Kathy Schrader

I don’t actively perceive my intentions when I make pictures, but I know very well when I get what I’m after.  The camera is the catalyst between my vague notions and plain reality, 

exposing what is in front of it and behind.  The what, where, who, how, why and when of a 

photograph says as much about the photographer as it does about a subject. To be present in the viewfinder takes real effort and to capture the million-dollar moment, to put a model at ease…to hustle into position, adjust and readjust, to compensate and to “f/8 and be there” as Weegee once said, takes skill and sweat. 

I’ve discovered that a camera is really a prosthesis, that human eyes are far better at seeing. 

But it takes a camera to preserve.  Spectacular imagery suspends belief and disbelief, it makes you forget what your eyes know.  The human eye combined with memory, however, are not to be relied on when it comes to matters of conservancy and in this life saving means a great deal. 

With my camera I reveal and prioritize my evolving and core values. My camera lets me possess what I cannot have. I confront my age and celebrate my youth because I am both 

With my camera I reveal and prioritize my evolving and core values. My camera lets me possess what I cannot have. I confront my age and celebrate my youth because I am both 

simultaneously. I draw from contemporary artists as well as the founding femmes and fathers. 

In every photographer I have studied there exists a little of me.  With Ansel I share the largeness of life and the planet. With Dorothea, her illness and her choice to forsake everything for a shot at moMa, Stieglitz’ mission to show photography as a legitimate art form…

Vivian Maier’s consummate anonymity, Suzanne Heintz’s exploration of traditional concepts of family…Aaron Siskind’s preoccupation with mark-making.  And then there is Eggleston and Shore and Winogrand and Arbus; all of them invigorate my journey. 

I know this: 

I love colour and its absence. 
I love multiple and minimal, Shallow and deep. 

I love extravagant and ordinary, 
Where Dark and light meet.