Jenny Hannah Roche is a narrative-based photographer and director who has been working in analog and digital mediums for over twenty years. The ethereal cinematic images she directs and creates with her subjects explore ideas steeped in desire, identity, gender expression, and sexuality. Creating sensual narratives that allow her subjects to feel seen and actualised is the most rewarding part of her work. Creating and photographing worlds where clients get to explore intimate high-concept narratives is her superpower.

Raised by wolves under an eternal blanket of fog in rural Oregon, she grew tall and saucy in a log cabin fashioned with a jacuzzi bathtub but no indoor toilet to speak of. Mom traded Grateful Dead shows for Disneyland vacations and purchased Jenny Hannah her first camera, at age sixteen. 

Jenny left home that following year and travelled near and far. She lived in a few national parks and even in a tent on Orcas Island for a spell. That Pentax film camera seemed to be the only item she never lost; like a second appendage, it pointed her in divine directions. She had a voracious appetite for people and their stories, and her trusty companion got her an unlimited backstage pass. 

The pursuit of higher education was the most expensive gift she ever gave herself. At 26, she was accepted at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. There, she fell madly in love with photography and basically moved into the color darkroom. Jenny was awarded participation in the New York Studio program at Parsons, NYC in 2007. In 2009 she defended her thesis at PNCA titled “Memento Mori” and went on to graduate as the photo laureate of the 2009 class. 

After graduation, she sold everything she owned (which was not a lot) and bought a one-way ticket to New York. She did many things in the big apple, some of which will not be mentioned here. 

She assisted fashion photographers, worked for a photo production magazine, helped curate art auctions and performed in bizarre art installations. She was even invited to participate in a group show at the Chelsea Hotel before it sold. Jenny likes to entertain the notion, that perhaps small fragments of the hotel's most colourful residents of bygone days travelled back west with her when she returned home.

Jenny now balances her time between commissioned portraits, commercial/fashion narratives, and creating her signature Pillow Books. She currently resides in Eugene, Oregon where she is raising her hysterical three-year-old daughter Tigerlily Bowie Bressler with her husband Daniel. 

Her work is forever committed to challenging social norms by upholding an inclusive, body-positive, sex-positive, LGBTQ+, safe space that continual works to recognise intersectionality.

Contact her directly regarding commissions, projects, collaborations, representation and whatever else comes to mind at jennyhannah1979@gmail.com.

© 2022 Jenny Hannah Roche

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