Artist Statement
My photographs always begin with a question or some curiosity that arises within me. In more than thirty years, I have rarely photographed the external world for its own sake, but for the ways in which it helps to reveal subconscious processes and evoke meaning. I generally focus on a single subject in a related series of images, which allows me to hone in on the heart of what I am after. I also have a contemplative awareness practice that is of central importance to me, and which guides and enhances my working methods and my output.
As an artist who has always liked to experiment, I find that pushing the boundaries of what is possible with both camera and darkroom techniques motivates my best work. I photograph with film and sometimes use a pinhole or Holga camera for making images. I love the darkroom process and take advantage of every tool and technique at my disposal. Playing with exposure, focus, and a wide variety of photographic solutions, I embrace creative accidents, and willingly abandon rules of darkroom procedure, with the intention of expressing a distinctive vision by whatever method seems right. I occasionally enlarge my gelatin silver pieces digitally, but only after darkroom work is completed - it’s my sole nod to the digital revolution.
Biography
Award-winning fine art photographer Jane Olin is based in California’s Monterey Bay area. Working for over thirty years at the epicenter of the West Coast photography movement, Olin originally learned straight photography in the style of the historic Group f64 from students of Ansel Adams. Since then, she has carved out a distinctly personal vision that challenges traditional darkroom techniques.
Raised in Steilacoom overlooking Puget Sound in Washington State, Olin grew up surrounded by forests. She has traveled extensively and is especially drawn to Japan – both its aesthetics and its Zen Buddhism. She maintains a mindfulness practice and present moment awareness is embedded in her photographic process. Her choice of subject originates in internal questioning, personal experience, and relies heavily on intuition. She works in series of related images, a method that allows for extended explorations of her subject. A lifelong champion of women in the arts, Olin founded Salon Jane, a women’s photography collective in 2014.
In California, Olin’s work has been the subject of solo and Salon Jane exhibitions at the Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, NUMU New Museum, Los Gatos, Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, Carmel, and Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, among many others. Her work was included in the 2022 exhibition, Trees Stir in Their Leaves at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, and her NUMU solo exhibition traveled to Illinois Tech, Chicago IL, in 2023. Her most recent solo exhibition, Jane Olin: Some Trees at Monterey Museum of Art, was held in 2026.
Olin has won numerous juror awards, including a FAPA Fine Art Photography Award, an IPA Top 5 Jury Portfolio Selection, and a Best of Show IPA International Photography Award. Her work is held in the collections of Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene OR, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA, and Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL. In California, her work is held at the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, NUMU New Museum Los Gatos, and Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey.
The Jane Olin Collection for California Women Photographers was established in Fall 2025 at the Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA.