I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have a fascination about photographs and cameras. A box..a snap…a wait..and look! A piece of what I see in my mind’s eye in my hand! The excitement..the wonder..the joy of turning what I see, how I see life, people…into something that can be shared with others. A photo might make me smile, tug at my heart, bring a tear, make me chuckle out loud. A simple piece of paper with images brings floods of memories, shares wonderful things with people far away or with those quite near.
My aim is to share all the above joys of photography with my others. A photo is a special moment…a slice of time captured for eternity. The soul in the eyes of a child, the joy that is only for one another in the smiles of a couple, the emotion of the first kiss as husband and wife, the first time a mother looks into her newborn’s eyes…only a camera can catch these moments in a way that allows us to relive them again and again, and to share these moments with others.
I have been involved in photography in one way or another for over thirty nine years, if we start counting back when I was three and hi-jacked my mom’s “Kodak Instamatic”! She, wise woman that she is, decided that giving me my own camera, a Kodak 110, would save her camera and film from my clutches.
Both of these cameras are part of a photo-camera display in my studio space.
Throughout my elementary years the fascination continued and grew: In kindergarten I organized my class into a group and took my first “group portrait”…complete with my finger covering part of the lens. This photo accompanies the Kodak 110 camera on the shelf in my studio.
No one was safe from my reportage: the girls swinging on the monkey bars with pony tails all a-scatter, the hop-scotch contingent arms held out for balance, the kick-ball die hards and their constant movement. As time wore on my “photojournalistic” photography progressed to zoo trips, DC tours, and garden excursions where every flower and bee was a nature study.Every friend was a portrait study, every animal was fair game for stalking with my camera…even the neighborhood police officer, mailman and fireman became repeated subjects of my portraiture. I was well known around neighborhood as the “little red-head with pig tails and a camera”.
In middle school I was able to take my first formal photography class…and it was _on_. That summer I assisted my teacher in his studio as a gopher-girl-Tuesday. Most of my time was spent organizing the studio space, packaging print orders, etc., but the experience of simply being in the environment of a working portrait and wedding studio was invaluable to me for the future, not to mention fueling my burning interest in photography. I will never forget this wonderful man and his family for giving me the chance to gaffer for him with lights, carry bags, just BE there to learn, absorb and soak it all up, all at the age of 12 and 13. Oh yes…ecstacy! Thanks to Mr. Krieger, I was learning, experiencing and eagerly shooting on my own …and taking every opportunity to learn. Thanks to another local photographer I was able to gain amazing experience working in a darkroom…all while getting paid to do something I was absolutely ecstatic to be doing.
By the time high school arrived, I was more than ready and eager to photograph for the school newspaper and yearbook. I photographed anything and everything, was published in local papers for the school, worked with the Baltimore Coucilman that took a particular interest in my high school and started photographing friend for portrait experience, to mention a few things. Throughout my teen years I worked for and with over a dozen photographers, started shooting portraits and photographing small weddings and worked at local photography labs. I have had the experience of managing labs and portrait studios, working in custom labs on the commercial and fashion side of photography, working with computer graphics, photography and design when tiw as a fledgling art and I feel incredibly blessed to have had such a varied experience.
By 12 I was certain…what I wanted to “do” for the rest of my life. This was cemented by the time I was a sophomore in college.
After all…I had soaked up and involved myself with photography since age 3! Originally minoring in photography and majoring in architecture at the University of Maryland, I transitioned over to majoring in Visual Arts and Photography by my Sophomore year of college. I just couldn’t “let go” of photography long enough to finish a pursuit of design and drafting…another love of mine.
What it comes down to is that I I love everything about photography so much I will never put down my cameras.
As long as there is light to be captured by sensor or celluloid, I will have a camera in hand.
Kathie