kimIndresano Behind the Camera

Early Photo Memory: My kiddo senses seriously sprouted in my dad’s homemade darkroom in a nook off the kitchen. Red safe lights, magical stinky chemicals, dripping images, and wow. Soon after I was a proud owner of a thick blue photo album with lift up, sticky cellophane pages and a delight of my world while free-roaming my little town by the sea. A bit later, Robin, my high school photography teacher granted extra access to the darkroom and pointed out that my Canon AE-1 and I had become fast friends.

Then What: College, and no not to study photography per se, but I snuck it in there all the time. Like when I shipped off to Firenze, Italy to continue to shape my eye and technique. Lusty travel habits ensued, camera in tow all around Turkey and Eastern Europe before heading westward and landing a summer job in a McDonald’s in a Parisian suburb. Really. Chez McDo.

Nat’l Geo Dreaming: Like many photogs, I had an ongoing subscription to National Geographic since I was small and that kept me humming and dreaming and still does. With job money saved, it was off to Southeast Asia at age 22 with bags of film, maps, a journal and nearly nine months worth of adventures. (Pre-email, mind you but loads of letter writing). Photography shows, sales and awards over the next few years, and then one day friends of friends visited and noticed travel images on my walls and then…

Will you shoot my wedding? And that’s what began 15 years ago, a sincere interest in continuing to look at culture and tradition, but in the context of weddings. Basically documenting love while surrounded by it. Who would want to turn that down? One wedding led to more (but I’ll admit that when people hire me to shoot their wedding because of my travel work, I think “Aww.”)

Where to? After a great stint in Boston, followed by nine years in San Francisco amidst my own true love, photo projects in Nepal and Bhutan, plus two arty kids, I’ve come full circle with a move to Salem, Massachusetts and nearby roots. While raising a young family and not traveling nearly as much (though my mind surely is), we’re ripening and gearing up. A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel by Nat’l Geo photographer Annie Griffiths Belt keeps a nice carrot out there for me. Meanwhile, my heart is wherever I am and it’s very content here in New England.

More adventures of a different sort: So naturally my wedding work has led to photographing the experience of pregnant women, children and families. My commissions lead me around the country and occasionally abroad, and thankfully back to a beloved Bay Area a few times a year.

Making pictures: Sometimes it’s really hard to sum up into words how to talk about something I care deeply about. Especially when it’s intuitive and visceral, which is how I come to create the images I do. It’s simpler to speak about how my hands feel when I haven’t held a camera in several days; they start curving, ready to hold a tried and true weight. I also know that I am constantly distracted by light and how its mood changes and how it shifts what and whom is closest to it.

When I create images for others and for myself, it’s maybe how a bloodhound feels with so many scents coming through at once. It’s one way I feel very much alive, at the ready, seeing, thinking, breathing. Acting in the moment and simultaneously re-living many moments.

Each day when I walk into my studio it’s so peaceful, I can think and create here. I feel so lucky and sometimes keep wondering what the catch is. That people invite me to come into their lives and capture who they really are on that day is something that I don’t take lightly, even though play and lightheartedness are such a part of how I do it. It’s still a privilege every time to work with another person’s trust and to capture the parts of their lives that are very meaningful to them. In my own way I create offerings that speak to them so personally. I like to imagine that someday these same images will become treasured heirlooms passed down within a family.