Photographs by Kenneth Jackson

About

As with a lot of people, my interest in photography began early in life when I was made the gift of a camera. The act of pointing this magic box at something, and seeing traces of the light from places, people, and things rendered as visible images, was amazing and addictive.

Studying the work of a crazy variety of other photographers and artists feeds my interest and provides me with great inspiration. The history of the medium is fascinating in itself, and I think it’s perfectly valid to mine the past for ideas and inspirations.

In the last few years, exploring alternative processes has led me to some revelations about photography, and along some very interesting paths. It goes rather against the dominant narrative of digital photography in the early 21st century. Although I frequently use my Mac and Photoshop and often shoot with a DSLR, I find myself more and more drawn to high-touch approach of alternative processes, and the more elemental nature of early photography. Using precious metals in light-sensitive solution and beautiful papers brings a kind of alchemical magic to the pursuit for me and I expect to be exploring it a lot more. I believe that the medium, the process, and the presentation is nearly as important as the image itself, which is essentially nonexistent until you express it in a particular way with particular materials and processes.

I really am not concerned with what’s trendy in guiding my work. Connection with the subject, whether place, person, creature, or thing, is very important to me. I want to get at the intangible, the invisible, by means of the visible. I want to communicate some sense of soul. I want my work to be personal response to the subject, but when possible to invoke something else as well, something that goes beyond the personal.

Beauty is a hard thing to approach - and yet I believe in its relationship to truth, contrary to the currently dominant philosophical stance. Conscious attempts at rendering beauty can very easily become trivial, just surface prettiness, or a kind of conventional beauty. It is very important to me to make pictures that are more than eye candy, and when I have to choose, I’d prefer subtlety, suggestion, and mystery over sheer visual impact.