about nancy warner

Nancy Warner, Photographer

Nancy Warner purchased her first medium-format camera in 1983, and began working as a full-time photographer in 1992. Today her studio is located in Chinatown, not far from the financial district, where she continues to focus on fine-art photography and commercial portraiture.

Fine-Art Photography Series

The Families Project (gelatin silver prints)

Explores a range of families and family relationships using a spontaneous approach to black-and-white portraiture. 2003-present

Going Back: Midwestern Farm Places (gelatin silver prints and color prints)

An ongoing meditation on the passage of time in the Great Plains, focused mainly on abandoned and neglected farm buildings in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Seventy-eight prints from this series were exhibited in 2008 at the Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. 2001–present

Visual Diary (pigment-based inkjet prints)

The visual diary began in 2000 with color images from a tiny point-and-shoot camera, and continues today with digital cameras. These images record the photographer's casual observations as she goes about her daily life—mostly in San Francisco, occasionally in other places. 1998–present.

Good Humus (pigment-based inkjet prints)

Good Humus Produce is an organic farm located in Northern California. Nancy is working on a series of inkjet prints of photographs made at the form to help fundraising efforts for the Good Humus Land Preservation Project.

Japan (gelatin silver prints)

Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, modern architecture, and landscape: 2000.

San Francisco Chinatown (gelatin silver prints and Polaroid image transfer prints)

Nancy has photographed extensively in this neighborhood since 1989 and has had her studio there since 1992.

Subjects include: sewing factory and store facades, windows, walls, and doors; signs and calligraphy; portraits; and Asian paper objects for still life setups.

Still Life (gelatin silver prints)

Flowers, leaves, vegetables, and urban debris, setups in studio: 1985–present

Black-and-white prints are available only as toned, archival master prints. Nancy also works with a variety of color techniques and papers, including standard Color C prints; Polaroid image transfer or digital ink-jet prints on fine-art paper; and wall-size color prints on canvas and other materials. For information about print formats, see Print Information.

For information about viewing or purchasing prints, see purchasing information.

Portrait Studio

Portrait services for individuals and businesses: 1998–present.
Gelatin silver prints, inkjet prints, color C prints, and digital files.

Teaching & Curating

Fromm Institute, University of San Francisco.

Lecture and slide presentation of my work in photography. May, 2003.

Co-founder of Gallery OneZero, an art and performance space with an emphasis on photography.

The gallery is located in my photography studio overlooking Chinatown and downtown San Francisco. 2002–present

One-on-one tutorials in black-and-white darkroom technique: 1995–present.

Exhibits & Awards

Great Plains Art Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska. Going Back: Midwestern Farm Places. Fifty-seven gelatin silver prints and twenty-one color prints from an ongoing series. March - April, 2008.

Target Gallery, Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, Virginia: Sense of Place (juried exhibit). Catherine Armour, juror. Gelatin silver prints from the Nebraska series. May - June, 2007.

Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin, Missouri: PhotoSpiva (juried exhibit). John Paul Caponigro, juror. Gelatin silver prints from the Chinatown series. May - June, 2007.

Gallery OneZero, San Francisco, Studio Saturdays: Light & Shadow. Sculpture by Saori Ide; photographs by Richard Newman, Colin Warner, & Nancy Warner. May - July, 2004

Gallery OneZero, San Francisco, Studio Saturdays: Photographs, Paintings, and Glass. Photographs by Ellen Bergeron, Colin Warner, and Nancy Warner; paintings by Gary Hauser; Hand-glown glass by Michelina Labat. September–December, 2003

Gallery OneZero, San Francisco, Iterations: Paintings by Francesca Pera, Photographs by Nancy Warner. May–June, 2003

Gallery OneZero, San Francisco, Selections: 1998-2002. Solo exhibit, July–October, 2002

Vinton Court Gallery, San Francisco, Outside/In: Interpretations of Chinatown. Photographs by Nancy Warner, installations by Deanne Delbridge. October, 1999

Buddha’s Delight Festival, San Francisco. Group show, December 1999.

Franklin Street Gallery, Bellevue, Nebraska. Represented Polaroid image transfer work. 1995-1997.

San Francisco Open Studios: Embarcadero 3. Group show, 1994.

Erector Square Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, juried exhibit 1994.

Best of Photography Annual 1994. Two images chosen for honorable mention,
black-and-white and color categories. Sponsored by Photographer’s Forum magazine.

Aura Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two prints in juried exhibit, 1994.

Eye Gallery, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Guardian annual photography competition. 1st prize and two honorable mentions in black-and-white category, 1993.

Oakland Museum, Architecture In Focus III juried exhibit, Council on Architecture of the Oakland Museum. 3rd prize and one other selection, 1993.

Vision Gallery, San Francisco, Group show of PhotoMetro competition winners, 1985.

Published Images

Gelatin silver prints from the Going Back series: Black and White Magazine, Santa Barbara, May 2005

Images of San Francisco:

San Francisco: The City’s Sights and Secrets,
Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1995; and second edition, 2006

Eyewitness Travel Guides: San Francisco 2005, Dorling Kindersley, London, 2005

Images of dancers: Art Matters

A publication of Art of the Matter Performance Foundation, San Francisco, 2001

Images of family interactions and people working: The Whole Parenting Guide, Broadway Books, New York, New York, 1999

Selections from the Chinatown series: Newsletter for the Photographic Artist, Calumet Photographic, Chicago, Illinois, 1998

Images of family interactions: Jewish Family and Children’s Services, San Francisco

JFCS Annual Report, 1997.

Outlook newsletter, 1997.

Images from Live Power Community Farm:

Rudolf Steiner Foundation, informational brochure, San Francisco, 2000.

Small Farmer’s Journal, Sisters, Oregon, 1997.

Sustainable Agriculture, UC Davis, 1996.

Farmer-to-Farmer magazine, Davis, California, 1995.

Limited edition book: Live Power Community Farm
Original photographs, hand-bound, with wrap case, 1995.

Portraits and architectural photographs:

Bridging the Pacific: San Francisco Chinatown and Its People,
Chinese Historical Society of America, 1989.

Education

UC Santa Cruz. 1992

Portrait photography with Martha Casanave

Private workshops, 1986–1992

Ruth Bernhard: two intensive workshops at her studio in San Francisco.

John Sexton: two five-day workshops, “The Expressive Black and White Print” and “Refining the Expressive Black and White Print,” at his studio in Carmel Valley, CA.

UC Berkeley Extension, 1983–1984

Basic black and white technique with Ellen Salwen

Street Photography with Jim Goldberg

Intensive darkroom workshop with Larry Sultan