| Something About KEVIN O’CONNELL I have had a passion for photography for about 25 years. After my sophomore high school photography class, I started working with cameras and taking pictures. It wasn’ t until a few years later that I knew this was much more than just an interest. One day as I was walking down the street, I noticed a Photography studio with some large photographs displayed in the window. The portraits were amazing and unlike any I have ever seen. I walked in and asked the photographer, Al Buschauer, if I could assist him on some shoots to learn from him and he said surely. This is when I knew photography was more of a passion than just an interest. After assisting Al for a short period, I started to find my own style, which was eclectic powerful documentary style photography. As most of us know, photography is a very expensive hobby and takes a long time to build up a clientele to become a professional. Still at this point, I did not want to become a studio photographer and be like everyone else. I had so many ideas of what I wanted to do but didn't’ think anyone would appreciate them. Then in two thousand, I moved to the City of Chicago and one of the things on my list was to join a photo club some were in the city, and I did just that. My fist day at the club was competition night. I sat down and watched as pictures were judged and critiqued. I was terrified because there was a lot of screaming and anger between the members of the club. They were making fun of each others photographs and I thought for sure someone was going to start a fist fight. I decided never to go back. While in the city, I became very intrigued with medium format cameras and eclectic skyline cityscapes. At the same time I started my first documentary on unique people in Chicago to see if my pictures could tell a story without being exploitive. I talked to many people and found certain subjects that fit my criteria. I wanted to find unique subjects that also have very interesting facial characteristics. After I got to know my subject I would ask if I could get some photographs of them for a documentary. If they said no, I would honor their wishes and move on. I never did or would use a telephoto lens to hide a block away to shoot and exploit my subjects. This took me three years to do and I have met some very interesting people in the process. I feel that my photographs are more of the eclectic portraiture than anything else. At the end of 2002 I moved to New Lennox Illinois and joined a photo club in Palos Heights. I brought my photographs in for competitions and did very well with them and also at the Chicago area camera club competitions. Even though my photography was a little obscure, I still did well. Many photographers told me that my work resembled other well known photographers, which I have never heard of, so I did a lot of research and started educating myself about other Artists and there work. I took bits and pieces of Mary Ellen Mark and others who inspire me to go further and pursue more of my creative sides. I like to incorporate my cityscapes with the type of people I met in the city no. I am in the south Pacific now working on a Documentary in the Marshall Islands. Just got back from two years in the Islands and became good friends with the King, Imata Kabua. He made me honorary member of his Kava Club and told me many stories of his people. I am now back home and getting ready to work in Antarctica for six months in Oct of 2007. . |
| To take photographs is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeting reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy. - Henri Cartier-Bresson |
| The magic of photography is metaphysical. What you see in the photograph isn't what you saw at the time. The real skill of photography is organised visual lying. - Terence Donovan |
| The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say, 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks that way. 'Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy... The very muteness of what is, hypothetically, comprehensible in photographs is what constitutes their attraction and provocativeness. -Susan Sontag |
| Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself. -Berenice Abbott |
| There are many teachers who could ruin you. Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher. You have to evolve on your own. -Berenice Abbott |
| When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without. -Ansel Adams |
| KEVIN O'CONNELL |