Why I Only Use My Own Photography in My Work
In a digital era saturated with image banks, AI renderings, and licensed stock, there’s something quietly radical about beginning with your own eyes — and your own camera. Every Orin Kade artwork begins with a real-life photograph I’ve taken myself. Not borrowed. Not outsourced. Not generated. Just observed, captured, and reimagined.
This choice is deliberate. It’s about presence. I walk the world with a lens, collecting textures, shadows, and fleeting moments that most pass by. These raw photographs are transformed — digitally edited, often abstracted — into visual poems that still carry the trace of real light. The result is surreal, but rooted. Fiction built on fact.
By working exclusively from my own photography, each piece becomes not only emotionally original, but physically mine. The veins of a leaf I saw at dusk. The light of a bulb flickering against worn wood. These aren’t just elements in an image — they’re part of a lived moment. And I believe collectors can feel that difference.
In a time when AI art and generative shortcuts are rising, I return to the slow, imperfect honesty of reality. It anchors my work. It grounds the surreal in the seen.
This is more than a style — it’s a philosophy.
Read more about my process
Learn why AI-generated art can feel empty