Beryl Goldberg: Three Families in Burkina Faso

Beryl Goldberg writes, “I am a photographer of people: people in their daily life, people at work, at rest, at play with families or alone at events. My goal is to portray the joy of the human spirit in positive, upbeat images that are also true and valid. I strive to bring out the best in people and present the power that exists in each of us.” Ms Goldberg’s photos present a positive view of life in Africa — a counter narrative to the too often negative portrayals we see in our media.
Beryl Goldberg, photojournalist, is a long time resident of New York City. She began photographing when she was in a graduate program in African Studies at New York University. She soon realized that photojournalism would combine her long-term interest in Africa, her desire to know and portray the reality of lives and cultures and her love for art. She first visited West Africa in college as a volunteer with Operation Crossroads Africa. When she decided to become a photographer it was natural to return to West Africa where she then traveled for several months photographing and gaining real life experience after her years of study. After that she returned to photograph in West Africa many times.

Ms Goldberg has worked on assignment with many international organizations and publishers including UN agencies, the Ford Foundation, FamilyHealth360, the New York Times, Response Magazine, McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin and Pearson Publishers. In the course of her assignments she has photographed and sometimes also written about programs focusing on women’s health, human rights and economic development. The veteran photographer has photographed in more than 50 countries on five continents. Her photographs have been exhibited in the United States, Canada and Europe. Her work was included in three different CURATE/NYC online exhibits in 2013. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Portland, Maine Museum of Art; The Museum of the Jewish Heritage; the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles; and in various private collections. She has taught workshops and given lectures at many institutions including Rutgers University, Lehman College in the Bronx, Bread and Roses Project of DC 1199 – NYC, Stuyvesant High School, NYC, and NE State Prison in Newark, New Jersey.

Beryl Goldberg’s undergraduate degree is from Douglass College of Rutgers University. Along with the graduate study at New York University, she also studied French at the University of Bordeaux in France and Arabic at the Bourguiba School in Tunis, Tunisia. She studied photography at the New School and privately with the esteemed photographer and teacher, Harold Feinstein.