Looking back on my journey, there’s a risk of diminishing the struggle. And by “struggle”, I mean the day-to-day challenges that required months-long brainstorming to overcome. It wasn’t like I had a go-to group of artists that I could bounce ideas off of. Although I come from a creative family with notable accomplishments in the arts, I was on my own with this one. The only person who would have really appreciated what I was doing with kaleidosocopes was my aunt Betty, but she was dead, and had she not died, I never would have considered whether or not photographing the interior of a kaleidoscope was even possible. So when questions arised, (What camera lens should I use? Is natural light best? Should I shoot in my studio with artificial lighting? How do I get rid of glare? Why do cameras have to be so bloody heavy?) I was on my own. For all but the last question, trial and error was my answer.
I wasn’t a photographer before kaleidoscopes came into my life. Sure, I took photographs of our children and was told I have an eye for composition, but point-and-shoot was as complicated as I got. Now, I was having to take so many varibles into consideration, and they all had to align to create the perfect shot. So when people see my work and ask me how I do it, I always say the same thing: very carefully.
After I learned how to take a consistent shot using David Kalish’s scopes, I started asking different questions, starting with, “How do I get these photos really big?” In a word, RAW. And so began endless hours of YouTube videos understanding why I should only be photographing in RAW and what that means for developing the image and, most importantly, how I could print off gargantuan prints for our living room walls. I was enjoying sending family and friends note cards that showcased my work, but I wanted something more. I wanted to explore something I had earlier refused to consider, and that was gallery-worthy contemporary art work.
[Above photo taken from one of my scopes. It reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting.]
Widening the Aperture 