Michael Aanji Crowley

Skeletal Leaf

Burdock

Grey

Composted Leaf

Rhubarb

Michael Aanji Crowley writes:

The first picture I ever took was in the Navy Photo school, and while the rest of my naval trainings have been long forgotten, the photography has stayed.

I was born in the midwest and after much movement, have ended up here in Iowa, not far from Iowa City. I make my living working in Early Childhood, currently in an infant room- I get paid to crawl around on the floor with babies.

Except for those four years in the navy, I have never really used my camera to support myself. It felt like I’d lose the love I had with light and dark to work commercially. My earliest work was all black and white, home processed, fine-art photography. I went digital about twelve years ago and started doing more color work, though my latest work is back to black and white. I like the lack of chemicals in producing images.

For me, taking pictures is a form of meditation, an enforced act of being present. To see the beauty, you must be there, you cannot be thinking of other times or places- you will miss the only life you have, going on around you. And beauty is everywhere . . . sometimes in the big picture (and most folks catch those moments,) but more often it’s in the fine details that are too easily missed if you are not living in that moment.

 
 
 
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