Jessica Hays is a conceptual photographer, alternative process printmaker and artist based in Montana and Chicago. She works with pigment printing, handmade artist books, video and historic or experimental photographic processes.
She earned an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago and a BA in Film and Photography from Montana State University. She was a Critical Mass finalist in 2022 and was shortlisted for the BarTur Environmental Award.
Her book The Sun Sets Midafternoon was published by Fall Line Press in 2025. It is about wildfire, solastalgia and climate grief in the western United States. Hays began the project after a wildfire hit her hometown and worked on it for five years. The book has 85 color photographs, two essays by Hays and texts by Stephen J. Pyne and Tim Carpenter.
