Emily Maxwell

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT EMILY MAXWELL

For nearly 20 years, I\'ve worked in various media, production and storytelling capacities. From assisting on commercials and movie sets, to photographing music festivals and political rallies, to working at the forefront of digital journalism while working in broadcast news, to, in more recent years, documentary filmmaking. I\'m an Emmy Award-winning photojournalist, filmmaker and photographer based in Denver. My current full-time role is with Denver\'s Agency for Human Rights and Community Partnerships, where I am the sole multimedia journalist and video producer for HRCP\'s Marketing and Communications Team. I produce, shoot and edit videos about the work of the agency, and capture stories about residents and communities that are often underrepresented. Prior to this role, I was a documentary filmmaker and editor for the Denver Office of Storytelling. Originally from Cincinnati, I spent more than a decade covering local news for various media outlets, spending 9.5 years at the E.W. Scripps-owned ABC affiliate WCPO-TV, as a photojournalist and digital reporter. WCPO was on the cutting edge of the digital journalism, where management created an innovative digital enterprise team that I was lucky to be part of for many years. My work focused on poverty issues, environmental concerns, and wildlife conservation efforts. It\'s also where I gained experience as a documentary filmmaker for both solo and team projects. One of those projects included a documentary about The Who\'s concert tragedy of 1979 where 11 people died at a Cincinnati show.\"The Night That Changed Rock\" was the first time the English band spoke on-camera about the incident. Photojournalism has also led me on many travel adventures. I rode on a cargo plane with a Sumatran rhino for more than 50 hours; experienced an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the Terracotta Army sculptures in Xi\'an; investigated the impact of coal ash on rural North Carolina towns; and even met (and interviewed) one the Internet\'s first-famed cats, Lil Bub. I feel so fortunate to continue living out my dream as a documentarian. Whether I\'m sitting in someone\'s living room in a small Midwestern town or in the middle of a jungle at a protected animal sanctuary, I still feel just as passionate about this work, as when I was 18 years old on my first commercial set. Since living in Colorado, I spend my free time exploring and traveling, taking photos with old cameras (both film and digital), often with an elderly puggle in tow. Feel free to follow work and travel adventures on Instagram and Bluesky @emaxphoto.