I have not always been a photographer, but I have always been a keen observer of the world around me.
As a writer, I am attentive to details and how our senses trigger deep emotions. As a scientist, I am curious about how the external world impacts the internal one. As someone with “synesthesia” where the brain innately creates color sensations in response to stimuli like language, movement or music, I have an affinity for vibrant colors.
As a writer, I am attentive to details and how our senses trigger deep emotions. As a scientist, I am curious about how the external world impacts the internal one. As someone with “synesthesia” where the brain innately creates color sensations in response to stimuli like language, movement or music, I have an affinity for vibrant colors.
It was my scientific career that led me to photography. I lived abroad for my studies and research. I traveled to several international conferences every year. By practicing photography, I discovered a new form of storytelling that felt like my writing.
In recent years, photography has served as an act of daily mindfulness for me – a way of attending to the present, shifting my perspective and making simple moments count.
When I stop to think about it, there are 3 main themes that underlie my photography. These 3 themes can be found, in obvious or subtle ways, in everything that draws my eye, slows my step and makes me reach for my lens to record the moment.
I think my love for photography blossomed partly a result of my hating endings - photography is a way for me to cheat Time, to keep the sun above the horizon, to keep hot air balloons in the sky, to keep raindrops on the windowpane, and to keep my heart feeling like it did then.
Just like my Mom used to encourage me when I was little to "make a memory" with my eyes when I was sad about leaving a beautiful place behind, I have learned to "make a memory" of what I see - and what I feel - through words and photographs.
I think my love for photography blossomed partly a result of my hating endings - photography is a way for me to cheat Time, to keep the sun above the horizon, to keep hot air balloons in the sky, to keep raindrops on the windowpane, and to keep my heart feeling like it did then.
Just like my Mom used to encourage me when I was little to "make a memory" with my eyes when I was sad about leaving a beautiful place behind, I have learned to "make a memory" of what I see - and what I feel - through words and photographs.
The 3 main themes running through my photography are: nostalgia, details and the Sea.
1. Nostalgia
Has a place ever cast a spell on you?
Places are magical. How do we know deep inside us that we must visit a place long before we even make plans to get there? How do some places pull us back, again and again and again, as though we have left an anchor there? And how to describe that feeling of returning and noticing that a place has changed and we have changed, yet we can somehow feel exactly as we once felt there?
Nostalgia must be one of the most complex and powerful emotions a heart can feel. An aching pull, melancholy and gratitude for a place and a time that mattered.
It's a feeling that has been present and familiar to me for as long as I can remember - a sort of sixth sense for me.
“Veni Etiam” is a Latin phrase meaning “come again”. In my photographic work, I celebrate the magical pull of places and the beauty of returning to them.
Places are magical. How do we know deep inside us that we must visit a place long before we even make plans to get there? How do some places pull us back, again and again and again, as though we have left an anchor there? And how to describe that feeling of returning and noticing that a place has changed and we have changed, yet we can somehow feel exactly as we once felt there?
Nostalgia must be one of the most complex and powerful emotions a heart can feel. An aching pull, melancholy and gratitude for a place and a time that mattered.
It's a feeling that has been present and familiar to me for as long as I can remember - a sort of sixth sense for me.
“Veni Etiam” is a Latin phrase meaning “come again”. In my photographic work, I celebrate the magical pull of places and the beauty of returning to them.
Out of all the places where I have dropped an anchor, Venice exerts the strongest pull of all. Just when I think that I have photographed Venice enough, she astounds me with a thousand new angles and moods that I see for the first time despite countless returns.
2. Details and the art of mindful observation
Have you ever paid attention to where your gaze goes? Is it drawn to details or to the whole?
Details are often what make all the difference in a scene, mood or memory. Observing details affords us an opportunity to slow down, to feel something, to remember.
Photography for me is about noticing, celebrating and remembering not only the grandiose but (especially) the mundane.
Details are often what make all the difference in a scene, mood or memory. Observing details affords us an opportunity to slow down, to feel something, to remember.
Photography for me is about noticing, celebrating and remembering not only the grandiose but (especially) the mundane.
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Some may say my photographs are quite “ordinary”, but I would consider that a compliment, because life is made up of countless ordinary moments that can become extraordinary if you let them.
3. The Sea and its tides
What 3 words would you use to describe the Sea?
To me, the Sea is endless, powerful and everchanging.
The Sea teaches me that I am small, but hopeful. That life has tides, always cyclical and never permanent, sometimes gentle and sometimes fierce, capable of knocking us down or cradling us in its arms. The Sea swells and recedes, floods our senses but erases our footsteps. She teaches us to accept that storms come, but to rejoice that they also do pass. She is wide open yet secretive, romantic yet melancholy, promising yet impossible. We can leave her but never forget her. We surf and float and dock and anchor and sail and sink, in her captive wonder, in the grasp of her tides, winds and motives.
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Whether you've just discovered my blog and shop, or you've been following me for a while, thank you for being here with me. Thank you for reading my words, for responding to my photographs and, sometimes, for finding a part of yourself in my observations.
From my heart to yours,
Kristina
From my heart to yours,
Kristina
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