THE FIVE PHOTO LAUREATE NOMINEES OF 2025

Patricia Preston Mastry is a fine art photographer from Tampa Bay, where her family has lived for more than a century. She studied locally and discovered photography in her father’s darkroom. With over ten solo and twenty group exhibitions, her award-winning work appears in public and private collections worldwide and has been featured in multiple juried publications. 

Stephen Zane first picked up a camera 16 years ago and has traveled from India’s pepper fields to Nicaragua’s mountain lowlands, and Florida’s sun-soaked coast. Twelve years as a commercial advertising photographer and owner of Tampa’s Coastal Film Lab inform their current “Finding Florida” project, documenting the West Coast’s vibrant cultures and environmental stories. Driven by an all-consuming passion, they evolved from simple documentation to active portraiture, capturing the resilience of the people they photograph and offering deeper insight into their world. 

Jesi Cason is a professional branding photographer based in Tampa, Florida. Known for creating bold visuals that empower creative professionals and eccentric entrepreneurs, Jesi moved to Tampa from Fort Myers in 2023 and currently shares her expertise by teaching at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. Her vibrant, unconventional approach sets her work apart, capturing the imaginative essence of her subjects. 

Christopher Wharton discovered photography in the late ’80s through skateboarding imagery that embodied motion, rebellion, and individuality; values shaped by his roots in the DIY punk and hardcore scenes. Early on, he documented friends at local skate spots and the raw energy of underground shows, producing a short-lived zine. Today, his work explores resistance, loss, and transformation, highlighting demolition, gentrification, and urban erasure. Through his lens, neglected spaces become symbols of memory and impermanence, preserving the spirit of communities once thriving there. 

Angelina Parrino is an artist and educator with 15+ years in drawing, painting, film photography, printmaking, book arts, creative writing, and installation. After earning her MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2020), she exhibited in venues like the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery and Foley Gallery, and was featured in Maake Mag. She also completed a Maxwell/Hanrahan residency and now develops art workshops in Florida.