About Helen

Photojournalist | Multimedia reporter

See Helen’s resume here.

Helen Arase is a part-time freelance photographer, reporter and content creator. She is contracted with The Boeing Company as a photographer and Natalie Parker & Co. as a junior graphic designer.

Helen is returning to work from being a full-time mom for a year after her son was born in 2021.

She was the final multimedia reporter and managing editor for the Alhambra Source – a nonprofit news site founded by journalist Michael Parks and USC Annenberg – covering the western San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles areas. The Source ceased publication in November 2020 due to lack of funding and is no longer maintained.

Her work at Alhambra Source ranged from civic coverage like Alhambra Unified’s fall instruction planning to local features including a new paletas and ice cream shop and breaking news like the San Gabriel Mission fire.

Some of her work on California’s strippers unionizing for better wages for Los Angeleno was picked up by the Huffington Post. She continues to work on LA-based features, news and other Greater Los Angeles area stories.

Check out her more recent coverage of Wasteland Weekend, a “Mad Max” post-apocalyptic-themed festival in the Mojave Desert, also for Los Angeleno.

Helen received her Master of Science in Journalism from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in May of 2018. She was inducted into the national communications honor society Lambda Pi Eta at USC.

While at USC she worked with the Los Angeles Times as part of a group of journalists who coded and visualized data for a marijuana-related interactive, followed California's lowriders for a documentary film and photography project, and partnered with KCRW to report stories using virtual reality and emerging technologies of people who have been deported including those they left behind. Her documentary aired on Southern California’s Spectrum News 1 in May of 2019.

Helen also wrote about bipolar disorder, the mental health care in the Los Angeles County jails and support available upon returning to society and multiracial millennials and white privilege. Her day-of-air radio packages focused on politics and the refugee crisis in Europe and South Asia.

Helen received her BA in journalism with a concentration in photojournalism in January of 2016 at the University of La Verne. Her photographic interests include social and political movements, human rights and historical issues.

Helen Arase was a member of the photography staff of the university’s newspaper and magazine, Campus Times and La Verne Magazine, for three years. Prior to graduation she served both publications as the photography editor for a combined three consecutive terms.

In August of 2015, Helen founded and was the first curator of the Ground Floor Gallery, adjacent to the Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography in Miller Hall, dedicated to showcasing student work from the Photography Department of the University of La Verne.

VISION:

Helen Arase considers herself a part of the new wave of journalism that embraces multimedia and emerging technologies while respecting the ethics and integrity of photography, videography and journalism. With that in mind, she enjoys using these same skills for her own artistic projects and believes the definition of a journalist is changing along with the vehicles in which the public receives its news. 

Helen is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, National Press Photographers Association, Asian American Journalists Association and former member of the Journalism and Women Symposium.

Her ongoing projects include a food photography and writing project, and continuing to follow the lowriding community.

She is actively pursuing education and expanding skills in UX/UI design, graphic design and motion graphics for data visualization, while continuing to follow the ever-changing landscape of visuals and media.