Kira Kelly is an American

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...

. She is perhaps best known for her work on ''

13th In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the Musical note, note thirteen scale degrees from the root (chord), root of a chord (music), chord and also the interval (music), interval between the root and the thirteenth. The thirteenth is m ...

'', which earned her an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

nomination, and the cable series ''

Queen Sugar ''Queen Sugar'' is an American drama television series created and executive produced by Ava DuVernay, with Oprah Winfrey serving as an executive producer. DuVernay also directed the first two episodes. The series is based on the 2014 novel o ...

''.

Career

Kelly is a graduate of Northwestern University with a major in Radio/Television/Film. Her professional film career began as an electrician. In a 2017 interview on the public radio series ''The Frame'', she indicated that she would also "shoot any project I could get my hands on." She also learned a lot from working as a gaffer on bigger budget projects. Her early work as a cinematographer included two features directed by Tom Gustafson and the Hulu series '' East Los High''. A big break in her career occurred when

Ava DuVernay Ava Marie DuVernay (; born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. She is a recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, Primetime Emmy Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, NAACP Image Awards, a British Academy Film Awards, ...

reached out to her through social media. This eventually led to Kelly being hired to work on ''13th'', for which she received an

nomination.

Influences

Kelly is influenced by the work of Rinko Kawauchi, Martina Hoogland Ivanow, and

Cy Twombly Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor, and photographer. Twombly influenced artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel, and Jean-Michel Bas ...

Selected filmography

Film

Television

Awards and recognition

* Nominated – Emmy Award for ''13th''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Kira American cinematographers Northwestern University alumni Living people African-American cinematographers Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century African-American people