Wound-Up Firefly
15 x 15 in granite dusted dye transfer
(the scan is just the dye print)
2007

I had a conversation with a guy I used to shoot with in Tokyo and he was mentioning to me a magazine that discussed some software saying photography is now in the realm of design. No more is the camera the tool, the camera seems to be manifesting itself into another designers tablet. I thought it sounded legit, I mean digital photography has no identity, and the trends are shifting so fast towards total automation that it seems almost imminent that photography will not last more than 20 years in it's most honest state.

I don't see a problem with this though. What I do I almost stopped considering it photography. I am not the same as a photographer with a 20d, and an Epson printer. There is too many simple and astounding differences that comparing the two is like comparing a primate to a fish. I do not dislike digital photography, I hate the debates that are pointless and detached from any real motive. I do what I do because I cannot attain the results any other way.

I enjoy browsing vendors to find the right dyes and printing gels. I like going to stone vendors and finding a giant slab of sandstone or granite to find a beautiful natural pattern to help with a transfer or brush I want to use for something I've been kicking around for ages. I actually love cleaning my huge studio camera, which is just another word for camera shack. My plates are taken care of more than my own personal hygiene at times, because to be frank, my life is just moments I try to grasp and fail, and having such an elaborate way to memorialize a single instance, no matter how dysfunctional and detached, makes me grounded.

The 21st century ushered in a new way of thinking.

I use my imagination, because no one can market it to me, no one can control it, no one can rationalize it, no one can contain it, no one can capitalize off it, and no one will see what I see, unless I show them.

I worked on this print since I left the military, and when I finished it I thought I had nothing left to do in life. I never showed anyone, never needed to, it was nothing more than an exercise in keeping myself busy so I didn't do something depressive.

I destroyed the stone about two days later though, I had phoned my agent and he wanted to see it, and went over showing options and whatever else, I stopped listening after awhile. I realized nothing good could come out of showing it, my intention wasn't anything a critic could relate to, and I was not at all prepared to let the general public scrutinize it, I was not prepared at all. I hung up and just cracked it, put it in the dumpster out back behind the studio and took a flight to Japan.

I think that is my life story. Wrapped nicely in a broken stone plate with no real significance and nothing more than an exercise in imagination and craft. Nothing more.

I took a rotary scanner to the image when I finished it so I could see if I had the exposure right, since transfers can look really different in many lighting situations such as a dark studio. Glad I saved the image, even if it's not the greatest scan or size.

Thanks for reading, never thought I would post this public, let alone write a book about it.

There ya have it.


-k