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A Very Brief Biography

Kurt Lightfoot is an award-winning digital photographer from North County San Diego, specializing in event photojournalism and fine art photography. His approach is to leverage universal visual cues to communicate compelling narrative and interpretive themes. His mission is to create images that evoke an emotional/intuitive response that has significant meaning to the viewer.

Lone BenchLone Bench is a scene from Point Lobos near Carmel, CA. It is very symbolism/metaphor rich with its lone bench, deep forest, diverging paths, hollow trunk, and subdued lighting. As edited, it could be an illustration of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken; “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both.” Easy to imagine one sitting on its lone bench and having such thoughts. Example: You the viewer are standing on one path, looking at two paths diverging ahead. The one you select becomes one with the one you’re on, and the alternative gets left in the unknown of the one life we have to live.
“Life is choice” — Kurt Lightfoot Lone Bench

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Beauticians, Beauties, Citizen Photojournalists
Cruisin' Grand event, Escondido CA
 

MSLR Christmas 2013 007

Mission

My mission is to create
narrative and interpretive images and projects
that have significant meaning to the viewer.

Reaching Up To The Light— The Universe In A Tree —

Trees — I'm in awe at how the bio-info encoded in their little seeds is so smart and powerful that it builds strong, elaborate, beautiful, alive structures from the dust of the Earth. And I like how the dust of the Earth was created in stars — what Carl Sagan called "Star Stuff". And then this tree made of Star Stuff lifts its leaves to a star, our Sun.

Stephen Hawking wrote The Universe In A Nutshell, but it's easier for me to imagine the universe in a tree.

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"Reaching Up To The Light" was juried into its first show at the Front Porch Gallery.
• Click here for the E-Invite.

And it was juried into the Oceanside Museum Of Art 2015 Art Auction.
• Click here for the E-Invite.

And it was invited into the Panache Invitational 2017.
• Click here for the E-Invite.

And it was juried into Bonanica at San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas, 2018.
• Click here for the Invite.

Before & After editing of this image can be seen in the Blog post here

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Reaching Up To The Light
 

What's it all about?

It is not about mediums, cameras, optics, pixels, software, digital image processing, or color management. 

And photography is so ubiquitous now, is it really about photography anymore? Ref. John Paul Caponigro interviewing Huntington Witherill;

Q: What’s the worst thing about photography?
A: Its overly ubiquitous nature.

Q: What’s the best thing about photography?
A: Its vast potential for personal expressiveness.

So, it is about expressing narratives and feelings through symbolism, metaphor, interpretive perspective, and such, that are meaningful to viewers.

Hence, "Narrative and Interpretive Digital Images.".

The challenge is discovering meaning worth saying, worth sharing, that can be conveyed in a visual language. Conveyed through our shared visual literacy.

Sun, Atmosphere, Life in Flight

Ode to Jonathan Livingston Seagull
—
“Overcome space, and all we have left is Here.
Overcome time, and all we have left is Now.”
Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull
 

Science: "Give us one free miracle"
Give Us One Free Miracle

Reliance on Visual Literacy & Symbolism

The person who creates the image and the person who takes the time to react to the image are in a partnership, in a relationship.  A creative relationship based on shared symbolic meaning and significance.

Paraphrasing Arthur Danto:
Art is embodied meaning
interpreted by the viewer

Our shared visual literacy enables our capability to communicate literal and symbolic meaning; ref. the popular example that we all see the color red and feel the emotions of redness [e.g. here] — even more subtly we see a pathway through and beyond an opening and ponder our transcendence [e.g. here].  We share a universal visual skill-set that photorealism uses to communicate symbolically, and sometimes to share the mysterious and mystical.

I am aligned with Ansel Adams' famous assertion,
"There are always two people in every picture:
the photographer and the viewer."

And with Rocky Schenck's,
"To me, a photograph exists for the observer,
not the creator."

And ultimately, from Minor White,
"One should not only photograph things
for what they are
but for what else they are."

Because,
"...all reality is also at the same time symbolic."
Vincent van Gogh, in letter 425 to his brother Theo

Event Photojournalism

My event photojournalism services have been shared between commercial clients and volunteering services to worthy causes and organizations.  It has certainly created the most shutter releases and hours of editing.

After a few years I ended the commercial services to focus on 'narrative and interpretive digital images' and networking those images.

"Life is Choice" and needs focus and balance: Selectively I still volunteer services to causes that I consider strategic to photography and community, which have included Escondido Arts Partnership, Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside Museum of Art, Muramid Museum, and Exhibition of Photography/San Diego Fair at Del Mar.  Such organizations are more than living art — they are strategic for creating a community worth living in.

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Here's a project that blurs the lines between it all.

Leave A Light On Leave A Light On

Buddy & Kurt-2
 

Kurt at Heritage Ball 2012

Presence and Gratefulness

• As a kid I grew up in Michigan, spent my last 7 years there in Kalamazoo, and graduated from Western Michigan University which made all the rest possible. Grateful.
• As an adult I grew up in Silicon Valley, my gateway to the advanced industrialized world, worldwide. Whoa, I truly did not see that coming, but it did. Grateful.
• Now I thrive in the San Diego County CA USA corner of the digital-information age, employing digital-image-processing to create interpretive and narrative images. Grateful.

My images and projects have been juried and/or invited into a variety of SoCal venues including; Oceanside Museum of Art/Artist Alliance Biennial, Fallbrook Art Center, Front Porch Gallery/Carlsbad, Escondido Arts Partnership, The Art Of Digital Show/Lyceum Gallery, Mission Trails Art Gallery, Exhibition Of Photography/Del Mar, COVA Invitational San Diego Art Institute, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art,  Ashton Gallery @ Art On 30th, Sparks Gallery/Gaslamp Quarter San Diego.

Click here for a select list
of juried, invited, commissioned images

Although getting published is a secondary consequence, not a deliberate goal, click here for a select list of images that made it into publications.

I'm a member of North Coastal Art Gallery, Escondido Arts Partnership, Oceanside Museum of Art (OMA) and OMA Artist Alliance, and have served on the OMA-AA Steering Committee. I do event photojournalism for OMA, and photographically document their installations.

On several occasions I have been an invited speaker for Palomar College's photography program. And on multiple occasions I have served as a juror for the Exhibition Of Photography/SD Fair at Del Mar.

For several years I was a docent at the Museum Of Photographic Arts (MOPA) in Balboa Park.  An experience I am deeply grateful for.

I have participated in local photography clubs and guilds where I facilitated the interactive workshop Shoot For Story ~ Edit For Perception. I have also led that workshop at the International Exhibition of Photography/SD Fair Del Mar.

Old Glory Polyptych

Old Glory Artist Statement

Oceanside Sunset Pier 151207 154 Pier Into Vanishing Point

Be The Light At End Of The Pier

End Of His Pier