BIO
Kevin Weinstein (b. 1971) is a documentary and fine art photographer born in San Francisco, California.
His practice explores social complexities as a way to understand how others negotiate their opposing lives. He received a BFA in art from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MA in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
For the past 35 years he has worked as a professional photographer, while continuing his personal work on communities that have been marginalized or overlooked. Kevin spent ten years working for newspapers and photo agencies from California to Tennessee and for the last twenty years, he has earned a living documenting private soirées of the wealthy and famous around the globe.
Kevin has garnered numerous awards for his photo essays and was a scholarship recipient of the Cliff and Vi Edom Photojournalism Foundation and the OO McIntyre Foundation Grant co-funded by Nikon, Inc for a 1-year project about college rodeos in America. He was a two-time recipient of the Main Photographic Workshop grant, Ernst Hass scholarship award in documentary photography and a recipient of the American Jewish Federation grant to document the absorption issues of Ethiopian Jews settling into Israel. Kevin also won First Place in the College Photographer of the Year (COPY) documentary category and the following year won Third Place.
STATEMENT
Light and color are constantly in a state of change; they continually transition from one state to another. People and places are also in constant flux. Internally, externally: everything is in motion, all the time, and light and color create meaning for it all. They are all we see, and while both are unpredictable, they provide a hedonistic pleasure and awareness. Light and color evoke sensations so personal it informs all my work with its own reflexive vocabulary. I seek to document transitions, illuminated by light and color, and illustrate a temporal intimacy that is both wistful and remote.
For me, reality has always been far more curious when compared to something created by the imagination. The eccentricity and mystery lures me into being an observer. What’s most interesting is when images that slightly eclipse reality but do not challenge what is real.
The human condition is quickly associated with words such as suffering, despair or misery. But life is made up of just as much joy, celebration, and ritual. I am an observational photographer, a voyeur, often a nosey outcast. People in a similar existential state peek my interest. Without a camera, I am nothing more than a bystander. With a camera, I am able to participate in other people’s lives.