Faces of Iowa

Jacob Fiscus, the photographer behind the Faces of Iowa images, believes that moments must be captured.

He grew up in Carroll, graduating from Carroll High School in 2009. He then obtained a degree in professional photography with an emphasis in commercial photography from Hawkeye Community College.

He bought Sundermann Photographic Studio in Carroll in 2013. In 2015, he moved the studio to its current location on Main Street and renamed it Photography by Fiscus.

A full-time portrait photographer, Fiscus had never planned on pursuing photography. In high school, he took photography for an easy A and loved working in a darkroom and seeing his images come to life. Today, he believes images are important because every moment is fleeting. Photographs allow a moment in time to be captured and preserved.

Fiscus smells just about everything — food or not — and loves to read Star Wars books.

A desire to complete a handful of personal projects outside his usual realm of portrait photography led Fiscus to co-launch the Faces of Iowa projects. His goal through these projects is to photograph meaningful people and to help tell their stories — good, bad or indifferent — and to use his talent and platform for something bigger than himself.

Rebecca McKinsey, the writer behind the Faces of Iowa interviews, believes every person has a story to tell.

She grew up near Cleveland, Ohio, graduating from Lakewood High School in 2009 before studying journalism and Spanish at Ohio University.

After a desire to work as a book editor evolved into a love of newspaper journalism in college, McKinsey reported in Chautauqua, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Phoenix, Arizona; Toledo, Spain; and Jerusalem, Israel, before landing at the Daily Times Herald in Carroll in 2014.

McKinsey enjoys writing about feminism, social justice, capital punishment, education, economic development and the little, everyday stories that everyone has to tell. She believes that words have power and that it is vital to provide a platform for those with a story to share.

She loves elephants and her cat, Millie, eats Thai food as often as possible, hoards books and wears mismatched socks.

McKinsey decided to co-launch the Faces of Iowa projects out of a desire to tell the stories that aren't told every day — the stories that might otherwise get swept under the rug. She hopes to use the projects to make viewers smile or think, to humanize uncomfortable or taboo topics and to put a western Iowa face to larger issues that affect people of all types throughout the country and world.