[KELP JOURNAL] These photos are captivating, Karin. I was wondering why I kept staring at them and then I realized it the off-center composition. Your framing of the subjects requires the viewer to stop and pause. What was the intent behind this composition choice?
[KARIN HEDETNIEMI] I'm naturally drawn to the storytelling aspect of it. It offers the viewer more emotional context through presence and absence, and proximity or distance to other scenic elements. The composition includes environment and movement, inviting the eye to wander: the direction the man is surfing, the purity of an unbroken wave, his singular exhilaration and skill, the future moving towards him.
[KJ] One of the things that also struck me about these photos is your use of light. Whether something is not reflective and therefore negative space—as the surfer is—or is reflective like the feathers of the bird. And obviously, with the doorknob you are playing with the refractions of light. I am curious if these lighting scenarios were hard to capture.
[KH] I love being present in brief, unexpected moments where light suddenly does something exquisite: illuminates, transforms, makes the unseen world visible or emit some essence of the divine. They are ephemeral, magical experiences. Sometimes my instinct is to be still, in a kind of captivated reverence. Other times, it feels like art appearing before me, and as its only witness, I spontaneously photograph it to share the beauty.
[KJ] I don’t know if this is part of light too, but I was amazed at the textures in your photos. Like I could feel them through the screen. I feel like texture is not an element we talk about in photography enough. Can you talk about your use of texture in photographs and why you chose to utilize it?
[KH] Texture is part of close attention and curiosity. I think photography brings us closer to things we cannot ordinarily touch, or it reminds us of sensations our fingertips have not forgotten: the pearled dried beads of paint on an old door, or the way a feather is smooth when brushed in one direction, bristly in the other.
[KJ] You also write poetry and prose. I always love asking my multi-talented creators if they think that the forms of creative expression influence each other. What are your thoughts?
[KH] Not long ago, in a poetry workshop, we were asked to closely examine one object on our desks. I focused on a vase of sweet peas, cut from my garden. I'd not before noticed the delicate, reaching patterns on the blossom — they reminded me of handmade marbled paper in Florence. This is how a haiku might arise, by drawing a connection between the natural world and the human experience. I was moved to take a macro photograph of the petal. And then research for my own understanding, the science of the flower's growth, and the art process for marbled paper. Perhaps an essay will come out of all that, too. This is how creativity flows for me!
Karin Hedetniemi is a writer, traveler, and street photographer from Vancouver Island, Canada. Her atmospheric images appear in literary journals About Place, CutBank, Invisible City; on the covers of Seaside Gothic, Pithead Chapel; and have been nominated for Best of the Net. Find her prose, poetry, and photography at AGoldenHour.com
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