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Mom and Zamara Cooking Breakfast, 2025, Photography / Inkjet Print, 18" x 12" print
Sammy Rivera is a Puerto Rican artist based in Philadelphia, PA. With street photography as his primary focus, Sammy incorporates other mediums into his craft such as bookbinding, embroidery, ink transfers, and painting. An award-winning photographer and graduate of Antonelli Institute of Art & Photography, his work has been published in Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), F-Stop Magazine, Palette Magazine, among others. Over the course of his career Sammy has exhibited his work in various solo and group exhibitions in various states and internationally. In January 2024, Sammy celebrated the release of his photobook, Chapter Black, with a solo exhibition at Unique Photo in Philadelphia. His latest solo exhibition entitled “Vicarious, Continuous” is scheduled for September 2026 at the Texas Tech University SRO Photo Gallery. Sammy is a member of the Philadelphia-based street photography collective Public Ledger, which held their sophomore group exhibition in September 2025. In January 2026 Sammy was accepted into the Center For Emerging Visual Artists' 2026-2028 Visual Artist Fellowship, where he is currently working towards the next steps of his career.
June 15th, 2025 - "It’s been almost 8 months since our father passed - their blood father, my stepfather, but the man I considered my real father nonetheless. And today was our first Father’s Day without him. Lately, I’ve been having dreams that he’s still alive. They’re so vivid I swear they’re real. I talk to him like everything is normal. It feels as it should be, because as the months have passed, it feels less real that he’s actually gone. My brain wants to believe he’s back in Jersey just going about his business. The idea that I never got to say goodbye feels less right, less conceivable. It feels unthinkable - as though I should be able to go visit home and have one of our half-assed “catch-up” dinners that I now realize I took for granted."
My selections consist of images from an ongoing project following the passing of my stepfather in the Fall of 2024. The project documents the changes that followed within the dynamics of my family and how they've been shaped by our loss, all as my younger siblings navigate their adolescence. It also serves as a reflection on my role within my family and an attempt to reconcile my feelings of guilt after leaving home years ago to pursue my own life and career. In addition to documenting my family, the project also utilizes various other genres of imagery in culmination to portray the themes of grief, guilt, strength, vulnerability, and manhood.
Mom and Zamara Cooking Breakfast, 2025, Photography / Inkjet Print, 18" x 12" print
Sammy Rivera is a Puerto Rican artist based in Philadelphia, PA. With street photography as his primary focus, Sammy incorporates other mediums into his craft such as bookbinding, embroidery, ink transfers, and painting. An award-winning photographer and graduate of Antonelli Institute of Art & Photography, his work has been published in Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (Carla), F-Stop Magazine, Palette Magazine, among others. Over the course of his career Sammy has exhibited his work in various solo and group exhibitions in various states and internationally. In January 2024, Sammy celebrated the release of his photobook, Chapter Black, with a solo exhibition at Unique Photo in Philadelphia. His latest solo exhibition entitled “Vicarious, Continuous” is scheduled for September 2026 at the Texas Tech University SRO Photo Gallery. Sammy is a member of the Philadelphia-based street photography collective Public Ledger, which held their sophomore group exhibition in September 2025. In January 2026 Sammy was accepted into the Center For Emerging Visual Artists' 2026-2028 Visual Artist Fellowship, where he is currently working towards the next steps of his career.
June 15th, 2025 - "It’s been almost 8 months since our father passed - their blood father, my stepfather, but the man I considered my real father nonetheless. And today was our first Father’s Day without him. Lately, I’ve been having dreams that he’s still alive. They’re so vivid I swear they’re real. I talk to him like everything is normal. It feels as it should be, because as the months have passed, it feels less real that he’s actually gone. My brain wants to believe he’s back in Jersey just going about his business. The idea that I never got to say goodbye feels less right, less conceivable. It feels unthinkable - as though I should be able to go visit home and have one of our half-assed “catch-up” dinners that I now realize I took for granted."
My selections consist of images from an ongoing project following the passing of my stepfather in the Fall of 2024. The project documents the changes that followed within the dynamics of my family and how they've been shaped by our loss, all as my younger siblings navigate their adolescence. It also serves as a reflection on my role within my family and an attempt to reconcile my feelings of guilt after leaving home years ago to pursue my own life and career. In addition to documenting my family, the project also utilizes various other genres of imagery in culmination to portray the themes of grief, guilt, strength, vulnerability, and manhood.
