The World As I See It

I started taking photographs to record the reality around me as a photojournalist. It was in the analog days of film, chemicals and darkrooms. It was not easy to manipulate a photograph. So, for many people, photography recorded life.

Then the digital age transformed photography. We could create images that were easy to change. Digital photography no longer guaranteed that the image you saw on your screen was the same as you saw in person. With it I changed too. I became interested in using the camera to create light paintings that explored the imagination.

Certainly, a lot of my flora, fauna and landscape photography is straightforward. The images are often details of light and color that I take because they please my eye. For most, a colorful bloom evokes a sense of beauty and in the noise of the digital world gives you a moment of joy.

My Photo of the Day is about letting your eyes stop to smell the roses. I hope they brighten your day.

Stitching the printed photograph for my art quilts allows me to interact with the printed surface in a way I could not do before. It adds a dimension of tactility to the traditional two-dimensional image.

In my art quilts, photography gives me the starting image to explore an imaginative reality that I find fun.

Kerby Smith