©Shane Hallinan, Ayanna and her Sister, Wedding Day, NYC, 2001(From You’ve loved me before)

Shane Hallinan recently was awarded The 2025 Salon Jane Award Winner for Women in Photography through the Center of Photographic Art‘s International Juried Exhibition.

Jane Olin of Salon Jane states: In the spirit of giving back, Salon members created an annual Salon Jane Award for a Woman Photographer.  We are dedicated to supporting women photographers with this award and to help amplify their visual voices.

Cig Harvey, juror for the exhibition who selected Hallinan for the awards states: There is an energy in Shane’s work that haunts me. Her photographs possess an intimacy that demands attention. It is the proximity of the camera to subject, the color, the framing, and the gestures. I can’t look away.

Thirty five years ago, when Shane Hallinan began to document her life and friends, there was no internet, no e-mail, no instagram, no way to easily stay in touch, and more importantly, to remember. Fortunately Halliman had a camera. The work is more than documentation of her past, it is a record of personal, generational, and historical personal moments. She states: It was a transitional time and most of the pictures in the book are themselves transitions: getting ready, getting dressed, waiting. Now that I am older, I have accepted that we are constantly transforming but the transition from child to adult in my early twenties has been like nothing I ever experienced again. I am grateful to have these pictures and in some ways it has helped me make sense of it all.

©Shane Hallinan, Book Cover of You’ve Loved Me Before, published by TIS Books

©Shane Hallinan, Spread from You’ve Loved Me Before, published by TIS Books

©Shane Hallinan, Spread from You’ve Loved Me Before, published by TIS Books

©Shane Hallinan, Spread from You’ve Loved Me Before, published by TIS Books

©Shane Hallinan, Spread from You’ve Loved Me Before, published by TIS Books

©Shane Hallinan, Spread from You’ve Loved Me Before, published by TIS Books

©Shane Hallinan, Spread from You’ve Loved Me Before, published by TIS Books

G: The genesis of this work has different times, can you tell me about the two moments? How did you decide to pick up those rolls of film that told of a life locked in a drawer? What was the urgency?

S: I am really glad we met and happy that you connected with the book. I love that you are highlighting the close female friendships. Most of the women in the book I met between the ages of five and fourteen and are still in my life to this day. Those friendships have been incredibly important to me and are at the heart of the book. In 1994, I wanted to be a photojournalist but I wanted to work on a project where I would be a woman photographing women her same age, my community, and documenting relationships I cared more about than any photograph. Thankfully my closest friends were supportive and let me experiment. The trust I was given, and the unguarded and often vulnerable moments they allowed me to photograph, made the work more intimate and personal then I had originally imagined. I realized there was something special here, and began what eventually turned into a ten year project, and ultimately my book You’ve loved me before. I had to stop in 2004 with the birth of my second son and the realities of my difficult marriage. Shortly after, I found myself solely responsible for two young sons and everything at that time I deemed non essential was boxed and stored. I never forgot the project, it was like the Tell-Tale Heart – I could hear it beating. But it wasn’t until my oldest went to college and my sons were navigating a parallel period of development that I couldn’t wait any longer. I started with boxes of prints I had made in the 90s and then moved to negatives. Honestly, at first it was painful looking at the images; it reminded me of the endless amount of time we were able to spend together, and also my youthful expectations for the future. It took several years of scanning to uncover the whole story and in that time I developed some distance from the work. Eventually, I could see the book as a document of our twenties and a more universal coming of age story. It was a transitional time and most of the pictures in the book are themselves transitions: getting ready, getting dressed, waiting. Now that I am older, I have accepted that we are constantly transforming but the transition from child to adult in my early twenties has been like nothing I ever experienced again. I am grateful to have these pictures and in some ways it has helped me make sense of it all.

©Shane Hallinan, Bedroom, Berkeley, 2021 (From the series Love at First)

G. How many rolls of film, how many photos did you have, what was the narrative line that led you to the final sequence of the book?

S. I have almost 10,000 rolls of both black and white and color film taken over that 10 year period. When I graduated in 1997 I stopped having ready access to a darkroom and for a while was able to rent time to make contact sheets but eventually ran out of money and time for printing. In 2018 I took some classes at the San Francisco Art Institute and learned how to scan. It was the first time I had seen some of these images. It took about three and a half years to scan all the images while working full time. Surprisingly, that turned out to be the easy part.

When I was taking the pictures, I wanted to share my experience of what it was like to be in the room as truthfully as possible. When I was photographing I made a lot of rules for myself: no flash, no added lights, I never moved any objects or people, never asked anyone to slow down, or do it again. If I missed the shot, I missed it! Even though I was the photographer I never felt in charge, I felt like I was watching life unfold and responding to it. So when it was time to edit, it required a more directorial role and I struggled with that. I struggled with what should be said and what should be kept private, whether I should include old letters and ephemera, include black and white and color photographs together, structure the book from day to night, or follow individual people’s stories like chapters. I felt stuck. Once again I was inspired and encouraged by friends, this time other photographers to keep going. It was at one of these critiques I met Nelson Chan for the first time.

Nelson, who is one half of TIS Books, a teacher, and an impressive photographer in his own right, spoke about my work and the hairs on my neck rose. He was saying things I felt but had struggled to put into words about this work, and I knew he understood what I was trying to do. Eventually, I asked Nelson to try an edit, and his second edit is very close to the book we made. We worked together at that point, trading images and adjusting the order. I consider this book a true collaboration and it would not be the same without his input. Having him make the initial edit allowed me the space I needed to finally be able to let the work go.

©Shane Hallinan, Blake Street, Berkeley, 2021 (From the series Love at First)

G. I, too, when I was in college, loved to take pictures, but the group of friends I was hanging out with, now all well-known writers, used to tell me that I couldn’t encapsulate life in a picture, that a photograph was incomparable to the power of the word, when we would one day tell the story, and so I ended up not taking pictures, which is why your work strikes me even more, because you’ve been there and you’ve taken pictures consistently. And even though it is your story, for me it becomes the story of all of us, of those years of youth and female friendship. A unique complicity, sometimes ambiguous, adolescent, but forever with us. 

S. I love that! I am so grateful that this record exists. Looking at this work now in the context of so many voices documenting their own communities and experiences, it does not seem unusual. In the early 90s there seemed to be only a few publishers and a few  photographers, even fewer of them women and of those women even less telling stories about women and their everyday existence.  Some of the books coming out now are filling in those gaps because of course there were many female photographers and people of color photographing at that time who were not able to get their work out to larger audiences until more recently. I think it’s very exciting to have a more extensive photographic record.  In college I heard Deborah Willis speak about the importance of photographic representation and I became aware of how the photographs we take create a photographic history beyond our own comprehension. Listening to her made me aware of my responsibility for the images I put into this world and at that point I decided I would only photograph people and places I loved- that I wanted to make permanent and real. That desire compelled me to continue with this project even when I had no idea if anyone would ever see it.

©Shane Hallinan, Deirdre and Dov, Fourth Street, Berkeley, 1996 (From You’ve loved me before)

G. On page 5 there is a self-portrait of you, did you have others? It’s a self-portrait of you, but even here you seem to involve the viewer directly, it seems with that direct look into the camera that you are asking for a first-person participation.

S. It’s funny that you mention that image. When Nelson agreed to help me edit the book he came over and went through my ENTIRE lightroom catalog. Later when we were talking he told me he would like to include a picture of me. I was confused, and told him I don’t take self portraits so it probably wasn’t me. When he sent me the image I knew the exact moment I took it and why. It was August in New York and I woke up and my hair looked good. This was significant both because it was August in New York, and because I mostly grew up with my single dad and never had confidence in my ability to control my hair. I wasn’t planning on seeing any friends that day and was convinced they wouldn’t believe me without photographic proof. Because I only had a manual camera, I focused on the wallpaper in my bedroom and held the camera out as still as I could. I am so grateful to Nelson for drawing my attention to a photo I would definitely have forgotten, and helping me acknowledge myself in the work. Maybe because I didn’t think I photographed myself, I didn’t initially imagine myself in the photographs, but I felt a responsibility to be included. In earlier edits I was trying to explore different ways of being present. I spent a lot of time poring over Growing up female, a personal photo-journal by Abigail Heyman and What She Said by Deanna Templeton as powerful examples of photographers who make themselves more vulnerable than their subjects. Their honesty adds so much complexity to the images in those books and I think they are important books to look at. Ultimately the picture of me looking directly into the camera filled in the missing piece and helped acknowledge my role as the camera in the narrative.

©Shane Hallinan, Deirdre at Graduation, Hayward, 1998 (From You’ve loved me before)

G. Many of my closest friends I have met during my college years, and although some of us no longer live in Italy, we always try to meet once a year. I am now thinking of one particular person I had lost track of and have met again in an incredible way: I was visiting a house for sale (out of the city, up in the hills) and she was the owner! Since then, she has rejoined our group. Has this work made you rediscover friendships that had been lost along the way?

S. When I was taking these pictures I would tell my friends that it was going to be a book but at some point I lost faith. Actually publishing this book changed me. It was a promise I kept to myself, and it freed me from any frustration about the choices I had made since that time. It was amazing to be able to say thirty years later, it’s happening. I reached out to tell them the news and also wanted to hear how they felt about the pictures I planned to use. The responses were all positive, and the pictures brought up a lot of memories. Catching up and hanging out, it was obvious I wasn’t the only one who missed all the time we spent together. My sons had moved out almost two years ago, and I discovered a lot of my friends were experiencing something similar and wanting more connection. At this stage of our lives we can actually make time to spend together, and finding that out was one more gift from this project.

©Shane Hallinan, July Fourth, Petaluma, 2024 (From the series Love at First)

G. Another thing I really appreciated is recognising the phone booths, the landline, the sitting calls, the hours spent in the kitchen with the teas, glasses of wine, beer and cigarettes, and those strawberries in the sink with a loose association reminiscent of The Place of Strawberry, here the place of strawberries is the sink, where in fact so much of the time of our sight, spins, where we wash, cook, but the strawberries here do not represent childhood, but youth in its potential becoming and your book also tells about that because then we have a pregnant friend and a little girl doing a wheel and life seems to me to spin endlessly.

G.For you that picture of strawberries was an aesthetic choice or does it have a symbolic value?

S. I always hope that the pictures are visually compelling, but why a picture made it into the book is because it hopefully communicates on two levels. Phone booths were absolutely necessary at that time but they also signify reaching out and trying to connect. The strawberries my friend had been washing in the sink, before she got distracted, looked vibrant and full of life, but the sink looked worn and past its prime. The discolored sink and rusty drain only made the strawberries look more beautiful and temporary. I’m glad that you recognized the cycles in this book – I think the idea of spinning is a good one. The final image is of a friend explaining how to read our palms. It was a moment in my life when I was looking for signs and trying to figure out how life would unfold. It’s also an image I took very early in the project, and maybe why I feel it’s more a beginning than an end. We spent a lot of time choosing a final image – one that wouldn’t make you want to close the book, but instead start again. It’s up to the viewer to decide if we achieved our goal but that was the hope.

©Shane Hallinan, July Fourth, Petaluma, 2022 (From the series Love at First)

G.To close I would like to know what you are working on?

S. I have two projects that I have finished shooting and I hope will someday see the light of day. The first is the black and white images I shot at the same time as my current book. The photos are a different view of that same period and show more physical touch, connection, and the families. The second project is both color and black and white of my sister from age five till thirty-one, and culminates with her giving birth at home. You’ve actually seen my sister because she is in three photos in You’ve Loved Me Before. She’s the one cartwheeling. And then currently, I am focused on photographing my two sons who are 20 and 24, and live next door to each other about a half mile from me. I’m still fascinated by that time period from adolescence to “adulthood,” when everything seems so important and unresolved. Despite being boys and coming of age in the post-Covid digital era, the process of becoming themselves is surprisingly similar. Like we did, they are exploring their identities and figuring out who they are through their closest relationships. They are letting me record the process, and I am honored and excited watching it happen.

©Shane Hallinan, Living Room, Berkeley, 2021 (From the series Love at First)

©Shane Hallinan, Malachi and Amalia, Berkeley, 2020 (From the series Love at First)

©Shane Hallinan, Mom and J, Vermont, 1996

©Shane Hallinan, Nicollette, SF, 1996 (From You’ve loved me before)

©Shane Hallinan, Prom, Richmond, 2022 (From the series Love at First)

©Shane Hallinan, Samantha, NYC, 1998 (From You’ve loved me before)

©Shane Hallinan, Samuella and Dakh, Stuart st., Berkeley, 1997

©Shane Hallinan, Tami, Berkeley, 1999 (From You’ve loved me before)

Shane Hallinan is a photographer located in Berkeley, California. A graduate of RISD, and a dedicated analog photographer for the last 35 years. Hallinan focuses on both her family of origin and chosen family. She primarily explores the complexities of growing up female and the bonds of friendship forged along the way. Her debut monograph You’ve loved me before was published by TIS books in 2024.

Instagram: @shane_hallinan_photo

Gaia Giani, is a visual artist, creative producer and curator based in Milan, Italy.

She has a degree in philosophy and wrote her thesis on Pina Bausch’s dance theater. She is trained as a visual artist, and works in various mediums, including video, photography, sound and performance. The thematic center of her work is intimist poetics and its relation to landscape and memory. Her work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2023, she created the sound performance Die Wald Liste, in collaboration with musician Margareth Kammerer (official premiere September 29, 2024, as part of BAW – Bolzen Art WeeK), produced in association with Lungomare Bolzano, part of FLUX. An open rehearsal occurred in October 2023 at CLER, Milan. In 2022, Attraversare, a short film set in Pollino Park in Basilicata, a dream narrative composed of collective memories and told in Albanian, was presented at MUSME, Matera. In 2020, 132 Moons, Festival Filmmaker, was broadcast at Fuori Orario, RAI TRE. Her 2019 short film, You Sleep Like a Stone, a single continuous shot of a walk in Ticino Park, premiered at BX Gallery Belfast, Filmmaker Festival, and CLER gallery. The Unknown Zone – Childhood (2017), screened at Cinema Cineteca Oberdan, Beltrade. The Unknown Zone is a documentary about the mystery of childhood set in a small Montessori school. In 2015, Gaia made the documentary Solo, about a couple of French dancers, the Dupuys, in which she investigates the relationship between life and dance.

Instagram: @gaiagiani

ABOUT Salon Jane
Salon Jane is a six-member artist collective formed in Monterey, in 2014. Over the past 10 years, the members of Salon Jane have created an intimate bond, facilitating a safe and inspiring environment for their artistic risk-taking and creative evolution. At their regular meetings, they share feedback about their work through hours of in-depth discussion and hold space for art-related life challenges.

The Monterey Peninsula has a long tradition of straight photography set forth by Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and others. However, the artists of Salon Jane inhabit an island of innovation that pushes against these strict boundaries. Each member artist nods to
photography but expands on it in diverse and unexpected ways. From aerial to underwater, abstract to representational, digital to darkroom, wall art to books, the work produced by these artists is wide ranging. In content and process, each artist’s work transcends the ordinary and taps into mystery. While they have evolved beyond formal straight photography, the members are equally concerned with artistic and photographic excellence and are grounded in historical processes.

Salon Jane quickly developed into a group of exhibiting artists. Their first exhibition was at Green Chalk Gallery in Monterey in 2015 and was followed by four unique exhibitions through 2022. In 2018, Salon Jane became a vital part of the Monterey Museum of Art’s Year of the Woman with their exhibition, The Ethereal Zone. In early 2021, the group exhibited work made during the pandemic at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, with a show titled Present Tense. Each exhibit has been fully supported by Salon
 member presentations, demonstrations, and discussions.

Salon Jane is honored to present its ten-year celebration exhibit at the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, an important part of Carmel’s artistic history and culture, set in a vital region of photography.