Welcome, Nick Kelsh. Why photography?
I’ve had an odd career. In high school, I wanted to be a war photographer. I spent a year in Belfast at the height of the troubles working for the Belfast Telegraph newspaper. Long story, and then later, I became a guy that taught mothers how to photograph their babies. The common thread through everything I’ve done is that I always wanted to make something beautiful. And I still feel that way. I get a feeling in my body when I put a camera to my face, and I go to another place in my brain, calculating and feeling what I’m trying to do with my camera. All photographers do that, even if they don’t admit it.
I was diagnosed by two serious attention deficit disorder (ADD) experts when I was 4o years old, and both laughed at me when I said, Well, do I have it? One of them answered: You are the poster child for it.
But he also said, “Fortunately, you have the perfect job for somebody with ADD. Photographers get to play with cool toys, run around in the country and then in the city and places in between, and meet different people, and it’s a visual existence. Perfect for someone with ADD.” And my whole life was explained to me at that moment. It was all true. Right from the start, I was wired to be a photographer.
