Image Credit: Me and My Inheritance © KJ Herb
Arizona Photography Alliance’s 2nd Juried Theme Gallery online exhibition is a huge success. Part of the prize was the opportunity for the winning photographers to share their thoughts about the work they submitted in relation to the theme “Still Life.” Here is Honorable Mention 1 winner, KJ Herb.
AZPA: How did you get started in photography?
KH: Hi! My name is KJ Herb, and I’m a directorial photographer born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Before photography, I spent 15 years performing and competing at dance competitions exploring emotional interactions on the stage for all to see. When my dance career ended, I decided to take a shot at photography. I picked up my first camera in 2018, fell in love with the stillness of the medium, and have been pursuing it ever since.
AZPA: What are your thoughts on the theme gallery for AZPA?
KH: I mainly like to shoot images with people in them, so my selection for this theme was pretty easy! I don’t have too many still lives so I just went with the most recent one I took.
AZPA: What was your process in selecting your image (s) for “Still Life” theme?
KH: I was thinking about muse as intuition. I wanted to submit an image that was created through intuition and felt like a truth that went beyond gender or ethnicity. I knew that the photograph, Resilience, could be instinctively understood. We all carry resilience at our core and we can identify with the plant surviving in the inhospitable rock wall terrain as a symbol of resilience.
AZPA: What are your thoughts on being selected for an Honorable Mention?
KH: Receiving Honorable Mention is wonderful! Me and My Inheritance is an early piece from the project I’m currently working on entitled “To Die a Thousand Small Deaths on a Wednesday Morning” and it’s so awesome to know people are receiving it so well.