Kelli Pennington

KELLI PENNINGTON is a photographer and educator living in Portland, Oregon. An avid traveler and observer, Kelli has been making photographs since the late 90s, learning both analog and digital processes before the new millennia. Over the last 20 years, her practice has evolved to mastery in digital and analog printing. In 2010 she earned her MFA from Syracuse University, where she presented her series Liminal, a life project centered around examining one's existence. By caring a 35mm camera to document daily life, her practice predates the invention of the smartphone and the eventual hyper fixation of social media image culture.

As a photographic educator, Kelli teaches photography to students of all ages. Aside from the craft of printing both digital and analog images, many of her teachings are lessons rooted in the philosophical belief that as we frame a photograph, so too can we can craft the relationship we have to our existence. By refining the mental tools of perception and perspective to inform our awareness, we make active choices about which information we include or exclude from our stories, personal narratives, and the images we create.

As a photographer, Kelli currently uses film and analog capture methods while using a silver darkroom, pigment print, platinum, and cyanotype printing as modes of presentation. Her work creates a dialogue between different photographic practices, each an attempt to fix time, to hold for a moment the everpresent transitional passing of time. Kelli returned to teach at Northwest Academy in August 2019.