About Diana Schoenfeld

Raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Diana Schoenfeld studied at Florida Presbyterian College, St. Petersburg, Florida, and at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, before completing a B.V.A. at Georgia State University. She holds an M.A. in Studio Art and Photography and an M.F.A. in the History and Practice of Photography as it relates to fine art and social/cultural history, both from the University of New Mexico. She is author/curator of Symbol and Surrogate: The Picture Within, a study of photographers' use of the picture-within-the-picture in their compositions, 1850-1980s.

Schoenfeld has taught photography and related thematic courses at American universities and colleges, and for The California Arts Project. She presents illustrated lectures on history, art, and related cultural topics as they have been understood and preserved through works of notable photographers, and creates art workshops for elementary and middle school students. Her photographs have been exhibited at museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, and Canada since 1973.

She has been a resident of Humboldt County California since 1976. It was there that she found her first “ghost school.”