Dan Nelken is a photographer, documentary storyteller, and educator based in New York City. His work focuses on long-term projects about people and communities often overlooked by the cultural mainstream. Born to Holocaust survivors, Nelken lived in three countries before his family settled in Chicago, an experience that shaped his understanding of being an outsider. His first book, Till the Cows Come Home: County Fair Portraits, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2003. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and are held in collections including the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Portland Art Museum, and the MAST Foundation in Bologna.
His book HeadStrong: The Women of Rural Uganda (Kehrer Verlag, 2026) brings together portraits and personal stories of working women across rural Uganda, made over four trips between 2017 and 2019. Nelken made the portraits while Ugandan writer Beatrice Lamwaka spoke with each woman, and the book combines the photographs with the women’s own accounts and essays by Ber Anena and Stella Nyanzi.
