Family
Flowers

Bob Kelley

Bob Kelley's relationship with photography began in 1977, in Mr. Doyle's Science class. The assignment was to create a photogram — a camera-less image made by placing an object directly onto light-sensitive paper and exposing it to light. Kelley chose a single freshly cut rose. Watching its silhouette slowly emerge in the darkroom felt like a small act of magic, something that held both mystery and revelation. He was captivated.

His love for flowers had taken root a few years earlier, when he moved into his grandmother's home. An eccentric and devoted woman, she had wallpapered her rooms with dramatic floral patterns, and her gardens were expressions of care, beauty, and memory.

After art school, Kelley continued documenting the family events and rituals that mattered most to him. His children are now grown, and he has 56 grandchildren filling his visual journal without pause. When a job opportunity brought him to the Bay Area, much in his life changed — but what remained constant was his desire to photograph the people who shape his world, many of them now scattered back on the East Coast. Photography, he says, allows him to hold onto them before they slip away.

Family Flowers is drawn from nearly five decades of looking closely at the people and places he loves most.