Lisa Candela is an American analog photographer born in 1971 in La Jolla, California. Exposure to the arts came early for Lisa when she began taking solo trips to New York City at age four to visit her grandmother, Jeanne Thayer, a life trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. Lisa was also deeply inspired by the legacy of her great grandfather, Rosario Candela, one of New York City’s most prominent architects in the early 1900s.
However, it wasn’t until 1992 when her uncle gave her an old Nikon camera, that her love for taking photos really began. At night she studied photography at UCLA. During the day, she received hands-on experience working in a photo lab and photographing her friends, many of whom were aspiring actors, musicians, models, and dancers.
In 1998 Lisa began traveling to Mexico regularly, feeling powerfully pulled by the culture, spirituality, people and ancient wisdom of the country, eventually moving to Sayulita in 2005.
“Mexico has so much to offer in the way of a spiritual journey. Such loyalty, emotion, pride and pain, produce a deep wisdom that reflects the natural rhythm of the Earth”
– Lisa Candela, Journal Entry 2005
Resisting the digital movement, Lisa insists on photographing with film. In order to express the depths of the moment and richness of the mood, she feels the emotion of the subject is best translated through the granular and organic nature of film.
With her love for adventure and compassion for people all over the world, her connection with Dan Eldon was inevitable. Dan’s vast collection of photographs and collages captured a visual legacy of war-torn Africa until his death at the age of twenty-two. In the summer of 2006, she left her paradise in Sayulita for the fast pace of New York City. Lisa gained prominence through the New York Times for her curatorial debut show of hand-selected fine art and photography by Eldon.
The success of the one-night show in 2006 led to the founding of her own gallery in SoHo, New York in 2007.
Eventually, the hustle of life in New York City, combined with her desire to follow her evolving artistic journey, finally led Lisa to close the gallery and move upstate to the Catskill Mountains in 2009. The respite she sought and found there fueled the creation of the legendary Bohemia Bungalow venture in Bovina, New York. The Bungalow, functioning as a hotel, became a frequent getaway for friends and muses from all over the United States. Its beautiful location and rural culture gave birth to an expansive four-year photographic documentation.
While living in the Catskills, Lisa learned that the abandoned Gerry Estate, also known as “Broadlands,” had been acquired by the Aman Hotel Group. She was drawn to the Broadlands Estate for its history, intriguing current abandonment, and rich patina, and felt it important to photographically document the estate before the new ownership would prevent access to the mansion and its few thousand acres. Lisa’s friendship with the caretaker allowed her and her muses access to photograph whenever they pleased.
“As soon as one would step onto the grounds you couldn’t help but imagine what life was like in the turn of the century, when it was pioneered… a life that should be painted. This was my mission for the collection, but to paint with the lens.”
Lisa Candela
Watershed Post, 2011
Lisa’s exhibition “Broadlands” in Andes, New York was known for its exquisite photographs printed on lush watercolor paper, depicting Lisa’s subjects in the famed Gerry Estate, capturing its timeless glory.
Lisa’s current exhibition “Heartlands” is a body of work that would not be, if not for love. In 2013 she traveled to the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary of western South Dakota for the wedding of dear friends. There, Lisa experienced a profound connection with the sacred Lakota lands and eventually returned to the Black Hills in 2014 to begin what would become her first wildlife photographic documentation, leading finally to the present “Heartlands” Collection.
This collection marks a notable evolution in Lisa’s photographic style, capturing the “healing medicines” of the native wildlife in their original habitat, the birthplace of Lakota history— the area known as Wind Cave.