Wynn Douglas

Photo 1: Shenadoah NP in late January 2026
Photo 2: Hillandale Park, Harrisonburg, VA in early February 2026

In college I frequently considered using a pseudonym for my photography. My given name never felt like it fit with who I was and the kind of work I wanted to produce. When I changed my name in 2023, I did give a little consideration to the “branding” aspect of such a change. Ultimately, I abandoned that line of thought and spent many a sleepless night trying on new names. Then I encountered “Wynn”.

It felt a little too on the nose at first. Wynn Bullock is the first photographer whose work I fell in love with. He was also the person in the history of photography textbooks I felt closest philosophically. It was also one of the names I had considered taking as a pseudonym in college. Despite all of that, I hadn’t seriously considered that name for my legal name until I encountered it at random twice in the same night. It stuck with me and simply felt right.

It may have felt right, but there was one problem: I was changing my name to get away from a distinctly “male” name and naming myself after a man seemed counterproductive. I finally decided that that was a problem for other people. Wynn has historically been a rather androgynous name, and if anything that was more of a reason to pick it.

The final pieces for my legal name were considerations for a last-name, and did I even want a middle name? I tool my spouse’s family name. It was something I wanted to do when we got married in 2018, but given that I presented as a man and was marrying a woman, I dismissed it. I kept my given middle name of Douglas, which certainly did nothing for my distancing myself from “male names”.

There were a lot of reasons I wanted to stick with Douglas. First, it is a family name and I still wanted to hold onto some part of that. Second, it was the middle name of my one of my favorite musical artists, Brian Wilson. Third, and the reason I’m writing this blog, was that in all my fantasies of using a pseudonym, that was my last name.

My “maiden name” is Sensabaugh, which is a name that photography scholars are sure to recognize from Art Sinsabaugh, a protege of Minor White’s who made a series of panoramas in the Midwest of some renown. When meeting my photography professors, their first question was always “are you related to Art?”. It was actually this repeated question that made me first consider a pseudonym.

Sometime around 2007, I came up with ‘Wynn Douglas’ as the fantasy pseudonym. Three syllables always felt like the right number for the kind of name that sticks with you. Wynn is a name that people in the photo world would see as unique, but very recognizable. It also just felt really good to say.

So… What am I saying? Well, going forward I’m going to commit to it. I am the photographer and artist Wynn Douglas.