Jennifer McClure is a fine art and documentary photographer based in New York City. She uses the camera to ask and answer questions. She is interested in appearances and absences, short stories and movies without happy endings. Her work is about solitude and a poignant, ambivalent yearning for connection.
The child of a Marine, she moved frequently and traumatically. She decorated her walls with traces of her past; photographs became anchor points. After acquiring a B.A. in English Theory and Literature, Jennifer began a long career in restaurants. She returned to photography in 2001, taking classes at the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography, where she was a teaching assistant for many years.
Jennifer was awarded CENTER's Editor's Choice by Susan White of Vanity Fair in 2013 and has been exhibited in numerous shows across the country. She was a 2019 and 2017 Critical Mass Top 50 finalist and twice received the Arthur Griffin Legacy Award from the Griffin Museum of Photography. Lectures include the School of Visual Arts i3: Images, Ideas, Inspiration series, Fotofusion, FIT, NY Photo Salon and Columbia Teacher's College. She has taught workshops at PDN's PhotoPlus Expo, the Maine Media Workshops, and Fotofusion. She was a thesis reviewer and advisor for the Masters Programs at both the School of Visual Arts and New Hampshire Institute of Art. Her work has been featured in publications such as GUP, The New Republic, Lenscratch, Feature Shoot, L'Oeil de la Photographie, The Photo Review, Dwell, Adbusters, and PDN. She also founded the Women's Photo Alliance in 2015.