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Evolution of Photography and Myself as a Photographer:

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It's strange to think photographs used to be a thing of the future. Once created people were baffled that you could sit in front of a big clunky box for 30 seconds as still as a mouse and behold hours later the captured essence of your very being. In present day we often take for granted the true meaning of a photograph.

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Photographs to me embody your life and true essence at that present moment. Yourself as child (curious, carefree), life as a student (sleepy eyes and full brains pursuing the horizons), life as a newlywed (holding onto the heartstrings for a crazy fulfilled ride), life as parents (eyes full of worry, intrigue and desire for your spawn to have a future beyond your imagining). My photography is genuine, calculated on the beauty that is nature and human. The focus of my work is always YOU to show you the beauty that is here is now.

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Sometimes the life of the photographer can show through their work, and I am no exception. I grew up on a little dairy farm in a small country town, most days were spent outside admiring nature, engulfed in explorations, drawing, coloring, and being present to experience life. I was in awe and it's no surprise to me that my studio is at my childhood home where it all began.

 

In college I studied fine arts with a concentration in painting and photography. Painting and "color theory" allowed me see color interaction, how to understand when warm tones or cool tones would be added to make another color pop, create depth, or intensity within your work. It also demonstrated the importance of a well thought out and composed unique work of art. My photography classes focused much on the craft itself, creating our own pin hole camera, soft boxes, spending countless hours dodging and burning images in the film studio trying to perfect that tiny, little grainy frame of film. It is crazy that after 4 years intensive hands on art classes, I was set in a computer lab with my first DSLR camera and Photoshop so amazed at how everything happened at the click of a button. Now I had the chance to express everything I knew the photograph needed to be seen as I saw the world but did not possess in the captured image due to a machine's limitations.

 

To me photography was a way for me to create my own works of art. To show the world the awe I felt with nature as a child, to color the world as if it were my coloring book, and to capture the essence of the people right in front of me. Freezing them in real time showing off their uniqueness, their quirks, their family, their special place that holds their most precious memories.

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-Kristen

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