Nan is a new member of the Nevada Artist Assn. and grew up among photographers, notably her late father, also an artist and sculptor. After her first photo was recognized in the Photo Laureates Anthology for its asymmetric composition and light mix, she was invited to submit photos in their monthly competition. She is waiting to hear from the Epoch Times International Photography Competition and has had her photos published numerous times in the International Library of Photography for their unique perspective and artistic vision.
Nancy (Nan) Moore Aki
Reno, NV
Ph. (775) 851-7167
African "Ruby" Water lily
Hughes Water Gardens, Portland OR
Bird of Paradise
Botanical Gardens in Southern California
Akaka Falls
Near Hilo, Hawaii
"Sailing Around Tahoe"
East Shore Lake Tahoe
"Indian Creek Winter Wonderland"
Indian Valley in Plumas County, CA
"Chinese Junk"
Gulangu Isle near South China Coast
"Well-Dressed Baby in Stroller"
Beijing Mall, China
"Flowering Artichoke"
Hughes Water Gardens, Portland OR
"Vendors Along the Yangtze River"
China
Nancy (dubbed "Gypsy Nan" by her mother) was born in Santa Rosa, California, and followed in her dad's footsteps literally as he was always photographing subjects of interest, whether landscapes or people...and he always spoke about having "an eye" to take good pictures. She and her younger brother who later became a professional wedding photographer, spent hours at the Santa Rosa Junior College where their dad was employed, first as a landscape gardener after taking botany and later when he was superintendent of the buildings and grounds. In the early years, the family lived right on campus, so they would accompany him to watch him take care of the beautiful pansy beds, gladiolas and rose bushes as well as go with him to the darkroom on many occasions to watch him develop and print his own beautiful black and white photographs for the Redwood Empire Camera Club in which he later became President. He won many awards in juried shows and events and was well-known in Santa Rosa at that time. He also started taking small colored slides and Nan fondly remembers seeing the ones he took in Georgia while her dad was in Officers' Training School during the war.
After returning to California, the family moved back to Santa Rosa and then when Nan was in the third grade, her family bought property from her dad's Botany teacher in Kenwood near Glen Ellen, in what was then called Jack London's "Valley of the Moon." That was when her dad began taking and showing his large-size colored slides to groups and Nan therefore gained more perspective about composition as well as developed her own sense of what was good photography. Her father after retirement from the junior college, began taking art classes and soon was painting with oils and acrylics in addition to doing pencil and ink sketches. This talent for art also reached into the area of sculpture and again, not only her father's vivid paintings, but his real-life sculptures in wood and other mediums were shown throughout the area, especially in many of the wine tasting rooms that had sprung up into what was becoming the now famous Wine Country of Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino Counties. The family's love of the outdoors whether by camping, taking short rides or traveling to National Parks inspired Nan to become quite the traveler herself' and she especially loved seeing her father's photographs of wild flowers.
Nan's first marriage out of high school in 1956 led to her following her husband 18 mos. later to Germany and there they traveled to Paris, Switzerland, the French Riviera, Italy, and then back through Bavaria to their home near Frankfurt...all the while Nan photographed breathtaking scenery and read library books in preparation for their trips and the perfect places to photograph with their black and white camera. She also took 8 mm. movies constantly. After their return to Sonoma County, she ended up raising her four children mostly by herself. Then in 1980, she married a Hawaiian man after moving to Santa Cruz...They also lived in Plumas County, Reno, back to Santa Rosa, and then moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1995, where they grew acquainted with a sizeable Chinese group in their church congregation.
In 1999, after having learned some Chinese, they decided to move to China and her third son, then 34, who lives with Nan and is developmentally-disabled, accompanied them. During their 15 mos. there, Nan taught English. By then, she had graduated to a video camera and spent most of her spare time videotaping the sights and sounds of this very intriguing country with its very friendly people...During their fourth trip to China, Nan began using a Kodak Advantix camera.
Finally, just before her husband died, Nan purchased her first digital camera and began photographing the residents of the assisted living facility where she was allowed to be with him (using her experience of newspaper reporting in Plumas County where she and her children lived prior to her second marriage), wrote stories about their interesting lives and also gave them calendars and greeting cards she had made from her photographs. With her own printer, she was constantly "working" to produce professional-looking photographs and many people were raving about them.
After her husband's death in December, 2005, Nan moved back to Plumas County to be near her second son who had also lost his wife the following year and then after he remarried, she and her third son moved to Carson City in June, 2007, and then a year later she moved to Reno and has been assisting Chinese in Bible study. On the side, she has been photographing everything of interest from the desert to Tahoe ever since... her first trip to Utah's National Parks and Arizona have resulted in very good digital photos.
Nan's biggest dream, however, is to return to her favorite place in the world and that is to China as she really wants to take photos of the many places she enjoyed traveling to before, particularly to her favorite city where she and her family lived, Xiamen, in Fujian Province with its white, sandy beaches, and its small Gulangyu Isle on the S. China Sea; Guilin, just a two-hour flight from Hong Kong, that is a honeymooner's paradise with its pin-shaped, limestone karst mountains on the Li River; Zhangjiajie, China's first national forest reserve in Hunan, with its towering pinnacles, mountains, waterfalls and subterranean rivers; and Lijiang's Old Town in N. Yunnan Province, with its towering 18,000 ft. Jade Dragon Snow Mountain bordering Tibet. This trip would be the ultimate to complete her quest for taking photos with her second digital camera of this mostly, rather little-known part of China.
You can see more of Nan's photos at: www.flickr.com/photos/gypsynan