Walk past the student bookstore to the Applied Technology Division. Room T-401 is where you’ll find photography teacher Diana Baldrica, who has been teaching at Fresno City College since 2010. She’s not only a teacher at FCC, but comes with hands-on experience as she worked as a photographer for the Fresno Bee for 24 years.

Photography wasn’t always a dream career of hers, nor was it a thought in her mind until she witnessed the magic of frozen images from her older brother’s photography while they both attended Fresno State.

“He would use photography to document the sights and the stuff they were doing,” Baldrica said. “When I saw the magic of how it happened, I was taken by that and I said to myself, ‘I want to do that.’”
During this time, Baldrica was majoring in art and wanting to use her creativity through painting and drawing. After taking one photo class at Fresno State, she was hooked and found a new love called photography.

Photos aren’t just a piece of paper with images on it and Mrs. Baldrica explained why photography is an art. “It’s magic. It stops time in its tracks.”

After graduating from Fresno State with her degree, she would take her talents and passion of photography in 1985 to the Fresno Bee where she became a photojournalist. She enjoyed being a photojournalist and was excited to be able to tell people the news while also doing the thing she loves most.

“You get to be like a fly on the wall,” Baldrica said. “You’re privileged to be able to observe, record, and be true to the nature of what’s happening.”

She also explains how being a journalist can show the true side of people. “When you do that, it opens up your point of view. It opens you up so much because you realize we’re all the same,” Baldrica said. “We all experience tragedy and happiness and they exhibit those emotions in ways we can all relate to.”

Baldrica left the Bee in 2009 and in 2010, would become a teacher at FCC with experience and knowledge to pass on to students. She hopes to teach many things with a message behind it.

“I hope to express to students not to be afraid to try things and fail because you learn the most sometimes from your failure,” Baldrica said. “The only bad thing about failure is if you don’t learn from it.”

Mrs. Baldrica is currently teaching Photo 6 which teaches how to manually use digital cameras and Drone 267 which teaches how to capture video and photos from the air.