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Documentary photojournalist and writer Jenn Tuero (J. T.) Blatty graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2000 and served six years as an active-duty U.S. Army officer, deploying with the first troops into Afghanistan following 9/11 and again into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After completing her service to the military, she pursued freelance photography and writing as a career, working as a regular contributor for the New Orleans Advocate and as a FEMA disaster reservist photographer after completing an internship with National Geographic Traveler.
Since early 2018, she has been documenting the war in Ukraine while simultaneously creating photographic/audio archive of the 2014 volunteer soldiers of the Donbas (exhibited in Chicago and NYC in 2019-2020), the revolutionaries who self-deployed during the original Russian invasion and saved Ukraine's independence. A 2021-2022 Ukraine Fulbright alum, Blatty continues her photojournalistic work in Ukraine and recently completed writing Snapshots Sent Home: From Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine (publication Feb 20 2024), a military memoir that speaks of her journey in Ukraine, the volunteers, and a universal bond between combat veterans around the world.
Blatty is represented by Redux Pictures and the Martine Chaisson Gallery (New Orleans), and is the author of Fish Town: Down the Road to Louisiana’s Fishing Communities, a 2020 winner of a Bronze IPPY Award as Best Regional Non-Fiction in the South and part of the Historic New Orleans Collection. Her work has been exhibited in the Multimedia Moscow House of Photography in Russia, the Modern Art Research Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, the Borges Cultural Center in Argentina, the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography, the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York City, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, among other museums and galleries.
Publications Include: Arrowsmith Press, Bloomberg Businessweek, Conde Nast Traveler, Dagens Nyheter, Europa Press, Expressen, Harper's Magazine, National Geographic, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, Polska Times, Publishers Weekly, Smithsonian Magazine, USA Today, The Oxford American, The New Yorker, ZDF Frontal, USA Today
Accolades Include:
• 2024 Foreward Indies Winner : Silver - War & Military (Snapshots Sent Home)
• 2021-2022 Fulbright Ukraine Alum
• FISH TOWN: Bronze Medal (Regional/Non-Fiction), IPPY Book Awards 2020
• Critical Mass Finalist (2013, 2019)
• Dorethea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize Finalist (2015, 2019)
• Michael P. Smith Documentary Fund Finalist (2019, 2013)
• Winner: Writeaway Scholarship, Elva Resa Publishing/Books Make a Difference 2018
Solo Exhibitions:
• Frontline–Peace Life: Ukrainian Institute of America, NYC, Jan 2020
• Frontline–Peace Life: Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago, Jun 2019
• FISH TOWN, Martine Chaisson Gallery, Sep 2018
• Happy Dogs, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2015
• Parallel, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 2012