I don't photograph things. I photograph a way of seeing them.

A dark silhouette mirrored over the textured exterior of the de Young Museum, San Francisco — from Ken Holden's Unaltered State of Reality collection.
Two geese in flight past a full moon in a stormy night sky — from Ken Holden's Natural Surroundings collection.
A Photo-Anagram artwork made from a photograph of a densely crowded Shanghai street — from Ken Holden's Photo-Anagram collection.
A one-of-a-kind mosaic of individual strangers passing through public space — from Ken Holden's People Around Us collection.
Pearl Rose — a close-up of a creamy white rose from Ken Holden's Liquid Flowers collection.
A distinctively dressed passer-by caught in motion — from Ken Holden's Individual Personae collection, celebrating the diversity of people in public.
A luminous web of multicolored light evoking electrons flowing through the brain — from Ken Holden's Abstract Thoughts collection.
Summer visitors filling the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, seen from the Eiffel Tower — from Ken Holden's Street & Travel collection.
A black-and-white street scene in Hsinchu City, Taiwan during the Ghost Festival — from Ken Holden's Monochrome collection.
A butterfly resting on a vibrant purple cosmos flower — from Ken Holden's Floral Dreams collection.

I have worked with light my whole life, through the camera in one form or another. But the way I truly see was forged in the clarity between near-death and life, where beauty appeared as a single point of light. I've been chasing that light ever since, at the fringes of the medium: ten collections, each a different way of reaching for it.

What am I looking at — a photograph, a painting, a watercolor, an illustration?

Two figures at a small table among russet autumn foliage, in soft impressionistic focus — Ken Holden's avant-garde photographic impressionism, from his Unaltered State of Reality collection.

As a young Marine infantryman in Vietnam, I asked one question as I lay between life and death: how do I want to live my life? The answer became fifty years of creative work — from a Kodak Brownie camera in childhood to a residency at the de Young Museum, five children's picture books, the BeMuze app, and two monographs now underway. The search never changed: to find beauty in the overlooked, and to create artwork the viewer can feel.

Photo-Anagram

The collection that became an app. Conceived during my three years at the de Young Museum in San Francisco and taught to the public during my 2010 residency there. A Photo-Anagram turns a single photograph into endless works of art, like the meditative mandalas of Nepal and Tibet. Today, it lives in your hands as the BeMuze app.

Ornate classical stone building at the Palace of Versailles, France, under a blue sky — the source photograph for a Photo-Anagram created with the BeMuze app.

Original Photo

A Photo-Anagram made from a single photograph of a building at the Palace of Versailles — the source image rearranged, like letters in a word, into one of its endless creative expressions, created with the BeMuze app.

Photo-Anagram Artwork

Selected Recognition
de Young Museum — Artist-in-Residence & Solo Exhibition
Stanford University Art Spaces
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Camera Arts Magazine
Commonwealth Club of San Francisco

Own a piece of artwork

Each photograph is offered as an archival, signed, limited-edition print with a certificate of authenticity, made to order and delivered within one to two weeks.

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