William I. Wolff

My goal as a photographer is to compose images that suggest. Depending on the location, time of day, subject, and media used, my images suggest a story or a history or a feeling. If I am successful the image suggests all three. The media I use to make my photographs are essential to the compositions themselves—the camera, the film (if any), the subject, and my goals for the image must complement each other.

I take great pleasure in the tactile technologies of photography: loading film, adjusting f-stops, reading contact sheets. I prefer film to digital, toy camera to professional, and my collection of plastic and antique film cameras continues to grow. Toy and antique cameras provide unexpected mystery, and because I teach, work with, and conduct research on new media technologies, a welcome detachment from the digital. They, like many of my subjects, suggest in their structures and technologies the presence of history.

For example, in Chocolates, I have created a series of photographs that suggest the ethereal qualities of landscapes in the early morning fog. The photos were made using a Polaroid 250 Land Camera and expired Polaroid Chocolate peel-apart film. In a time when apps replicate vintage cameras, the chocolate-brown tones and textures resulting from the film’s wet emulsions suggest more emotionally and affectively a heightened sense of silence and mystery that comes with being in natural settings surrounded by fog.

I am currently an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Digital Media at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. I was named a 2013 Delaware Division of the Arts Fellow in the category of Visual Arts—Photography. My photographs have been shown in solo and group exhibits in Delaware, New Jersey, Texas, and Utah.

I live in Media, PA, with my beautiful wife, Wendy, and our sons Hydan and Seeger.

• Assistant Professor, Communications and Digital Media, 2015 – present, St. Joseph’s University
• Director, Beautiful Social Research Collaborative, 2016 – 2018, St. Joseph’s University
• Associate Professor, Writing Arts, 2011 – 2015, Rowan University
• Assistant Professor, Writing Arts, 2006 – 2011, Rowan University

• Wolff. W.I. (2017). Twitter Archives: A Discussion of Systems, Methods, Visualizations, and Ethics. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. 22.2.
• Wolff, W.I. (2015). Springsteen Fans, #bruceleeds, and the Tweeting of Locality. Transformative Works and Cultures. 19.
• Wolff, W.I. (2015). Baby, We Were Born to Tweet: Springsteen Fans, the Writing Practices of In Situ Tweeting, and the Research Possibilities for Twitter. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. 19(3).
• Wolff, W.I. (2014). Springsteen, Tradition, and the Purpose of the Artist. BOSS: The Biannual Online-Journal of Springsteen Studies. 1(1). pp. 36 – 73.

• Wall of Fame for Excellence in Teaching, Faculty Center, Rowan University, 2014
• Emerging Artist Fellowship, Delaware Division of the Arts. 2012 – 2013. ($3000)
• Junior Faculty Innovative Teaching Award (honorable mention), Rowan University, 2008
• Professional Development Award, University of Texas at Austin, 2004