While a student in the Slippery Rock University Art Department, Christopher Rolinson discovered his passion for photography after a tour of duty in the U.S. Army. He merged fine art photography with communication and politics. Upon graduation, he practiced photojournalism in rural Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
Rolinson has worked professionally as a staff photojournalist and freelance multimedia journalist for regional and national publications, and is a short documentary film producer.
With his students, he produced a documentary film about the ongoing environmental recovery in America’s largest superfund site along the Clark Fork River in western Montana. The Film Superfund: Tailing History was screened during the 2019 Pittsburgh Wild and Scenic Film Festival, 2019 River Restoration Northwest: Stories of Our Watershed Film Festival and the 2019 Montana International Film Festival.
He is currently the chair of Point Park’s School of Communication program. His course Multiplatform Magazine Reporting combines the talents of students from all media disciplines to create a rich web-based magazine on a selected topic for the semester. In the spring of 2023, his class is covering story of the Refugee: Hello Neighbor. Previous classes have covered environmental issues and topics concerning the rights of the intellectually disabled in Pittsburgh
In addition to his academic and professional work, he volunteers his media relations skills to several local and environmental organizations including the Coraopolis Community Development Corporation, the Hollow Oak Land Trust, Coraopolis chapter NAACP and the Potters Water Action Group.
Professional Memberships and Affiliations
- National Press Photographers Association
- The Society for Environmental Journalism
Selected Presentation
- “Long Term Projects for the Professor,” National Press Photographers Association, 2010
Selected Works and Expeditions
- Superfund: Tailing History, filmmaker and photographer
- Renew Wheeling, filmmaker and photographer
- #lunchhourpgh, still photography, River Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
- The Veteran’s Breakfast Club, filmmaker and photographer
- Amistad National Recreation Area National Park Service Artist-in-Residency
Research Interests
- Narrative storytelling
- Photojournalism
- Visual Ethnography
- Documentary Filmmaking