Wow, I appreciate that you're able to notice my lust-for-life reflected in my images. However, I'm constantly struggling when I'm framing or staging for a final image because the moment and mood captured is always much more incredible and grandiose than my image portrays. On every shoot, every new location, I push myself to be better at seeing, experiencing, and capturing so that the derivatives are as pure and genuinely dramatic as a photocopy of a moment can be. Lately, I've been focusing on architecture and nature and less on people and moments (can you tell?)--if I can't capture the history of a house in a few frames, how can I capture a lifetime of moments of one person with a few clicks?
Which song can you not avoid singing out loud with, even if in public?
The Black Crowes, Soul Singing (it's the best road trip song, by the way)
"Home bound
Tired of tired of running town to town
Tired of my heart turned upside down..."
Can you describe your relationship with color as if you were talking about a person?
Most of my work is edited in full color. I rarely process black and white images and that's for a reason: I'm completely obsessed with color. I look for it daily and hourly, city-to-city and street-to-street, and I watch for patterns in color and combination. I hunt it down. It's the one thing I can count on to inspire me daily and challenge any preconceived notions about art and amicable, interesting, or moving pairings of hue. I'm never bored or unchallenged when I spend quality time learning more about color as it relates to creating impactful storytelling or abstract imagery (location and light scouting, staging, framing, and finally, processing). I long to spend time with it; I stare at it lovingly and seek it out no matter where I am--even in my dreams. It's all I can think about sometimes, truly. Currently, my favorite hues spotted are rich, creamy tangerine and grayed, dusty blue. Without color, my art has neither focus, story, purpose, nor direction.
Can you describe how you feel walking around in a foreign city for the first time with your camera?
I'm like our Warm Pears vagabond friend in that I need to experience a new city firstly by taking it in, fearing it, ultimately being confused by it, then enjoying it, and eventually accepting its Entirety. Even when my camera is handy, I still feel nervous trying to form something from the chaos going on inside my head and outwardly in the New Place. I need a day or two (sometimes longer) to feel established and confident enough to capture it in the way I want it to be seen. We, as artists, me as a photographer, have a great responsibility as manipulators: we choose what others are allowed to see of a moment, of a place.
What is the most significant type of culture shock you've experienced living away from home?
I honestly can't say I've experienced an outright shock. I haven't traveling afar & enough. Though, the way I experience culture shock is me being out of control. If I don't have control over what's happening in my life or at what time and under what conditions, I panic. I was significantly surprised when I arrived to Italy (and now, especially, the Campania region) about the way daily operations function here; I've had the least amount of control here than anywhere else I've ever lived. Want to get a package in the mail? Well, it may be here in a week, it may be here in a month, or it may never arrive. Want to take the bus into Naples? That's great, but the bus is never on time, and some days, it doesn't show up at all. Forget planning. Forget mapping. I just have to cross my fingers and expect that something will thwart my plans and obstacles will undoubtedly deter me from what I want to do. Often times, you must throw your hands up in the air and hope for the best...and when the best doesn't present itself, you must breathe, accept what was given to you, and do your best to move on. I'm still adapting to this way and for a self-proclaimed control freak, it's rough. But, I'm learning. In part, this lesson is why I'm specifically here.
How old were you when you took your first photograph? What was it of?
When I was in high school, my cousin offered to lend me her Pentax K1000 35mm old film camera so I could take an after-school community college course (a basic film class). Our first assignment was to use our cameras (which, of course, we knew nothing about yet) to photograph anything. I remember exposing my first rolls of film at my boyfriend's house in the Oregon countryside. His dad was from France and had a gorgeous white cottage out back with colorful glass bottles and french trinkets and treasures inside, lit warmly by the filtered sunlight peeking through the old, cracked window panes. My first time intentionally photographing anything, I was excited: I felt incredibly empowered and artistically motivated. I shot three rolls of film, but out of those, only about ten pictures developed were in-focus and properly exposed. When I returned to my childhood home last summer before coming to Italy, I spent some quiet time culling through old negatives and prints and found those Wreckless Originals; alone, I grinned in awe of the fact that, today, I am capable of intentionally exposing images using a camera; not only that, I created a business and a life-long passion out of photography. Looking at the proofs, I can clearly see the miracle in that.
If I had my druthers, there would be an old piano in this apartment.
Based on your travels, where would you recommend I could find:
• the best coffee on earth: Campania, Naples, Italy : Try Caffé Alla Nocciola (Napolitano coffee with espresso, cream, and hazelnut-chocolate spread (usually Nutella) all steamed together).
• the best chocolate on earth: Perugia, Italy (namely, Perugina), Switzerland, and Belgium (obviously)
• the best street food on earth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and, at 4am in the morning, Boise, Idaho (suprised, aren't ya?)
• the most beautiful doors & windows on earth: ... Italy (can that be the answer to everything?). I'm begging to travel so far away to another country that will prove me wrong, but Outlook Not So Good.
• the best-looking people on earth: Kansas. Rather, The Midwest.
• the biggest population of stray dogs/cats on earth: I'm afraid to say--right here in Campania. It makes me so sad, I can't even talk about it.
• the most color on earth: so far, southern Italy. But I have yet to travel to South America, India, Thailand, etc. Color me curious.
The last dream I remember having was a reflection of my desire to adopt a child.
The most significant creation/discovery in the history of culinary art is that I, Kristy Behrs, cooked Gnocchi a Gorgonzola ... and didn't ruin it.
Describe what your wardrobe is comprised of.
I have a few dresses and a couple pairs of yoga pants. I'm a dress girl and I'm anti-jeans (unless I'm in France during a sub-zero holiday season). I came to Italy with two suitcases--I carefully culled down clothes from what seems like thousands of colorful and patterned pieces from thrift-shopped vintage and other clothing treasures. I gave away half of my wardrobe. What I didn't put into storage (including non-clothing items) fit into two suitcases, one of which is not currently with me. If I could have genuinely answered, "There are no thrift shops in Italy," to the above culture-shock question, I would have.
In a past life I was certainly Claude Debussy.
I can deeply relate to his musical compositions because their themes are all-over-the-place (from song-to-song and from stanza to stanza) and they're inspired by a plethora of cultures, landscapes, people, and experiences. He skips from one melody to the next as if he's telling you a story, barely trailing off to a finis before he sticks you thick in the tall weeds of a field in another story. I thrive in the adventure of experiencing his art. He had a twenty-track mind and remained multi-interested and vested and this was always reflected in his work. I hope one day I can make something solid of my own sporadically random and restless focus.
A photo that describes your current mood exactly...
Noa, you tweeted about Alexandra Valenti's gallery, and I fell in love with the mood of the Hawaii set. Today, this is the embodiment of my mood.
If these walls could talk, they'd ask me many questions.
Since I've recently decided to spend more time in Campania (for longer than a week), I'm residing in an apartment which was recently vacated by my landlord's mother who passed away. I can't help but feel her presence here, giving me insight into her life here in these rooms. I look out off the balcony and see the same things she saw. If the walls could talk, I'd have plenty of questions for them, too... about her. They'd tell me and then ask me, a complete stranger, how I found myself here. I would ask them how long I will stay.
You and I have the same birthday. What are people born on June 19th like?
According to most astrological charts, I'm very much a Gemini: I like variety, multiple projects going on at once, and staying mentally active; I hate being tied down. I'm 'dual-natured, elusive, complex and contradictory, imaginative and restless...a skilled manipulator of language in speech and writing.' Yes, all of the above describes me to a tee and I didn't have to dig very deep to find the information. What are June 19 people like? Since I've only met two June nineteenthers in my lifetime, I'd have to ask you, Noa, if you relate to any of this.
Aside from photography, I've been writing and journaling since I was twelve, studying music since I was nine and fine art since I was thirteen; I dabble in blogger/blogspot design, and always have many projects going on at once. I get restless when I'm not constantly working on or preparing for the next project. I often see both sides of an equation or problem and, between that and perfectionism, it makes it hard to make a decision, commit to only one project, or finalize anything. I'm not an astrology fanatic, but I believe these kind of things have some truth to them, that there's a divine Order to creation: the way things are designed and the way they work. Form follows function. I would that my creative endeavors be yet eclectic, completed and multifunctional.
