Kelly Engel Wells

is my name, and I am an immigration defense lawyer, former elementary school teacher, and aspiring photographer living in Oakland, CA (via New York City and El Paso, Texas). I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and studied photography at the Manchester Craftsman's Guild and the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts. I am descended from bona fide yinzers on one side of the family and California gold rushers on the other side. This combination makes me sun-loving and extremely sympathetic to all different dialects of alternative grammar.

aybe because I didn't study photography, and instead studied Latin American literature, education, and law, I am very interested in telling untold stories with my images, or even better, in facilitating people who are often silenced, profiled, or stereotyped in telling their own stories. I believe that it matters who takes the picture, who chooses what to show and how, and who decides how an image is narrated. I thoroughly enjoy taking photographs, but am also always looking for opportunities to teach photography or otherwise find ways to involve subjects in telling their own stories.

This guy on the left is not me, but he has a medium format camera and a cat, so he seems alright.