For Ashley Bigbee, photographs are more than frozen moments. They are evidence that people were here, that their struggles mattered, and that their triumphs deserve to be remembered.
"Photos help people remember," Bigbee said, reflecting on the force that has shaped her work as a photojournalist and carried her from a first-generation college student to one of the most accomplished visual storytellers to graduate this spring from FAMU's School of Journalism & Graphic Communication.
Not simply memories, she explained, but history.
As the granddaughter of a sharecropper, Bigbee grew up hearing stories about a time when many of the rights now taken for granted — including access to quality health care and educational opportunity — were denied to Black Americans. Those family narratives became more than lessons about the past. They became the foundation of her calling.
"I realized there would be so many small things that we take for granted," she said. "Why not document these things?"
For Bigbee, the impulse to preserve history began long before she arrived on FAMU's campus.
Her mother often gathered the family around old photographs, including images of her grandmother, helping her understand the sacrifices that made higher education possible. Those pictures transformed family stories into something tangible, illustrating both hardship and resilience across generations.
In high school, Bigbee was an athlete searching for a way to remain connected to sports after her own playing days. She discovered that there were almost no photographs documenting her athletic career, an absence that felt surprisingly profound.
Determined that others would not experience the same void, she began photographing basketball tournaments while serving as a team manager.
Her parents encouraged her curiosity with a modest camera one Christmas. As her commitment became apparent, one of her basketball coaches handed her a more advanced camera, trusting her to chronicle the team's journey.
The assignment became something larger than sports photography.
As she documented victories, defeats and everyday moments, Bigbee began to recognize that every team, like every family, carries its own story of perseverance. The camera became a tool for preserving those stories before they disappeared.
Her ambitions continued to grow with the encouragement of teachers and mentors. One of the most influential was her assistant principal, the only Black administrator at her high school, who nurtured her creativity and introduced her to professional photographers by bringing her to industry events she otherwise would never have attended.
Those experiences expanded what she believed was possible.
When Bigbee enrolled at FAMU, she quickly immersed herself in campus life. She joined the NAACP chapter, serving first as historian before eventually becoming vice president and later president. Through her camera, she documented advocacy efforts, student demonstrations and civil rights events, preserving moments that often unfold quickly and disappear from public memory.
Her assignments soon reached beyond campus.
 |
| photos by Ashley Bigbee |
She photographed educational rights protests at Florida's Capitol featuring civil rights leaders including the Rev. Al Sharpton. She documented former Vice President Kamala Harris during a her historic presidential campaign. She captured the rhythms of campus culture and the broader Tallahassee community with equal attention, believing every gathering and every face carried a story worth preserving.
"Being able to be trusted as a photographer was very important," Bigbee said. "From the time I stepped foot on the campus to the time I crossed the stage, I wanted to capture our culture in every which way possible. Not even just on a campus level, but also the Tallahassee community."
That philosophy helped shape a college career defined by both leadership and professional accomplishment.
Bigbee also served as a photography intern for FAMU Athletics, where several of her photographs were later displayed in the College Football Hall of Fame. She worked as a photographer for Journey Magazine and served as photo editor and staff writer for The FAMUAN, contributing to the student newspaper's return to print after five years as a digital-only publication.
National recognition followed.
She was selected as an AT&T Rising Future Maker, contributed photography to ESSENCE magazine, photographed the WNBA's Atlanta Dream, and earned an NBA x HBCU Fellowship that allowed her to document last year's NBA Finals championship celebration for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
She accomplished it all while maintaining her academic responsibilities and navigating the challenges of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, a balancing act she says required persistence as much as talent.
For Bigbee, however, the greatest achievement was walking across the commencement stage before her parents, neither of whom had the opportunity to complete college themselves.
"I have a lot of gratitude," she said. "I feel like I was placed in these different scenarios at the right place at the right time."
This fall, Bigbee will begin pursuing a master's degree in marketing at Georgia State University, hoping to combine business expertise with visual journalism as she continues building a career in professional sports photography.
She dreams of working for major professional leagues, including the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball. She also plans to establish her own photography studio, creating opportunities for aspiring photographers who, like her younger self, simply need someone willing to open a door.
"I want to give back to young creatives the same way my assistant principal was able to do for us in high school," Bigbee said. "Being able to pour into students and invest in them is definitely something I want to do in the long term. That's always been the main goal."
For Bigbee, every photograph represents more than composition or lighting. It is an act of preservation — a refusal to let people, communities and milestones disappear unnoticed.
Her lens has chronicled championship celebrations, civil rights marches, presidential politics and campus traditions. Yet the thread connecting each image remains the same: a belief that history belongs not only in textbooks, but in the faces and moments that shape everyday life.
 |
| photos by Ashley Bigbee |
As she begins the next chapter of her career, Bigbee carries with her the lesson first taught through her family's faded photographs: that the stories worth remembering must first be captured.