Artist Spotlight | Karrah Kobus

Artist Spot­light

The Artist Spot­light series is meant to give noto­ri­ety to the peo­ple whom I have great respect for, who are superbly tal­ented in art and design, and have the great­est poten­tial. Essen­tially, the con­tenders. Every month, a new artist will be selected with a spot­light rev­el­ing their inspi­ra­tions, opin­ions, and influ­ences, as well as a sam­ple of their out­stand­ing work.

Kar­rah Kobus

I met Kar­rah in a begin­ning dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy class-​-​-​which is kind of excit­ing for me to know that I met her when she was really begin­ning her jour­ney. Any­one lucky enough to have her as a wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher knows that she has an amaz­ing sense of how to cap­ture a moment and por­tray it mag­i­cally. On top of that, Kar­rah is one of the most deter­mined and pas­sion­ate artists I’ve ever met.

Take a few min­utes to read her responses below as she shares her inspi­ra­tions, her idols, and her aspi­ra­tions. To learn more about Kar­rah and to see more of her work, visit her web­site at: http://​kar​rahkobus​.zen​fo​lio​.com/

Where do you find inspiration?

I find inspi­ra­tion every­where, lit­er­ally. Just being alive-​-​-​I once was inspired by order­ing lunch at burger king. I am an extremely emo­tional per­son, and express­ing that through art is the only way I keep myself sane!

In par­tic­u­lar, I’m very inspired by water and a spe­cific mem­ory I have from my child­hood. It sounds strange, but I was swim­ming in a hotel pool very late at night with just my grand­mother, and I was under­wa­ter with my face pressed right up by one of the lights, which was con­ve­niently located near a vent and also the heater! It was just so very sur­real to be float­ing, weight­less, with this sen­sa­tion of warmth and light and wind… It might not come across in my work as exactly that, but it was def­i­nitely an expe­ri­ence that is often on my mind, and influ­ences a lot of the motion in my photos.

I am also inspired by my back surgery, which I had when I was 17. Look­ing through my work, you can often find peo­ple in crazy positions-​-​-​this is almost always directly stem­ming from my expe­ri­ence with the surgery. Being so young, and los­ing a lot of my mobil­ity like that was extremely hard to deal with. As a result, I am so absolutely drawn to push­ing the human body to the limit in my pho­tographs. I love get­ting peo­ple into strange posi­tions, some of which are even impos­si­ble. It just helps me deal with my own disability.

Beyond those two very strong per­sonal expe­ri­ences, I am def­i­nitely inspired by nature on a grand scale: dirt, trees, ani­mals, WIND, sun­light, fash­ion, and work by other artists. Lastly, a large influ­ence on me is my inter­est in peo­ple (which I think is pretty obvi­ous by my go-​to sub­ject mat­ter!). I stud­ied anthro­pol­ogy for two years, which was incred­i­ble. I took a lot of time study­ing cul­ture, but I also became very inter­ested in evo­lu­tion and bio­log­i­cal anthro­pol­ogy. I have a weird thing for bones, I guess. The way in which the rem­nants of some­thing once liv­ing can tell a story like what we are find­ing in the case of evo­lu­tion is not only impres­sive, but mys­te­ri­ous and almost a lit­tle unreal. Another big place of inter­est for me was in myth and dreams. The way peo­ple are intrin­si­cally drawn to telling sto­ries to deal with con­flict, among other things, is so interesting.

Can you explain what con­cep­tual pho­tog­ra­phy is?

To me, I think con­cep­tual pho­tog­ra­phy (or art in gen­eral) is all about telling a story. Although, some­times it can be hard to deci­pher because real­is­ti­cally, I think every photo/​image tells a story. In my mind, the dif­fer­ence comes down to the artist’s inten­tions. If there was a spe­cific mes­sage or dia­logue that was meant to be con­veyed, then I think that qual­i­fies as con­cep­tual art.

I think there is a very spe­cific style to your pho­tog­ra­phy, how would you describe it?

Per­son­ally, I have a hard time see­ing a spe­cific style through my work-​-​-​I am also okay with that. Although, I would describe the style I love, and aspire to have, as nat­ural yet sur­real. I enjoy look­ing at a photo that looks like a moment of real life, but some­thing incred­i­bly sur­real is present. For me, that typ­i­cally comes out through the body posi­tion­ing or styling of the subject.

Do you have a favorite image or series of images that you’ve taken?

I like all of these pieces because they fit with that style I described above, and to me that makes them each very entic­ing. I also really like the con­cept behind these images.

What is your favorite part about being a photographer?

I have so much that I love about being a pho­tog­ra­pher! I have two very dif­fer­ent sides to the major­ity of my work-​-​-​there is the con­cep­tual artist in me, and then there is the wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher. When it comes to my con­cep­tual work, I absolutely love being able to mix a piece of real­ity with the depths of my imag­i­na­tion. It’s one of the only art forms that allows you to cap­ture and fully inte­grate real­ity like that. I love see­ing my ideas come to life, some­times quite lit­er­ally. To me, it’s just so amaz­ing to go out and cre­ate these sit­u­a­tions, and then be able to come home with a piece of it. It’s almost like a trophy-​-​-​you know, like “Hey! Guess what I just did!” and if you don’t believe me, I’ve got proof. ;)

The wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher side of me LOVES cap­tur­ing real moments, and not so much alter­ing them. I love to show sim­ple beauty, in smiles and in tears. I love to por­tray that very hon­est emotion-​-​-​straightforward, real, and gor­geous. Pho­tograph­ing cou­ples on their wed­ding day brings out so much of this, both in the cou­ple them­selves as well as the guests. I think that is why I enjoy wed­dings above most other client jobs.

If you were a fla­vor of ice-​cream, what would you be and why?

Haha, I love this ques­tion! I would be two scoops-​-​-​the bot­tom, cof­fee fla­vored with chunks of choco­late, and the top, rasp­berry. That is my favorite mix, and it looks adorable in a lit­tle cone! I also think every­body needs a lit­tle vari­ety to their personality. ;)

Do you have any idols, either per­son­ally or professionally?

Yes, I have quite a few! Per­son­ally, I highly admire my grand­par­ents. I am just so close to them, and I think about them every­day. They took care of me a lot when I was younger, and I really respect that. Every­one in my fam­ily is so great, and I actu­ally look up to them all for dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Gen­er­ally though, my fam­ily has taught me to work hard and go after what I want-​-​-​priceless lesson.

Pho­to­graph­i­cally, I look up so much to Tim Walker, Annie Lei­bovitz, Gre­gory Crewd­son, Jerry Ules­mann, Rosie Hardy, Kirsty Mitchell, Lara Jade, Brooke Shaden, Alex Stod­dard, and Ash­ley Lebe­dev (who I actu­ally just had the plea­sure of meet­ing!) just to name a few. Seri­ously, the list goes on for­ever! Two wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers I absolutely love and have great respect for are Daniel Usenko (hope­fully my future wed­ding pho­tog!!) and Jose Villa.

In other artis­tic areas, I’m going to have to admit I am a huge Lady Gaga fan. I respect her so much for express­ing her­self, in what­ever way she deems nec­es­sary. I love her ded­i­ca­tion to her craft, which is def­i­nitely more than music.

With tech­nol­ogy get­ting more advanced and cam­era equip­ment becom­ing cheaper and more acces­si­ble to a wider audi­ence, how do you fore­see pho­tog­ra­phy chang­ing in the next 20 years?

Well, it is def­i­nitely becom­ing more accessible-​-​-​there is no deny­ing that. I think that in some ways, and in some people’s minds, pho­tog­ra­phy has lost a lit­tle bit of its spark. Before, one needed to be a mas­ter. A pho­tog­ra­pher needed to under­stand his/​her cam­era inside and out in order to pro­duce an image. Not only that, but they needed to under­stand the film, and how the chem­i­cals in the dark room worked. It took so much skill, whereas now you can just press a button-​-​-​delete it if it didn’t work or keep it if you got lucky. Part of me thinks it is great that it can be so easy for more of the pop­u­la­tion to have the won­ders of photography-​-​-​just for cap­tur­ing life and hav­ing those mem­o­ries at such easy disposal.

On the other hand, we have all heard it a hun­dred times this day and age, but every kid with a cam­era thinks they are a pho­tog­ra­pher. I’m con­fi­dent that tal­ent will still be on the fore­front of this field, but I think it will only get harder and harder to break in and even keep work on a lower, free-​lance level. Peo­ple are always going to know some­one who owns a dig­i­tal cam­era and loves tak­ing pho­tos, and if they are une­d­u­cated about what pho­tog­ra­phy can actu­ally be for them, they are just going to go with ‘Aunt Sandy’ and her point and shoot.

You describe your­self as “a girl with a pretty big cam­era and one mas­sive dream”, can you elaborate?

Ah yes, my short bio on my blog! I basi­cally just mean that I’m just an aver­age girl, but I really want to find some­thing spe­cial. I think it is pretty nat­ural for peo­ple to want to be heard, espe­cially today with mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion being so easy through things like the inter­net. Peo­ple want to be rec­og­nized. Very few aspire to fall through the cracks and not be noticed for what they love. For me, I want peo­ple to know I’m a pho­tog­ra­pher. I want to get good at it. I have so far to go, but that is my dream. Pho­tog­ra­phy is an incred­i­ble thing to mas­ter, but I’m going to do it some­day and peo­ple are going to know me.

What 5 tips can you give to fel­low art students?

Hmm, I guess my num­ber one tip seems a lit­tle obvi­ous, but it really is important-​-​-​you gotta prac­tice. All the time. I think an artist needs to be con­sis­tently evolv­ing and learn­ing new things, just as an indi­vid­ual in any other field of work. The more you prac­tice, the more you dis­cover new ways to do things, and per­son­ally that excites me, but it also keeps oth­ers inter­ested in your work.

My next tip would be to never give up!! It’s so cru­cial to keep giv­ing it all you’ve got. Suc­cess isn’t a straight path to the top, there are set backs and days you think you have to give in and quit, but if you keep push­ing through, I think great things can happen.

I’d say its really impor­tant to learn how to take con­struc­tive crit­i­cism for exactly what it is-​-​-​constructive, and to know the dif­fer­ence between con­struc­tive crit­i­cism and neg­a­tive feed­back with­out any basis.

Expect to work really hard to make it in an art related field, espe­cially if you’re look­ing to do free­lance. I spend prob­a­bly 85% of my time work­ing on either my work, client work, or attempts to book new jobs, 10% sleep­ing, and 5% enjoy­ing free time. If you really love what you do, it’s not too big of a prob­lem, but def­i­nitely expect to spend a lot of time ded­i­cated to your craft if it ends up being a career choice.

Net­work your lit­tle heart out. Put your­self out there. meet other artists-​-​those in your medium, and even those out­side of it. And not only artists, but talk with any­one and every­one you can. The more con­nec­tions you have, the more poten­tial clients you have. Be gen­uinely kind to oth­ers, espe­cially if you’re going to be rely­ing on book­ing clients. I can’t lie and say it’s been easy to book work-​-​-​its an awe­some jour­ney though, and its def­i­nitely an attain­able career choice-​-​-​I wish the best of luck to you all! xx

To see more of Karrah’s work, visit her port­fo­lio at: http://​kar​rahkobus​.zen​fo​lio​.com/ or check out the other Artist Spot­lights.