Jim Virga
Lecturer, Visual Journalism
Jim Virga is a faculty member in the Visual Journalism program and has played a key role in the creation of projects related to the World Press Photo exhibits and is currently in pre-production of a documentary project on women photojournalists.
Jim Virga has been a professional visual storyteller for more than 20 years. He has worked as a still photojournalist, cinematographer, director, and has taught photojournalism for three major universities.
He is currently teaching in the Visual Journalism department at The University of Miami. Recently, Virga’s short documentary “El Charango” was an official selection at the 2006 SILVERDOCS AFI/DISCOVERY Documentray Film Festival. He began working with Motion Picture while pursuing his MA at Syracuse University.
After completing his undergraduate degree at The University of Florida, Virga worked as a staff photographer for The Leesburg Commercial, The Orlando Sentinel and then at The Sun-Sentinel for ten years (1989-1999). His photographs, from assignments covering history in such spots as Cuba, Panama, and Honduras have received national recognition. A seasoned photojournalist, Virga’s work has appeared in a variety of newspapers and magazines. During his time at The Sun-Sentinel Virga also had an instrumental band that played around South Florida for five years.
In 2001 Virga was awarded an MA in Visual Arts and Communications from The Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University. While at Newhouse, he studied digital filmmaking, and received a $50,000 grant to direct “Dancing on Mother Earth,” a documentary for Native American Public Television about a year in the life of singer/activist Joanne Shenandoah. The film went on to win the Eastman Kodak Documentary Award in 2004 at the Indian Dispora Film Festival in New York. The piece was also broadcast on PBS, and played at several film festivals.
Virga joined the faculty at The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia in 2001 where he taught a three-class Photojournalism sequence for four years. While at UGA Virga received a $40,000 grant from the James M. Cox, Jr. Institute for Newspaper Management Studies to use in converting the Grady College’s photojournalism program from film to digital. In 2003 Virga won the Journalism Department Faculty Teaching Award.
In the fall of 2005 Virga taught Advanced Photojournalism and Visual Issues in the Media in London for Syracuse University’s study abroad program before coming back to South Florida.
