Alinder, James

American, 1941-2023

BiographyA photographer for over forty years, James Alinder experimented with a variety of camera types for his work, including creating images from Instamatic and Diana cameras. Photographing in both black and white and color, his subjects cover a variety of areas including classic cars, market produce, landscapes, wine country and the natives of Somalia. One of his most extensive bodies of work uses a panoramic camera with a 150-degree lens, responding to relationships between people and their environments. In many of these images, including Christmas at Hinky Dinky, Lincoln, Nebraska (1971), Alinder portrays individual figures or small groups of people within their larger environment, utilizing the extended format of the panoramic frame to distort their surroundings. Alinder’s own children and grandchildren often appear in throughout the work.

Alinder was born in Glendale, California and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He completed a BA in Political Science at Macalester College, Minnesota (1962) and an MFA in Photography and Art History at the University of Mexico, Albuquerque (1968). In 1977, Ansel Adams invited Alinder to become the executive director of The Friends of Photography, a visual arts organization founded in Carmel, California. Alinder resigned from the position in 1989 to focus on his own photography, and the following year he and his wife opened the Alinder Studio and Gallery in Gualala, California. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; George Eastman House, Rochester; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Smithsonian Institute; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.