Romaine Orthwein was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1965. After graduating from boarding school, Romaine moved to New York City in 1984 to study Theater and Film Theory at New York University. She first picked up a 35mm camera while she was studying abroad in Sydney, Australia in 1986. Upon graduating from NYU in 1988, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. Romaine left the film industry after 9 years in 1997 to dedicate herself to photography. For the next three years, Romaine worked as a commercial and fine art photographer in Los Angeles. Her commercial work included advertising campaigns, poster art for films and extensive portraiture.

In 1999, Romaine moved back to New York to pursue her fine art photography. She received her MFA in photography and related media from the School of Visual Arts in 2003 and she is currently on the Alumni Society Board of the School of Visual Arts. Working with ambiguous narratives, her images have incorporated her captivation with storytelling, directing, performing and psychology. Stranger Than Life, her first solo exhibition, opened in Los Angeles at the Nicole Dintaman Gallery in October of 2001. Her first solo New York exhibition, titled Presence, opened in February of 2003 at the Miller /Geisler Gallery (now the 511 Gallery) in Chelsea. Her second solo exhibition in New York, titled Home, opened at the 511 Gallery, in January of 2005. That same year, a number of images from Home were featured in the British bi-yearly art publication, Next Level. Before that her work was in the exhibition, Places of the Spirit: Sacred Sites of the Adirondacks at the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A coffee table book featuring her images has been published in conjunction with this exhibition, which traveled to a number of museums.

Romaine's images were chosen for the American Photography 21 competition in 2005 as well as the American Photography 19 competition in 2003. In 1998 she was selected as a finalist in the October National juried competition where her fine art photography was exhibited at Gallery 510 Arts Guild in Illinois. Her images have been featured in various magazines and fine art publications in Europe and the United States including Next Level, Esquire Magazine and Glue Magazine. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, W Magazine, Woman's Wear Daily Magazine, Boston Globe, Palm Beach Daily News, Ladue News, Lake Placid News, North Andover Citizen and Afterimage Magazine amongst others. Various private and corporate collectors have purchased Romaine's photographs. Romaine currently lives with her daughter and husband in Los Angles and New York City where she is focused on her passion for visual storytelling.