‘Sweet Land’s’ striking visuals hand opera a refreshing twist

Jay L. Clendenin joined the Los Angeles Times as a staff photographer in October 2007. Clendenin has focused his attention in Los Angeles on portraiture, but he has nearly 20 years of experience in photojournalism. A graduate of San Jose State University, with a degree in journalism, Clendenin started his first newspaper job at the Hartford (Conn.) Courant. After four years, he went on to pursue work as a freelancer in New York City and eventually in Washington, D.C. He spent nearly five years in the nation’s capital, documenting politics, taking portraits and chasing human-interest stories, all while maintaining a presence in the White House press pool, working primarily for the news magazines Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. A native of California who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, Clendenin greeted the opportunity to move to the warm beaches of the South Bay with open arms.

Dania Maxwell is a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times. Before joining the newsroom in 2018, she spent two years freelancing in Colombia, South America, where she produced a short documentary film about the Wayuu people and how they are affected by one of the world’s largest open coal mines in La Guajira. Previously, she spent three years as a staff photographer at the Naples Daily News in Florida. While there she was awarded an Emmy, POYi, Sigma Delta Chi and Edward R. Murrow award for her work photographing and filming an adolescent boy becoming a man while he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Maxwell received a master’s degree in visual communication from Ohio University and completed internships at the Oregonian and the Sandusky Register. She has attended Eddie Adams and the Missouri Photo Workshop. A California native, she received her bachelor of arts from Sarah Lawrence College.