kazzphoto's photostream

Prints available for purchase at Etsy.
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Bio

artist | designer | photographer | musician | jedi

Kevin Cassidy grew up in the woods of New England with a love for art, film and music. He enjoyed early success at local and national art competitions before moving to Boston, MA. In high school, Kevin received a full scholarship to Pratt Institute of Design in New York. He chose instead to attend classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Art and Massachusetts College of Art focusing on film, video and audio production, and photography.

Kevin later worked as Art Director at Fishman Transducers and Parker Guitars for over fifteen years while playing bass along the East Coast and exhibiting photography throughout Boston and Cambridge. He currently owns a design business at www.kazzmedia.com and is expanding his photographic work at www.kazzphoto.com.
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Statement

Every person, every thing and every place has a story. Every story is a universal means to communicate ideas, thoughts and feelings. Stories can be told through words, shapes, colors, sound, and motion. Stories have characters, conflicts, and lessons. They can be told over the course of time - or within a single moment. Stories are our past, present and future.

The two most essential elements of any story are the story teller and the audience. It's an integral relationship where one cannot exist without the other. This does not always mean the audience will (or must) literally interpret the intentions of the story teller. In fact, it is often best for the audience to interpret a story through its own life experience to keep the story alive.

Despite my focus on photography, design, and music, the means of expression and its tools, rules and techniques are less important than the story. Any image can be produced with the finest lens and black & white film, or with a cell phone. Any song can be performed with a full orchestra, or by singing and clapping hands. The heritage of the medium has always been secondary to me. Music is visual. Art is musical. The grotesque is just as truthful as beauty. The concrete is just as infinite as the abstract.

It has never been my goal to be explicit in my message. Rather it's been a quest for self-understanding through understanding others - to see the world inside through the world around me. Otherwise there is no reason to do art of any kind. If I could simply say, "This is what I see" and truly capture that feeling, there would be no need for shapes, colors, sound or motion; all of which have unique ways of exceeding the limitations of language.

With this in mind, I always strive for simplicity. Much like the ancient art of Sumi-E from the Far East, the empty spaces allow the audience to complete the story. The story surpasses the boundaries of the image far more than if the entire surface was coated with intricate detail. Without silence, music loses impact. Without stillness, motion becomes inert. The duality of nature is both composed of and dependent on contrast, tension and release, light and dark.

In the simplest of terms, I've broken down my photographic work into three categories; People, Places and Things. People could include candid shots taken by accident, or more formalized portraits. In both cases, my goal is to convey the story of the individual rather than his or her appearance. Places could include landscapes or moments in time that could trigger a memory from the past or the future. Things can have just as much character as people, and tell their own stories whether they be fact or fiction. Whether an image is a stand alone moment or one in a series, I liken them to movie stills and the stories they might invoke.