Recently, photographer Annette Nina was dutifully going about finding an artist to fill walls at the Florida Keys History & Discovery Center in Islamorada. Museum staff, knowing that she had helped develop exhibits for the Art Guild of the Purple Isles, had called Nina for suggestions when their space had become available.
Suddenly, she was struck with an “aha” moment.
She had just hung up the phone, yet again, after going through her list — all of the artists had told her they couldn’t.
“I realized, I could fill the space,” she said, with an emphasis on the “I.”
And so, that is how her very first solo show was born — after happily helping to organize many group events at AGPI, and, most importantly, after years of fanning the flames of her passion for photography. From her childhood in Queens through moving to Florida and the Florida Keys and her decades-long career at Delta Airlines, Nina’s devotion to taking pictures has been a constant.
And for those who have had the courage to strike out on your own — whether it be starting your own business, finishing a novel or buying a house, or even crossing your first 5K finish line — you may relate to that scary-yet-feel-good moment of getting up on your own feet. Finally.
Nina’s exhibit is called “Wanderings” and is up at the Discovery Center through Aug. 27. The three walls of her photography have three themes: “Modern History,” “Floral Illusion” and “Day to Day.” They are her testament to all the times she has slung a camera over her shoulder before running an errand, hoping that something will catch her fancy, whether it be a cloud passing over Anthony’s clothing store in Key Largo or a child looking at her with fascination at Burger King.
“I am always looking with an artistic eye,” she told Keys Weekly.
So, this is a very “boomer” question to ask, as the kids say: Remember those Kodak Instamatic cameras from the 70s? With the cube-shaped light that would melt and smell funny when you took a picture? That’s the camera that Nina’s parents gave her one Christmas when she was 11.
She fell in love with photography soon after receiving that gift. She had sneaked into the dining room to take a picture of her brother. As brothers do, he dove under the table when he saw her camera, but Nina snapped the picture just in time. When the photos came back from the developer — back then, it took a few days to get the prints — young Nina was triumphant.
“I envisioned the photo, and I got it,” she said, smiling at the memory.
Nina’s first subjects, the neighborhood kids, were on the streets around her home. And street photography remained a lifelong fascination, right up through the present.
However, the pandemic, as with many of us, forced her indoors to find new ways to express herself. She set up a table with two lights and a backdrop, and began to take still lifes of whatever caught her eye that day.
Just before the world began to isolate at home, she experimented by zeroing in on a tiny dead flower behind a drape of fine mesh, then blowing it up in a print. “Now it seems like a foreboding,” she said.
That photo, “Veiled Roses,” is now in the Floral Illusion part of the exhibit.
Nina points out that she printed all the photographs on display. Camera nerds may want to know that, yes, she did graduate from that Instamatic. The exhibit’s photos were taken by assorted cameras, including a Nikon Z72 and a Nikon D750.
Through her 30-year career at Delta Airlines, she traveled the world and took photos. Her Delta co-worker, friend and occasional travel companion Trudy Aguilar Zaldivar has bought four of Nina’s artworks, and they take pride of place on her walls.
“When I buy a piece, it really has to speak to me immediately. I don’t buy Annette’s work because she’s my friend; I buy because I’m a collector,” she said.
Others agree about Nina’s talent: The photo of the child in the Burger King won an honorable mention at the AGPI judged show in 2022.
Yet, Nina has never wanted to make her art a career.
“I want it for me, for my soul,” she said. “I always want my photography to be my photography, with no rules.”
“Wanderings” is available to view on the second floor at the Florida Keys History & Discovery Center, 82100 Overseas Highway, oceanside, Islamorada, through Aug. 27, Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, contact Annette Nina at 305-394-1236.
