About

A bag of cameras and a few boxes of photo albums provoked a life-long journey represented by the pictures here. My father left behind a mystery, a challenge that informed my life. Unanswered questioned suggested a path and the cameras he held in his hands became the tools of my self-discovery, a means for me to wrangle a seemingly infinite sadness, to convert it into energy and power to move forward.

The extraordinary pictures that filled my father’s albums provided clues and spoke to exquisite emotional power of photography. The images I found bound in those leather books left me no choice. I had to figure this out, and many excellent teachers later helped me both technically and viscerally. My high school photo teacher Walter Rabetz taught me the mechanics, and through his encouragement I attended the Rhode Island School of Design. Subsequently, other beautiful lessons came to pass, some from professors, and some from my fellow classmates, in particular Francesca Woodman whose form and imprint bounces across these pages. Again, a void left unanswered questions and fragments scattered behind which insisted on a solving. 

In preparation for the making of this website I looked at my work as a whole, rinsing away many concerns about commerce and expediency. I found through-lines that revealed to me a truth about my own way of seeing, my sense of space, rhythm and gesture. 

Thank you for looking.

Peter Michael Kagan