Our Sweetwater Camera Club speaker for the month of November, 2007 was Atlanta-based photographer Kathryn Kolb. Kathryn presented some of her alternative Nature photographic work for all to enjoy. Her presentation to the camera club on Thursday evening, November 8th was concluded with an informal question and answer period while an enthusiastic audience gathered around her to view several of her large color prints.

Currently, Kathryn is taking part in an exhibit entitled "Natural Selections" comprised of her desert images at the Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University, in conjunction with the Atlanta Celebrates Photography (ACP) Festival. She is one of only 5 photographers in the Atlanta area whose images were chosen to appear on Marta buses for the "Art in Motion" initiative during the ACP festival.

In a way you could say that there is nothing more honest than Nature. The sun rises and sets without fail, the wind blows, the plants and animals of the earth follow a noticible pattern of being and growing. Yet being and growing are abstract concepts. Kathryn Kolb reflects and captures this serious innate honesty and abstraction in her photographic work. In the process of creating photographs she seeks to become a part of things, to tune into natural systems. She records and presents her photographs of natural subjects with reverence, offering up her visual investigations without darkroom deception or digital post-camera alteration. Despite this honesty, her works invite the viewer to step away from preconceived ideas and participate in a different way of seeing and contemplating nature.

An investigation of Kolb's on-line gallery at KathrynKolb.com reveals both black and white and color photographs of natural botanical forms, preserved in a square format, fresh from her Hassleblad medium format camera. Her works are visibly framed by the printed edges of the film stock, testimony to the artist's intentions and taste. The "visual chain of custody" for each image follows Kolb's vision through the camera lens onto traditional film media, and from there is rendered onto photographic paper with no outside intervention. The presentation of her imagery to you, the viewer, is where the chain becomes unlocked for you to find your own appreciation and draw your own conclusions.

"I compose in the camera and by leaving the film frame on there I get my entire image. It shows that my composition is something that I intended."

Kolb's work is not a straightforward recording of reality. It is caught up in the dynamic energy of natural systems outside of a sense of time. Her interest is in illustrating the strong and profound qualities of nature. The shapes in life reveal something about their energy and her role as a photographer is to experience these forces and to share that experience.   

A number of Kathryn's images discard the traditional idea of focal points. Rather than following well worn rules of composition requiring that the image have a central focus, she insists that some images need no focal point to transmit their energies because the entire photograph is the focal point.

What I'm trying to do here is give a rendition of the essence of the elements involved as opposed to the realistic rendition of particular subjects.  

Kolb grew up doing black and white photojournalism which required her to do her own film developing and processing. Although she has taken a few courses, she says that she can point to very few influences in her work. Early on she was intrigued by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of modern photojournalism, but for the most part she is a self-educated and self-motivated photographer. She takes both black and white and color film with her when she goes out shooting. Her mindset while shooting is quite unassuming and unpretentious. She looks for visuals that "look neat." She usually isn't trying to make a major statement, she merely asks the question, "does this look neat or does it not look neat?" If it doesn't, she moves around until it does.

Kolb explains more about her work and thoughts in a number of statements she made during recent discussions of her artistry:

"The genre of Landscape Photography in the west lends itself to grand vistas. In the east we have landscapes that are more intimate and lend themselves to more close up treatments in a forest environment."

"The structure of nature and the interplay of things is absolutely mathematical. Every species has its own distinctive mathematical structure. Each oak tree or elm tree has its own code and I try to capture the language of this interplay of forces."

"Visual art is intuitive math. The same can be said for music. You strike a chord and certain strings vibrating at particular frequencies seem to work together better than strings that vibrate at other frequencies. The same is true when you look at a visual image, you see certain shapes or colors that seem to go better than others. Recognizing that is what I do as a photographer, and when others recognize that in my work, I'm able to communicate that."

"People who collect my work genuinely like it. One of my customer's has said, 'You know, I have that picture over my bed and I just love looking at that every day because it has a beautiful spirit that we enjoy living with.' "

"A lot of people who buy my work just enjoy natural forms, just enjoy my pictures for their own sake. I try to capture timeless essences, things that people don't think about every day." 

Kolb's advice to those interested in bettering themselves in the art and craft of photography:

"You have to pursue your own vision, not somebody else's. Be ruthlessly critical of your own work, but not so critical that you prevent yourself from creating. You have to see that an image is working-- or it's not working, and it isn't an issue of whether you took it or not. Don't just look in the viewfinder and shoot a picture because it is what you've seen before. I think that people shortchange themselves by doing that. Push your own vision. Don't click the shutter until you see just what you see. Learn to trust your own vision."

What Kathryn wants the viewer to take away from encounters with her work is the idea that whether her treatments of natural subjects are realistic or abstract, there is an overall similarity of forms regardless of the variations in treatment. She expects each person to have their own thoughts about her images. She wants her imagery to help unfold new points of departure and stretch the viewer's visual awareness. 

Kathryn Kolb is represented by Thomas Deans Fine Art in the Tula Art Galleries, Suite K-2 at 75 Bennett Street in Atlanta. All works are presented here by permission and copyrighted. © Kathryn Kolb.