Lars King was born in 1979 in Southampton New York, on the east end of Long Island. In 2013, with the birth of his son, King left his career as a Chef. This change not only gave him time to be present as a parent, but it also gave him the drive to photograph more. With this, he began focusing on capturing people in various portrait styles. King found his photographic passion following his lifelong love of horror movies and all things geek. After nearly a decade honing his skills with people the pandemic began. Now unable to shoot people, King reached out for any means to stay creative. This led him to find a new passion which reignited his desire to create. His current work, though a departure from all prior, exhibits a similar sense of style and sensibility. In addition to a solo exhibition at Muñeca Art House in February 2021 King's work has been selected for inclusion in several group shows both locally and internationally.
Near the end of 2019, I attended a workshop on Macro photography. I had always been fascinated by those closeup photos we've all seen of very small things. After the workshop, I realized I not only very much enjoyed it, but I felt like I had an eye for it. When the Pandemic began and put an end to in-person photoshoots, I turned to Macro to stay creative. The photos of water drop collisions I had seen by Martin Waugh and Harold Edgerton had always captivated me. So, I started reading everything I could and taught myself how to photograph them. This experiment has been a revelation for me artistically and technically. It has forced me to learn my camera technique more precisely and to think about composition in a new way. Making these images requires a blend of both science and art. The mix between the two makes capturing the splashes just as exciting and satisfying as it is challenging.
Photos of water drop collisions are created by controlling the sizes and sequence of water drops falling into a bowl of water using a digitally controlled valve. When a droplet is released, it falls into a bowl of water creating a splash, a second droplet is released so that it collides with the splash that the first drop created. An electronic flash is fired at a precise time to freeze the splash so that it can be captured photographically. The various colors in these photos are created using food coloring, acrylic paint, and filters on the flashes.
Every one of these photos is a fleeting, split-second, moment frozen in time. Revealing another facet of the delicate and complex beauty of the world around us. Every time it rains, every time we turn on a faucet, splashes, and collisions like these are happening.
