[photography] is my career
When I think back to my formative years as a photographer, the experience, sensation and process I recollect is so different than now. It has always given me joy, however. I even remember the joy I felt when I was about 8 or 9 years old and played with my baby sister’s Fisher Price Polaroid camera. I would draw my own pictures and stick them in and pretend that they processed just as I had envisioned. I would run around ecstatic showing everyone what I had created.
It’s the same to this day after 20 years of doing photography. I still have that excitement showing everyone what I captured with my magic box. But the actual process is so different for me now. From Kodak 126 to Canon then Nikon 35mm manual focus with AF and zoom lenses to handmade pinhole and Hassy, Speed Graphic 4×5; from Polaroid SX70 and 600SE, to Diana. I have tried all the gear and it doesn’t matter what you shoot with. I never could get into the gear. I hated the thought of having the best of the best equipment because I was thrilled that my images had a personality that came through because of the equipment, the subject, the light and me at that moment in time.
My favorite part of the process has always been post production. I loved being in the darkroom. I loved mixing my own chemicals (ie: Cyanotype, gum bichromate, Platnum) and painting them on paper, fabric, ceramic, glass. I even did combined printing using 3 negatives, screen printing registration pins and litho film. I liked to push the medium and experiment with various types of film including cross processing, infrared, Polapan, Kodalith with gels and Polaroid transfers. I didn’t really like the process of actually taking the picture as much as the post until recently.
Sometimes I feel like I am going backwards in my work. I started out loose and arty and experimental and then I began to create technically perfect, in-camera commercial advertising work, then crisp, vibrant, grand scenics and now I am photographing people like a photojournalist. This seems to be the complete opposite of the way many photographer’s evolve. But, I love the evolution I am going through right now. For me to be able to capture people is truly a thrill. It is something I have always wanted to do but never had the courage to. I am so excited to still be a part of photography.
One of my absolute favorite aspects of studying photography is the history. It seems after all these years I am starting to record my own personal “history of photography.”
Kristianne Koch specializes in on-location portrait photography for the contemporary family and child for all of Southern California. 949-702-7707 kristianne.koch@cox.net
