Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Claes.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ashley. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I started messing around with disposable cameras ever since I was a young girl. My mother would photograph our birthday parties, school events, vacations and so on. It was second nature for me to pick up the camera during these occasions and document what stood out in my eyes. I began to experiment with different camera types and my passion blossomed from there. Over the course of my childhood into my teenage years, I narrowed my focus onto conceptual pieces with a bit of a twist.
During my high school years, I began having terrible migraines, which led me to many doctors appointments to determine the cause. Through the process of these multiple tests, I found myself obsessing over a set of MRI scans of my head. I still have the original scans along with the negatives I created photographing them against the window in the front room of my house. The negatives were not simply documentation of these scans. They were showing the outside world that had been influencing the way I chose to live right through them. The scans not only baffled me and infuriated me, but some how also intrigued me. I didn’t have an answer to what was happening to my own mind, but was so in love with the battle I was mentally having with the situation. It made me look at things in a new light, realizing something so horrifying could be portrayed in a beautiful way.
This incident was the first real time I felt like I had some sort of control over what was happening in my mind, when I actually didn’t. It was also the first time I found the root go my photographic passion that is double exposure photography. Over the years, I used the double exposure technique in many different ways. First the window and scans, followed by layering in photoshop, overlapping negatives in the dark room, and eventually double exposing in camera.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing worth having is ever easy to obtain. There were always challenges I faced, which every good artist does. You are not only critiqued by your peers, but even more so by yourself. Half my battle has always been trusting my gut. Being someone who suffers from mental illness, I will forever be my hardest critic. It takes a lot to be able to feel that the art I am producing is worth having others see. Of course, there are always the projects that will feel like your babies and put you on cloud nine. However, when you find someone who does not understand the work, it can completely tilt your world on its axis.
It has taken many long hours to be confident about what I produce and stand by it, knowing not everyone will see what I see.
Please tell us about Ashley Claes Photography.
I am an artist. A straight up, do not support myself on my art work. have a day job artist. One of my biggest weaknesses is wanting to master every skill. Whether that be reupholstering, designing wedding cakes, laying tile floors, changing a diaper, giving CPR, or replacing a car window. Instead of eating, sleeping, and breathing photography, I simply sleep photography. Or honestly, do photography instead of sleeping.
During the day, I am a special needs care giver, documenting the day to day functions of a world most people could never comprehend. I have mastered patience, communicating with someone who can not communicate, soothing when I don’t know what is actually wrong and encouraging of the simple tasks most of us take for granted.
By night, I am a full blown artist. I appreciate the part light plays in setting a mood and manipulating a viewer’s feelings. The night is a great time to be in my own head with my photographs and the rest of the world is quiet. It is just me and my ideas formulating into a new piece of art.
It is my mission to document not only what is going on around me, but to display it in a way someone has never seen before. It gives that personal touch of being relatable, but also eye opening to a world of unknown. Most of my photographs are shown as snip its of a bigger picture with a much deeper meaning that brings every piece together and still allowing it to stand out. A lot of my double exposure work consists of the mind body split or personal and physical connection. For example, I use double exposure to show my current environment overlaid with a previous one that has sense influenced me into where I currently am. The harmony between the two comes from the personal journey displayed all as one.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
One of my favorite childhood memories is rummaging through old photographs. I can distinctly remember my family having a four drawer filing cabinet in the basement of our house. It was in the back room where we stored all the games, holiday decorations and random clutter when company came over. My sister and I were constantly in there playing dress up or finding a game to pass the time. However, when it was just me, I would open each drawer from bottom to top, fumbling my fingers through old photographs. Not only were there our immediate family photos of vacations and graduations, but my parent’s old photographs. There were photographs showing them at their first house, their wedding album, high school snap shots and random polaroids. There were always people I didn’t know in the pictures and I guess I first met my extended relatives through all the old memories from before I was born that were stuffed in this filing cabinet. And when I say stuffed, I mean it. There was one drawer that had the photo envelopes lined up neatly with negatives still in the sleeves, but the other three drawers were a treasure hunt. This was probably also my fault now that I am remembering it and not how it was originally. Sorry mom.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ashleyclaesphotography.com
Image Credit:
Ashley Claes Photography
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