About Ken Merfeld.
Ken Merfeld currently shoots commercial, fine art, and personal projects from his ‘art compound’, located below the mountains in Altadena, Ca. which he shares with coyotes, raccoons, possums, squirrels, feral cats, wild parrots, monarch butterflies, fruit trees, berry and rose gardens, a shelter puppy, two adopted cats, and a very supportive wife.
Ken Merfeld needs to create on a daily basis, loves to see what he has never seen before, and appreciates the bent, broken, life on the edge, and imperfection. He believes that the exchange of energy is most important in life and is critical in art. He has an insatiable appetite for beautiful light, interesting people, strong images, emotional response, simple design, and a different point of view. Merfeld is an aficionado of photo history and the black & white darkroom, is opinionated, honest, and passionate. Ken will go to a five-star restaurant but prefers tacos and beer, loves to laugh, and loves to create images more than anything.
Merfeld has worked for years on a black and white personal portrait project which includes dancers, bikers, autistic children, “little people”, people with their pets, transvestites, twins, women wearing masks, etc.
While embracing the new world of electronic imaging in commercial photography, Merfeld has also chosen to step back in time into the process of Wet-Plate Collodion from the 1860’s. This new body of work is attracting world-wide attention as Merfeld combines 19th Century technique with 21st Century technology in re-defining his provocative, emotional portrait series.
Ken also teaches photography at Art Center, College of Design, in Pasadena, CA, and at the Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP), does online portrait seminars and runs a critique/mentoring service (Photo Soup) out of his barn in Altadena.
As a result of a childhood accident and severe concussion, I lost most of the sight in my left eye. During recovery I experienced such intense migraine headaches that often my other eye had to be shielded from the light, leaving me in total darkness for long periods of time. I knew what it was like to be blind. When able to see again my mother had taken a job at the neighborhood movie theater. I spent what seems like a lifetime in the dark in that movie theater appreciating whatever I could see. Daily black and white movies, newsreels, and cartoons became my life. I appreciated all of the light that I could now tolerate from the screen and the pleasure and security of the dark environment as well. I lived everyday in light and in dark. I lived everyday with visuals.
I realize that my ability to see is a gift. My life in photography is an extension of that gift, appreciated each and every day. I try to see everything. I even see images when I close my eyes, just as if I were still sitting in the dark in that movie theater.