“I Will Not Tone It Down” Brenda Keneally on Using Photography to Transform Lives

Brenda Ann Kenneally (born October 23, 1959) is an acclaimed American photojournalist and documentary photographer recognized for her work addressing social issues such as poverty, addiction, and the underground drug economy. Her evocative imagery has been featured in leading publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Ms.

Keneally has received numerous accolades for her impactful storytelling, including the Community Awareness Award from the National Press Photographers Association in 2000 and the International Prize for Photojournalism in 2001.

Beyond her photography, Kenneally is the founder of A Little Creative Class, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering low-income youth by providing access to art and opportunities in the growing idea-based economy. Through her lens and advocacy, she amplifies the voices of marginalized communities and inspires systemic change.

instagram@alittlecreativeclassinc

HM: Brenda, Can you tell me a bit more about your upbringing and how you think it's shaped your work?

BK: That’s a big part of it. I grew up in a very complicated household. My mother had a fraught relationship with my grandmother, who raised her during the Great Depression. My mother was considered "wild," sent to convent school, and had no real education beyond secretarial school. She struggled with shame her whole life, probably due to undiagnosed learning disabilities like dyslexia, and that affected how she saw herself. That shame was passed on to me in many ways. When I was born—out of wedlock, to a father who was an alcoholic and diagnosed with what we now call bipolar disorder—it was a tough start. My father was loving in his own strange way, but also mentally ill, and my mother carried the burden of our family. She was one of the first divorced women in our Catholic neighborhood, which came with its own stigma.

I spent my teenage years bouncing in and out of trouble, on probation, even in group homes. I ended up hitchhiking to Florida and stayed there for 20 years. That’s where I really hit rock bottom with alcoholism. At 27, I found Alcoholics Anonymous, which became my guiding force. Unity, love, and service—those are the principles that guide AA, and they became the principles that guide my work as a photographer. Through that process, I discovered photography. It started simply—taking pictures of squirrels in the park—but it became so much more.

Photography was my way of making sense of the world, unpacking the context behind everything. I think back to when I was a kid, standing in front of a judge who listed all the things I had done wrong—punching holes in walls, acting out. No one ever asked why I did those things, and I couldn’t explain myself. That’s why my work is so obsessive about capturing the full context—because I was never given the chance to explain my own.

Troy, New York 2006
Destiny in her new room after the family got their own apartment after a string of evictions and bouncing between relative’s couches.

HM: It’s clear that your art is deeply personal and therapeutic for both you and those you work with. How do you see this influencing the next phase of your career?

BK: I think the next phase of my career will continue to be about integration—blending my personal experiences, my history, and the stories of the people I photograph. My upbringing was a mixture of survival and resilience, and I see that same fight in the people I work with. But I want my work to be about more than just highlighting pain. It’s about healing and transformation.

I’m writing a memoir now, which ties into this. My book agent encouraged me to write it, saying that it could open doors for future projects, including a second book. It’s funny how much work it takes just to tell your story. But at the end of the day, that’s what I’m trying to do—tell my story through photojournalism, through art, and through the lives of the people I document. Their struggles are my struggles, and my art is as much about validating my own experiences as it is about showing theirs. That’s why it’s so important to me—because through this work, I’m not just BEARING WITNESS TO their lives, I’m also healing my own and as i do I gather the strength and resources to take more of my people along with me on that journey.

Troy, New York 2019
Jackie Marie age 30 with her five year old Jaylynn who holds a heart shaped bottle containing some of her father’s crematory ashes. The vial Jaylynn calls the bottle her “daddy” is part of a shrine that Jackie keeps to honor the memory of the young father, shot and killed when Jackie six month pregnant and who Jaylynn will never meet .

HM: So, how you first got into photography. Was it something you always wanted to pursue?

BK: It wasn’t something I grew up wanting to do at all. I actually hitchhiked to Florida when I was 17 and wound up marrying this much older guy who was a postal worker. I was drinking a lot back then and didn't have much of an idea about life or where I was headed. Honestly, at that time, my life felt pretty directionless. I was waitressing, I had no power in my relationship, and none of my friends seemed to either. I realized I needed an identity of my own, something separate from my marriage or my drinking. That was a big turning point.

I decided to go back to school—well, community college, which was affordable enough that I could pay for it with the tips I made from waitressing. I remember seeing Barbara Walters on TV and thinking, "I like talking to people, maybe I’d like journalism or writing." I had always been into poetry for some reason, even back when I was doing amphetamines, and I thought maybe I could try something creative.

So, I took a photography class at the community college. They gave us cameras to use—I think mine was a Nikon Nikkormat—and we worked with black-and-white film, developing it ourselves in the darkroom. That was my first experience with photography. One of my first photos was of a squirrel sitting on a metal garbage can at the mall. It's such a simple image, but that moment stayed with me for years.

Bushwick, Brooklyn NY 1998
My son Simon and his godbrother Andy

HM: What was it about photography that hooked you? Why did it feel different from other creative outlets?

BK: It gave me a sense of PURPOSE that I hadn’t had in my life up until then.In many ways I was so filled with shame that photography became a validation for my existence. I had been so lost in my relationships and in drinking that photography was a way for me to say, “There is a reason for me to be here.” It’s also very immediate. The act of taking a picture, developing it, and seeing the result—it’s a direct connection between you and the world. There’s no middleman.

But there was more to it. In that photography class, I felt something click. I started taking photos of things that represented the chaos and dysfunction I had grown up with. At one point, I was volunteering at a soup kitchen and photographing homeless people in Miami. Something about those people, their circumstances, reflected the things I couldn’t articulate about my own life. It felt raw, real, and unfiltered.

HM: And you mentioned earlier that you got sober around this time. How did that change things for you creatively?

BK: Oh, getting sober was huge. That was in 1986. I had been a stockbroker for a while, but once I got sober, I couldn’t keep doing that job. It was at odds with everything I was learning in AA. I couldn’t sell things I knew were worthless. So, I quit and started focusing on photography. But before that happened, there was this pivotal moment. I was working this random job for a guy in construction—he was a real character, this Jewish man named Herb Spolin. He would literally tear his shirts off his back when he became frustrated during a work day.—it was wild. Anyway, one day I was flipping through a magazine at work, and I came across a Diane Arbus photograph of Brenda Frazier, this former debutante who had become a reclusive alcoholic. That image hit me so hard. I thought, "This is what I want to do."

It was more than just photography—it was about seeing the forgotten, the marginalized, the people who were struggling and sometimes more difficult to connect with . My own life had been full of those experiences. My father had mental illness, my mother was disabled, and I never felt like I fit in. Arbus’s work made me realize that photography could be a way to tell those kinds of stories.

Troy, New York 2008
Napping on table with grape jelly

HM: That's a powerful realization. It sounds like you really saw yourself in that kind of work.

BK: Exactly. I saw a way to channel all of that pain and confusion into something productive. Photography became a way to make sense of the world. And I was lucky to have people around me who encouraged me. My AA sponsor saw one of my early photos—the squirrel on the garbage can—and said, "You're good at this. You should pursue it." It was one of those small moments that changed everything.

I ended up selling this little diamond necklace I had bought when I was still working as a stockbroker and used the money to buy my own Nikkormat camera. Then I got a job at a one-hour photo processing place, and that’s where things really started to take off for me. I was down in Miami photographing homeless people under the bridges, and it all felt so immediate, so real.

Troy, New York 2020
Thirteen year old Practice and her dog Brownie, take a moment to pray for healing over an infection in her mother Jody's right breast. Earlier that day Jody had returned home untreated after being turned away from the doors of the clinic where she was a regular patient. Closed due to COVID Virus, the clinic referred Jody to the emergency room which was an overcrowded and posed an additional risk for Jody's fragile health condition.

Troy, New York 2019
Kandice never went back to work at Burger King after her son was born, and two years later married a new boyfriend, Kandice gave birth to a second son, and moved her budding family of four into one of the makeshift basement rooms that have been invaluable resources during times of transition, these basement quarters have prevented generations of Kandice’s extended family from becoming homeless or losing custody of their children because they could not provide stable housing.

HM: And eventually, you went back to school, right?

BK: Yeah, I went back to the University of Miami and studied photography there. I got my GED first because I had dropped out of high school. I had a few teachers who really believed in me, and that made all the difference. David Kent, who had studied with Walker Evans, and Michael Carlebach, a photojournalist, both saw something in me. They introduced me to editors at the Miami Herald, and I started shooting for their Sunday section.

I kept in touch with those mentors throughout my life. In fact, twenty years later, when I got the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014, Michael Carlebach was one of the people who wrote a recommendation letter for me. That sense of community and mentorship has been crucial to my growth as an artist.

Troy, New York 2008
Kayla in bedroom with anime

HM: It seems like mentorship has played a big role in your journey. Do you feel like it’s important to pass that on, to be that person for someone else?

BK: Absolutely. I think it’s essential to share what you’ve learned and to build others up. Photography is about more than just taking pictures—it’s about connection, about seeing people and being seen. If I can help someone find their voice the way my mentors helped me, then I feel like I’m putting into practice what I have learned while photographing. Photography is the path, what I do with where it has taken me is the real work of art. Whether it's through mentorship or just by being a good example. Like with the kids I work with now in Troy, who come from such tough backgrounds. A lot of them have seen so much violence, more than I ever did growing up in that region. They need someone to believe in them, to open a door. And if I can be that person, even for just one of them, then that’s enough for me.

Troy, New York 2008
One of Kayla’s nephews gets a bath in the kitchen sink to cut down on the traffic in the family’s over taxed bathroom.

HM: You mentioned trauma earlier, both in the context of the people you work with and yourself. How do you see trauma affecting these communities?

BK: Trauma is real, and it’s not just emotional; it’s physical. It changes your nervous system, your fight-or-flight response, and the way you engage with the world. It creates barriers—sometimes literally keeping people from leaving their neighborhoods because it feels unsafe to venture beyond that perimeter. Trauma manifests in many ways—poor impulse control, acting out, and even physical health issues. In some of these kids, I’ve seen trauma play out in ways similar to PTSD in war veterans. And that’s what people need to understand—these communities are at war, but it’s easier to blame them than to address the systemic violence they face.

Trauma also impacts their ability to access joy or happiness. I learned from a therapist that for someone like Tony—a boy I’ve photographed since he was born—the experience of happiness might be so foreign that it feels uncomfortable. I’ve seen that in myself too. When people express joy around me, I sometimes instinctively want to remind them of the pain in the world. It’s like trauma becomes the norm, and anything outside of that feels alien.

HM: You’ve done such personal, immersive work with this community for decades. How has this work affected you personally, and how do you manage the emotional weight of it?

BK: The work is devastating to me, both because of what I’ve seen and because, in some ways, I’ve been reliving my own trauma by staying in these environments. But there’s another side to it—there’s also a drive to do something about it. Over the years, I’ve watched as these kids grow older, knowing where their lives are headed if nothing intervenes. And I’ve tried to intervene in small ways—starting a non-profit, funding it through selling my own home—but the problems are much bigger than any one person can fix.

What keeps me going is knowing that the work needs to be done. I’ve seen entire generations affected by internalized trauma and poverty, and I can’t just walk away. But there’s a toll—it’s exhausting to carry the weight of these stories with you, especially when you feel powerless to change the broader system.

Troy, New York 2020
Deb’s neighbor, Barb was evicted from her her apartment at the beginning of the pandemic when limited government services and a shut down of the rental trade left them to linger in a homeless shelter for a year. The kids would get so homesick they would ask to go to their storage unit to look for familiar things from their apartment to take back to the shelter with them. Amber age ten who was hit particularly hard is comforted by her older siblings Thomas and Ashley as they unearthed Amber’s rainbow unicorn plush toy.

HM: You’ve published books, organized exhibitions, and engaged directly with the communities you photograph. How do the people you document react when they see themselves in your work?

BK: It’s interesting—their reactions are often much more personal and less analytical than viewers might expect. When people see their photos, their first thoughts are things like, “Oh, my hair looks bad” or “I look fat in that picture.” They aren’t thinking about the broader societal implications of the image. Viewers, on the other hand, often feel a certain discomfort or shame when looking at the photos, which speaks more to their own perceptions of poverty.

What’s important to me is that the people I work with are on board with the project. They know what I’m doing, and they’re part of it. If they didn’t believe in the cause, I wouldn’t have stayed there for 20 years. We’ve done community exhibitions where they hang the photos themselves, and in one project, we created scrapbooks where they shared their own stories. I want them to be active participants, not passive subjects.

Schenectady, New York 2019
Laurie’s son Darien and Laurie’s Grandson Christian also live in Laurie’s apartment. Darien and Laurie work together at Dunkin Donuts and Darien also chips in for the rent and the family takes turns with Christian’s child care.

HM: You’ve spoken a lot about the importance of context. Can you explain how you approach this in your work?

BK: Context is everything. When I started, I was shooting in black and white, but I quickly realized that color was essential because it added layers of information—like the garish, globalized, disposable food that surrounds these people. Everything in these photos has meaning, from the colors of the food to the environment they live in. It’s all part of the story.

What I aim to do is provide a landscape of their lives, with roots and branches that connect to broader social and economic issues. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and I want the photos to show that. That’s why, in our next book, we’re including QR codes so people can hear the stories behind the images directly from the people in them.

HM: You’ve mentioned that this work has been difficult to sustain financially. How have you managed to fund it over the years?

BK: It’s been a challenge. In 1999, I received about $80,000 in grants, which I used to buy a house in New York. I refinanced it five times during the financial crisis, and that allowed me to continue working on this project. But you can’t fund work like this with editorial commissions—they’re too inconsistent, and they don’t pay enough. More and more, I see that the people who can afford to do this kind of work come from wealth. I don’t have that, so I’ve had to get creative.

Now, with interest rates so high, that financial cushion is gone, but I’m lucky enough to get Social Security, so that helps me keep going. But there’s no steady income from this, and I don’t think there could be, not for work like this.

Troy, NY 2020
Stockla’s extended family pitched in for a Mothers Day feast during the pandemic and all the women cooked as their kids flooded in and out of the kitchen.

HM: You mentioned earlier that you don’t want to keep documenting problems. You want to focus on solutions. Can you talk more about that?

BK: Absolutely. I’ve spent years photographing hardship, but I don’t want to keep perpetuating the narrative that these kids are only defined by their struggles. Yes, they’re up against a lot—poverty, neglect, violence—but I’m more interested now in documenting their solutions, their healing, and their growth. I believe deeply in nature therapy and the healing power of connecting with the natural world.

I want to take some of these kids to places like Yellowstone, to give them an experience they’ve never had before and allow them to document their own feelings about it. We’ve had a taste of this kind of project when we traveled across the country, but there’s hunger for more. These kids can become ambassadors for the idea that healing doesn’t just come from social services; it comes from art, from nature, from connection.

Freemont Street, Las Vegas Nevada 2010
Lady Goon gambling at The Western Hotel and Casino

HM: It sounds like you’re really focused on giving them agency in their own stories. How do you see your role evolving as you take these next steps?

BK: I’m at a point where I need to make some big decisions. I can’t do everything myself, and I don’t have endless resources. Some of these kids are ready to take their own journeys, and I’d love to support them more fully. I’ve even thought about having a few of them come live with me for a while, to provide a safe and creative space where they can grow.

At the same time, I still see myself as an artist. I need to keep creating, to use art as a way to heal both myself and others. Art has saved me in many ways, and I think it can save others, too. But there’s a balance I have to strike—between being a caregiver, a mentor, and an artist.

Troy, New York 2008
Dasaun and his mother Billie Jean are Kayla’s extended family who lived in Kayla’s basement, with Billie Jeans’ mother Roseanne who was given a room there in exchange for childcare. Roseanne died and Bille Jean and her son moved to the Schuyler Inn Family Shelter when other immediate family members need the basement room the mother and son were occupying.

HM: You’ve been very candid about the struggles you faced growing up. How do you think that personal history influences your work with these kids?

BK: My background gives me a certain kind of access that others might not have. I’ve been in their shoes, in some ways. I know what it’s like to feel unheard, to feel like the system is stacked against you. And I think that’s why they trust me. They know I’m not a cop or a social worker. I’m someone who has lived through trauma and come out the other side.

I also think that growing up in a family where hardship was often ignored or swept under the rug has shaped my desire to speak out. My mother never really told me she loved me, and she often encouraged me to “tone it down”—to not be so loud, not be so visible. In a way, my photography is my answer to that. It’s me saying, “I will not tone it down. I will be loud and visible, and so will these kids.”

Troy, New York 2018
Dana, Big Jessie and their half sister Stacy are all Terri’s daughters. Stacy was a child when Terri met Dana and Jessie’s father Gregg, a violent alcoholic whose drinking resulted in a child welfare, charges of neglect and the girls being farmed out to relatives homes until their parents could provide stability. Stacy went to live with her birth father, while Dana and Big Jessie stayed together with their Aunts family. Stacey didn’t weather the childhood trauma as well as her sisters, she became a drifter, having multiple children that she lost custody of… Finally Stacy met Rick an alcoholic, twenty years her senior and the couple has continued a life punctuated by economic instability, like this winter when they braved freezing temperatures in a cabin with no utilities... scraping together enough money to buy gas for a portable heater meant to be used on construction sites.

HM: That’s incredibly moving. How do you handle the emotional toll of this kind of work, especially when you see kids who may not make it out of their circumstances?

BK: That’s the hardest part. There are some kids whose shells of protection are so thick that it’s hard to get through. I’ve seen some who are already lost, who’ve given up on themselves. It’s heartbreaking, but you can’t save everyone. And I’m learning to accept that.

But there are others—rare ones—who are ready to break free, to transform. When you see that spark, it’s everything. It makes the hard days worth it. I wish I had the resources to help more of them seize that moment. But I have to keep going, even with the limitations I have. I’m not a doctor, but I am an artist, and through art, I hope to offer them a way out.

Troy, New York 2010
Lawrence at the window

HM: I’ve heard you’re also working on a memoir. How does that fit into your overall body of work?

BK: The memoir is another way for me to unpack my story. I’ve been encouraged to write more, not just rely on my photography, and I think there’s power in that. As a photojournalist, I’ve often had my work presented through the words of others. But this memoir is my voice, unfiltered.

It’s also a way to process my own life, to look back on where I came from and how that’s shaped me. And, in a way, it ties back to my work with these kids. Just as I’m helping them tell their stories, I’m finally telling mine.

Troy New York, 2016
Dunkin Donuts on Valenitines Day

HM: Brenda, thank you for sharing all of this. It’s clear that your work isn’t just about documenting the present but also about envisioning a better future. I’m really looking forward to seeing where you take it next.

BK: Thank you, HOT MIRROR. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. This work is my life, and I’m excited to keep pushing it forward.