Self-Portrait in Platinum
Niniane Kelley is a fine art photographer living and working in San Francisco and Lake County, California. A native of the Bay Area, she is a San Jose State University graduate, earning a BFA in Photography in 2008.
Drawn to photography for both the immediacy of the image making process and the intrinsic alchemy of the darkroom ritual, she crafts the majority of her imagery using traditional 19th century processes which give each piece its own unique character.
After generating an extensive portfolio working with the human form, she emerged from the sequestered studio environment and began to focus on the quiet beauty of the North State rural landscape. Embracing photography’s implied narrative structure, much of her current work functions as a form of autobiography, chronicling her frequent, unencumbered explorations of Northern California’s pastoral and largely unpopulated interior.
But never one to cease experimentation, she is also simultaneously developing new complimentary bodies of work using Polaroid and plastic cameras to bring fresh perspective to both her figure and landscape work.
In addition to producing photographic images, Kelley is also involved in alternative processes education and research, often teaching workshops in the Bay Area and surrounding environs. After many years working in the fine-art gallery world she went on to become manager and photographer at San Francisco’s tintype portrait studio, Photobooth. She is currently a writer and curator for Analog Forever Magazine.