Janna Ireland (she/her) was born in Philadelphia, but has chosen Los Angeles as her home. She holds an MFA from the UCLA Department of Art and a BFA from the Department of Photography and Imaging at NYU. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and internationally, and is held in the collections of institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the California African American Museum, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Her photographs have appeared in numerous publications, including Aperture, The New Yorker, Harper’s, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times Magazine.

Ireland often uses herself and her family in her personal and editorial work. In recent years, her practice has expanded to include architectural photography. In 2016, she began photographing structures designed by legendary Black architect Paul R. Williams. A collection of 250 of these photographs was published in a monograph entitled Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View, in 2020. Regarding Paul R. Williams was shortlisted for the 2020 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook award. In 2021, Ireland was awarded a Peter E. Pool Research Fellowship by the Nevada Museum of Art to photograph Williams’ work in Nevada.

Ireland is an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Occidental College.