"My first love was black and white photography."

"My father was the one who first put a camera in my hands when I was only a child.. And he wasn't too distressed when I wouldn't give it back: he mused over my photos and encouraged me. Many years later I found myself admiring his photographs: beautiful black-and-white images with deep contrast.. My father wandered with his camera through a plethora of humanity as the streets of Brooklyn stirred with Vietnam War protesters then.  

 Later, in high school, I remember cutting class to spend time in the darkroom; it was a magical place where pieces of the world I’d collected, or captured with the lens of my camera would take on a new life, altered by filters, paper choices, long or short exposures, long or short baths in the chemicals that would induce the images to appear on paper."
 "To me, photography is collecting bits of beauty or ugliness, faces or places, the animate, and the inanimate, to bring them home, and share them with who ever is watching."
Our lives are but a flicker compared to the long life of The Earth, and the eternal nature of the Soul animating all things." 
​~Janavi Held~
"The islands of Hawaii have an old soul...Needless to say, Hawaii is a photographer's dream! There, I explored deep, quiet places, capturing them with my pen and camera.
There I felt how natural it was to live with a daily awareness of the powers of nature, with firsthand knowledge and experience of the temporality of all things, and the fragility of life clear and present every day: people need to live closer to the moment, not looking to the future, to some goal, but to the land and to the community for daily satisfaction. Discovering the nourishing beauty of Kauai and capturing that beauty with words and images: these were some of my most favorite days on earth!." ​

PEOPLE
Additionally, some of Janavi's monochrome photographs were published in her first book,
Letters to My Oldest Friend, published in 2017 with Krishna West Press

The Art of Moving Images: 

Janavi's Still Photography Slideshows
*All photography and artwork featured on this site was created by Janavi Held*