Salimah Ali

Salimah Ali (born 1954) is an American photographer working in portraiture, documentary photography, and photojournalism. She is a member of the Kamoinge Workshop, a collective of African American photographers founded in 1963, and was its second woman member after Ming Smith.

Early life and education Ali was born in 1954 in Harlem, New York City. She spent her childhood moving between Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, including the Gowanus Houses in Brooklyn and the South Jamaica Houses in Queens. Her father, John Allen, was an oil painter who worked as a parts maker for Fairchild Industries; he had contracted polio as a child and remained largely self-taught as an artist. He introduced Ali to art from a young age and bought her her first camera. Her photographs have also been published in books including Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present by Deborah Willis, Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers, Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge, and MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora.

Since 2001, Ali has worked as a staff photographer for the New York City Police Department, primarily producing booking photographs and official portraits. She won the inaugural Shahin Shahablou Photography Award in London. In 2019, her work was included in a group exhibition at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. In 2020, she participated in Visions 1020 at the Wilmer Jennings Kenkeleba Gallery in the East Village.