When I look into the viewfinder, I see the story of ordinary people. The traces left by those who’ve walked this path;
adventurers that have passed through this land. I see lives lived in the ruins of a decaying building. Their ghosts walk
silently beside me as I step over the rubble. I wonder what it looked like then. What they saw. Was it different then
from what I see now? What did the land look like before they put this building here? What did the building look like
when it was new?
My name is Lauren Linehan and I am a photographer. In 1989 I bought my first SLR. A year later I enrolled in New York
Institute of Photography’s correspondence course and learned three guidelines about composing a picture: 1) identify
the subject, 2) include things that enhance the subject, and 3) exclude things that detract from the subject. Using
these guidelines I do as much composing within the viewfinder as possible. This was more important when using slide
film as once the picture is taken it’s taken. Now I use digital and I still keep to the same guidelines. And sometimes
I find another photograph hiding inside a photograph.
How do I know I’ve created a worthy photograph? This is the “Oh wow!” moment. This is when the viewer is captured;
left speechless they cannot look away. When this happens I know they have connected with the photograph, possibly
in a way I never intended. Some emotion or passion within them is brought up from deep within by the simple viewing
of my photograph.
Krossel Kreek Photography came about as I turned my hobby into a career. I turned my passion for photography up a level
to put my work on display for others to view. The name comes from the creek flowing through the fields of the Oregon
farm where I grew up. It seemed a good name; the water flows from its origins in the hills, passes over a beaver dam,
through pastures of dairy cows, under the highway and into the bay. Very shortly the bays converge and travel on to
the great Pacific Ocean. As the water travels its changing course, so life changes and moves on.
Lauren R. Linehan
January 2010