ENTRY DESCRIPTION
There is nothing humdrum about human existence. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, hardwired with a capacity for ecstasy, finely calibrated and triggered at any moment without warning: by the touch of cold water on bare skin, the caress of a lover, or the hand of God; one moment we are earthbound, and the next, lifted into rapturous exaltation.
Astrid Kallsen, photographed at Discovery Park in Seattle, Washington, March 2023.
AUTHOR
I've been making photographs since 1986, when I spent a summer working at Grand Canyon National Park and my grandfather gifted me his Pentax K1000. When my son was born in 1998, I fell in love with the challenge of portrait photography. There's a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that describes it well: "The soul in man is not an organ but a light... From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all." My task as a photographer is to capture light in the form of digital pixels; but my task as an artist is to capture a glimpse of the soul shining through. About a decade ago, I started focusing on figure photography, mostly in nature, with themes of reconnecting with that part of us that is natural and wild. My work also strives to represent diversity in all forms, and to represent the breadth of human sensuality. My photos have been exhibited in galleries and festivals throughout the United States and Europe.
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