My goal has never been to 'capture' a photograph, but rather to CREATE an image!
 – Kevin Holliday –

THE BIO…

Kevin Holliday is an internationally recognized fine art black and white photographer residing in Charleston, South Carolina. Along with being named the Professional Photographers of South Carolina ‘Photographer of the Year’ in 2017, he has received awards from such international organizations as the SeeMe Exposure Awards™, ND Awards™, and the esteemed IPA™ (International Photography Awards).

His work has a primary focus on architecture, landscape, and long-exposure minimalism, where it is noted for its attention to simple elements, leading lines, and negative space. Kevin attributes this attention to his background in graphic design, an artform that is built from a blank slate based completely on VISION. He is also known for mentoring aspiring photographers by helping them develop the technical aspects of Image-capture & Processing, while also expressing their own artistic vision; he believes that without that aspect, nothing else matters!

For Kevin, it’s not just the capture and processing of the image that’s important; he has always believed that no photograph is 100% complete without a physical manifestation of it… the print. Working methodically and producing a smaller crop of images per year than many others, his attention is engaged on the final display of fine art. You can rest assured if you have a limited-edition print by Kevin Holliday, it has been handled from start to finish with the goal of being displayed on the wall and enjoyed for a lifetime.

THE GENERAL ARTIST STATEMENT…

Capturing reality and presenting it as such has never been enough. My goal is to create imagery based on vision and depicting a world that does not exist, while representing who I am as a person and as an artist

Though my approach has always demanded black and white imagery due to its removal from reality, it is first and foremost based on how I choose to portray subjects in an otherworldly, ethereal, and symbolic manner. It is this step of absolute artistic freedom that is most important to how I treat my works, and requires the manipulation of light in order to create an atmosphere far different than what we see with our own eyes. It is not a light that exists in the real world, but rather one that exists from within. 

After taking many years away from my camera to pursue graphic design, I did not recognize at first that I was building upon this artistic approach that you see today. During those years as a designer, I realized that if graphic design is built from a conceptual process, photography should be afforded the same freedom. It was graphic design that taught me to be an artist first and a photographer second, and I am now driven by that enlightenment. Where the photographic process differs is that the vision is not developed from a blank canvas, but rather built-up from the capture of an existing environment.  

In order for this to happen, I have embraced modern photographic processing; I have embraced art! I believe that art is the true reflection of one’s soul and an extension of one’s voice. In photography there are multiple ways to create an image based on this value, one of those being the use—or not—of light itself. It is this notion that puts my subjects in different light than what reality had painted. What you see in my works is not what you will see by visiting these same locations; what you see in my works is what you will see by visiting me.

Cheers!

Please see The Work on this website to experience the world as he sees it!