that make one think and contemplate. I believe in humility and keeping it simple.
Biography
Before becoming an independent visual storyteller, Jim Gensheimer enjoyed a 33-year career as a staff photojournalist for the San Jose Mercury News. He previously worked at National Geographic as an intern, and at the Louisville Courier-Journal. He holds a BA degree from Western Kentucky University and an MA degree in photography from Ohio University where he attended as a Knight Fellow in 1999.
At the Mercury News, he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize winning staff reporting on the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. His other major awards include California Press Photographer of the Year, and San Francisco Bay Area Newspaper Photographer of the Year. His photography and multimedia work has also been recognized over the years in the Pictures of the Year International photojournalism competition.
Gensheimer is author of “Pain and Grace: A Journey Through Vietnam,” a book of photographs published in 2000. In 1987, he documented the plight of Vietnamese boat people and has been to Vietnam several times on assignment. He has travelled throughout Asia, and in 1995, was the first American newspaper photojournalist to go to North Korea since the Korean War.
Other books Gensheimer has contributed to include “A Day in the Life of California,” “In Pursuit of Ideas: The 125th Anniversary of the University of California,” “Once Upon a Dream: The Vietnamese-American Experience,” “24 Hours in Cyberspace,” and “America 24/7.”
Gensheimer’s teaching experience includes photojournalism courses at Ohio University and at San José State University where he was the photojournalism sequence coordinator during the 2001–2002 academic year.
The Kentucky native lives in the heart of Silicon Valley with his wife, JoAnn, and son, Jacob.
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Pain and Grace: A Journey Through Vietnam
Selected images from the book, and subsequent travels
Black and White Classics
A Place to Call Home: Building the American Dream
Twenty-nine families build their homes across the street from the worst apartment complex in San Joseand then fight to have the crime-ridden Poco Way neighborhood redeveloped.
Copyright 2018