Kai is an artist from the southernmost part of Germany. After asking him a few questions I was pleased to discover that his intriguing Plate series was not done in Photoshop, instead all was done by hand.

Are you only an artist/photographer, or do you have another career?

Indeed, I also have other ambitions (that are a little better paid than my picture taking). Anyway, most people in Flickr would confirm that photography is not really a cheap activity. So, I’m quite happy to have the possibility to earn the money that I waste in my obsession with photography otherwise …

How did you come up with the idea for your Plate series?

I had serious considerations whether I wanted to perform “snap-shots” only, that means collecting memories and things that seem spontaneously interesting. Or, on the other hand, to actively intervene into scenes to improve or modify the expression. It is a certain style in photography to arrange scenes like stage directors would do before shooting it. Others might do only minor changes such as moving an ash tray two centimeters left to improve a certain picture or even use a flash. So, there is a wide range between two extremes: Taking an existing scene as natural and untouched as possible or making a totally artificial construction. In the first case, the personal artistic expression arises from the choice of perspective, light, depth of field, or any other technical aspect of photography - but with no direct figuring of that in the picture. In the second case, there are much more possibilities for being spectacular, but you will have probably much more efforts and the picture probably will appear unnaturally.

To cut a long story short, “the plates” were my idea to bring irritation into this range between “natural” and “arranged”. While they are so clearly and basically “artificial”, the remainder of the picture isn’t. I discovered that there are many more nice aspects by placing rectangles in photographs. They give me some intuition into mechanisms how pictures generally work in the two-dimension-domain.

While this is my attempt to describe that from an intellectual view, there is also an important emotional aspect: I like colors and I just feel comfortable about handling with these plates.

Are there any interesting stories behind the series?

Several stories. For example, I impatiently wanted to try my first plate directly after buying some paint. I drove into the woods and painted my first plate right at the parking lot. Not only that other people wondered about me being sort of weird by doing this, the color didn’t dry that fast. Lastly I stood pink smudged between the trees with a colored plate in my hands as a group of hikers came around ..

Can you please describe the progress of taking one of your plate photographs?

For some time, I carried a plate and the camera in my bag the whole day with me, waiting for a perfect shooting opportunity. But this didn’t work well because I never had the fitting color on the plate for a given scene. Now, I’m looking for appropriate locations and plan the shooting. Sometimes it is while I’m biking or running that I make a mental note from a certain spot. After this, I consider what kind of plate and color would fit and paint it then. Then I come back some days later with the equipment for the shot.
I had some explorations, what kind of color on the plates is best for being photographed. Varnish for instance isn’t good because of bad glossy reflections, coating with color paper had not the deepness I wanted. Lastly I discovered gouache colors, these are fine.

Is the series complete, or do you have plans to add more images to it?

This work is in progress definitely. For my feeling, the examples on Flickr are some first test shots only. For instance, I’m anxious to the upcoming winter time with snow that probably will be a perfect background for the plates. Maybe that I decide afterwards that the first shots were the best anyway. But I see a lot of work left to do. It is obviously that the pictures acts best at the wall, both the painted plate and a C-Print of the photograph in the same size shown together. So, I’m looking for a photographic way to reproduce this effect for online or printing purposes.

Visit Kai’s website to see more of the images from his Plate series and the rest of his photography - www.marlonkowalski.de - or check out his Flickr.

Every Friday internet jogging features an artist, series or something special Chelsee finds while scouring the white, pink and blue treasure trove. We call this the Friday Flickr Feature.