Michaela Vatcheva

My name is Michaela. I am a multimedia storyteller with a comprehensive skill set in video production, design, animation, and photography. I have extensive international experience within non-profit and start-up environments. I love collaborating with curious, driven people on projects which educate and empower.

I’m a Bulgarian-Turkish freelance photojournalist based in the Balkans (primarily Bulgaria) and San Francisco, California.

I have found my calling in witnessing and documenting underrepresented people in nuanced ways. I love storytelling because it has the power to help us relate to each other

My work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Der Spiegel, to name a few.

I founded Photo Workshop 66, a documentary photography workshop for refugee children from the Middle East who migrate without their parents.

I’m an alumna of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. During my time there, I was a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow, participated in Eddie Adams Workshop XXXIV and I worked for the Investigative Reporting Program.

I’m a mom to a cool and curious, interracial toddler. Raising him with a sense of belonging keeps me up at night. My reporting interests revolve around areas I have a personal connection to: parenthood, migration, belonging, the connection between humans and the environment.