Kurt Kramer: I Took My Camera Out For Coffee

Five years ago Kurt Kramer undertook an important "shoot-every-day" project which eventually took shape as a collection of photographs titled,I Took My Camera Out for Coffee.The initial idea of the project was to photograph daily for a year in the hope of achieving evolution and growth as an artist. Soon after he started, however, he realized that shooting every day made traveling to a variety of sites impractical, so Kurt started taking his camera with him on morning walks to his repertoire of neighborhood coffeehouses. Life in and around those coffeehouses emerged as his on‑going subject matter. His intention was to capture the beauty and poignancy of this aspect of urban life. The timing of the walks had the added benefit of beautiful morning light which often illuminated the scenes that he found and captured.

He almost named the series “Lost In…” because in addition to seeking and finding beauty, Kurt found that "…people, while having their morning coffee, generally get lost in something: each other, their work, the weather, a discussion, their private thoughts, the news, a book, a phone call or simply in their enlivening cup of java." At the end of a year of shooting, Kurt found that he enjoyed and benefited from the discipline so much that he continues to shoot with the same approach to this day.

Image: Kurt Kramer, Morninghawks