-40 ºC (-40 ºF) At the Baikonur Cosmodrome with the Russian Soyuz rocket in background in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Intense working conditions, but fun! Photo by Aram Kouyoumdjian

Carla Cioffi is a photographer working across multiple genres. Born in Caracas, Venezuela to a Sicilian immigrant father and an American mother, she has lived and worked in a number of regions internationally. It was through her mother, an amateur photographer, that she became entranced by the medium.

As a former photographer/photo archivist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, Carla documented everything from the end of the space shuttle program, events on Capitol Hill and the White House, and human spaceflight. She traveled extensively in the US, Russia and Kazakhstan, working with NASA’s international partners, to cover human spaceflight to and from the International Space Station. Her editorial and reportage work have been distributed worldwide through news and photo agencies such as the Financial Times, Der Spiegel, The Washington Post, National Geographic online, The Guardian, etc.. Her documentary work on the U.S. Resist movement has been shared on social media by LensCulture, Photograph Magazine and Exposed DC.

Italian architecture and design magazine FloorNature, and French photography journal L’Oeil de la Photographie have both featured her project Qatar: Landscape of Construction on the rapid pace of expansion in the tiny Gulf state.

Carla holds the distinction of being the first American woman to photograph astronauts launching to the ISS from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and remains the only American woman to photograph the return to earth from a Russian military helicopter. Following NASA, she lived and worked in Qatar as a freelance photographer. 

Carla is a member of the Cherokee Nation through her mother’s lineage. She holds a B.A. in Russian Studies, and an M.F.A. in Communications/Photography. In addition, she is a member of WPOW (Women Photojournalists of Washington), Blink and Visura.

Based in the Washington, DC area, she is available for a variety of assignments both domestically and internationally.

Clients include: BLJ Worldwide | Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar | City of Alexandria | Der Spiegel | Financial Times | Hamad Medical Corporation (Qatar) | HAVAS Group | Nancy Cost Design | Northwestern University in Qatar | Qatar Financial Authority Centre | Qatar Foundation | RasGas Company Limited (Qatar) | Shutters on the Beach (US) | WAJOOD Strategic Communications (Qatar) | Xi'an Jiatong-Liverpool University (China)

50 ºC (122 ºF) LNG plant under construction at Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar. More intense working conditions, and also fun! Photo by Nigel Downes