John Nanian has close to four decades of experience as a professional photographer. He uses digital and film cameras, home made “obscures”, antique lenses and techniques dating back to the dawn of photography.
John’s work includes portrait, object and documentary photography. He has been a part of historic preservation projects teams dating back to Boston’s “Big Dig”. He documented Boston’s Fort Point Channel, both Quincy Quarries the Hultman Aqueduct, Boston’s Mid town Cultural District (when it was known as The Combat Zone), Viewshed Assessments, Artifact Documentation, National Register Nominations and Tax Credit Certifications throughout New England, New York and New Jersey. If you are familiar with Cambridge and Somerville Massachusett, he wrote the study report that put the Shell Sign on the National Register; wrote the Historic Structure Report that helped restore the Rosebud Diner; and recorded many of the streetscapes of the two cities. He has worked for weekly and monthly publications (newspapers and magazines), annual reports, photographed for record companies and completed HABS/HAER Projects throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic. He has been making hand stitched books and documenting vanishing Rhode Island since the 1980s.
His fine art work is handmade photography. He uses a darkroom for his film and prints; “caffenol” developer from coffee he roasts himself; and he makes tangible negatives from digital files. Since 2005 cameraless and ephemeral photography has been a focus of his work. Following in the footsteps of the inventors of the photographic process, he makes his own camera obscuras, photographic paper, and light sensitive glass plates. These singular photographic objects sometimes look like X-rays, or they were seen in a microscope or telescopic. Sometimes they resemble abstract expressionist paintings. They were all made from invisible rays of light, sometimes they can be preserved, other times they fade to grey.
John Nanian is available for hire for all types of projects and you can buy prints of his work from his Imagekind online store, or contact him directly to buy a print or hand made book of his work. Everyting found on this website is for sale, and affordable.
Education
- M.F.A. Photography & Integrated Media, Lesley University, College of Art and Design
- M.A. Preservation Studies, Boston University
- B.A. Architectural Studies and Photography, Tufts University.