A woman with long dark hair, wearing a black top and striped pleated pants, sits on a small chair in a grassy field holding a camera. She is surrounded by tall, dry grass with a backdrop of mountains and trees during sunset.

About

Tailyr Irvine is a Salish and Kootenai journalist born and raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. Her work focuses on providing in-depth representations of the lives and complex issues within the diverse communities that make up Native America.
Tailyr is a co-founder of Indigenous Photograph, a global database dedicated to support the media industry in hiring more Indigenous photographers to tell the stories of their communities and to reflect on how we tell these stories.
She has received multiple grants from the National Geographic Society, the 2023 Inaugural Vital Impacts Grant and 2025 Working Assumptions Grant.
Her work is featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, the Washington Post, New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and more.
Based in Montana.

Press + Media


My Approach

My work is centered in empathy, respect and a commitment to journalism that is accountable to the communities it serves.

I prioritize thoughtful, contextual storytelling that reflects the complexity, humanity and lived experiences of the people at the center of my reporting.