Brenda Ann Kenneally (born October 23, 1959)
is an American
photojournalist
Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...
and documentary photographer, specializing in social causes and the illegal drug economy. Her work has been featured in the NYT Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Ms. She won the 2000 Community Awareness Award from the National Press Photographer's Association, and the 2001 International Prize for Photojournalism. Kenneally is the founder of A Little Creative Class, a non-profit art organization that works to address the obstacles that deter poor and low-income youth from participation in art and the emerging idea-based economy.
Early life
Kenneally was born in Albany, New York in the late 1950s, and grew up nearby
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany a ...
. Her parents divorced eight years into their marriage.
She then moved back in with her mother, and Kenneally's grandmother. Kenneally's grandmother sought out to keep Kenneally from making the same mistakes as her mother, barring her from friends whom her grandmother deemed as bad influences.
At the age of twelve, she was declared "incorrigible" by the Albany County Family Court and declared a ward of the New York State Division for Youth.
She began living in group homes and temporary shelters where she became acquainted with the people her grandmother had once forbidden.
Kenneally's cynicism of the system, which influence her later works, was learned in these homes, where experiences with abuses preceded criminal behavior.
She left the city at the age of 17. She fled to Florida and worked intermittently as a snake charmer in the carnival and as an assistant to photographers Rosalind Solomon and Eugene Richards.
She attended the
University of Miami
The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...
after getting sober, studying both photojournalism and sociology.
She was introduced by her journalism professor at Miami to Tom Schroeder, the editor of "Tropic," the M''iami Herald'' Sunday magazine, which subsequently led to the publishing of her photographs of South Beach, Miami.
After graduating from the University of Miami, Kenneally moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn in 1996 to receive a masters in Photography from N.Y.U graduate school.
She began photographing her neighbors’ struggles with poverty and drugs. Her photographs from that time are "an investigation into the effects of various social and political policies."
Career
Kenneally began her career in Florida, photographing the economic and racial divisions. She took photos over a seven-year period before moving back to New York.
She moved to
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
and started photographing people's struggles with drugs and poverty.
It was her work in New York that gained her national attention for photography.
In 2003, Kenneally began a project she called Upstate Girls. The project was sparked by a teenager named Kayla who approached Kenneally and asked if she wanted to film the birth of her child.
She spent the next 14 years photographing Kayla, including taking pictures of her children, family, and friends. Images from the project were posted by Slate in 2014. The images caused a backlash on social media with some people criticizing both Kenneally and Kayla, while others defended them.
She is also a recipient of the
W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography which was awarded to her in 2001.
Bibliography
Select installations and exhibitions
* 2014 - ''Vintage Miami Photographs, 1939-2003''
See also
*
List of photojournalists
This is a list of photojournalists.
List of photojournalists by country
*Australia
*United States
*Canada
Others
* Arko Datta (1969)
* Mayank Austen Soofi
* Danish Siddiqui (1983 – 2021)
* Walter Bosshard (photojournalist) (1892 – 1975)
...
References
External links
Official website of Brenda KenneallyUpstate Girls documentary project by Brenda Kenneally
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kenneally, Brenda Ann
1959 births
American photojournalists
University of Miami alumni
Living people
American women photographers
Women photojournalists