Studio Visit | Kristie Kistner
Studio Visit | Kristie Kistner
Fairfield-based photographer Kristie Kistner is, first and foremost, a storyteller; that much is obvious in her work. “Anybody can take a picture of someone’s face, and anyone can take a beautiful picture of someone’s face,” Kistner explained, “but if you can look at a photo and it makes you feel something—it makes you sad or happy— that is so amazing. And that, to me, is the real art, actually.” Kistner has dedicated her life to doing just that: telling stories through her photography, especially those stories that are not often told.
Originally from the housing projects of New York City, Kistner moved to Connecticut for college, attending Fairfield University as an Education major. “My mom was my first-grade teacher, so my mom was always in school, so I was just kind of in that world, and I never really loved it or anything,” Kistner recalled. “The only thing I’ve ever really loved since I was a little kid was taking photos.” This passion for photography remained with her throughout college, where she found herself enrolled in a photography course. “Actually, I should’ve known [that I would become a photographer], because it was by far my favorite course I took in college,” Kistner laughed.
Despite her love for photography, Kistner ultimately graduated with her Education degree and became a teacher. “I just kind of fell into it,” she explained, “and then I had my kids, and I wanted to stay home with them, so I started a little bit of photography. I guess I never really thought you could make money doing that, you know? I mean, art is kind of out there, and we’re never really taught to think—especially when I was younger, there was no Instagram or anything—that you can make money doing this.”
Kistner’s first official photography job was taking Christmas card photos for her friends. From there, she eventually grew her passion into her own professional photography business, which she has owned and operated for the past ten years. While she makes her living shooting portraits, her true photographic passion lies elsewhere. “[Portraiture] is not so much an art form as it is kind of like lies—I’m not a big fan of the lies,” explained Kistner. “It makes money, but it’s not my favorite in that I don’t love how posed it is and how much people want to be photoshopped.” According to Kistner, her favorite types of photography by far are fine art and documentary. She stated, “I love natural photography—the less contrived I can get a situation, the happier I am.”
Kristie Kistner, Untitled (2017).
Ever the advocate for capturing people in their natural states, Kistner rarely resorts to using a studio for her photography, preferring to document events and experiences in the moment. “I think, especially with children, it’s really hard for [them]to fake it, so any kind of situation where I can get them outside—they’re blowing bubbles, they’re having fun—is always going to make for a better photo.”
For Kistner, the true beauty of photography is being able to capture human emotions in an honest manner, which, for her, is part of the appeal of documentary photography. Having shot everything from 100th birthday parties to children playing on the beach to live birth, Kistner has seen and documented an incredible scope of human emotions. “I love when I’m in situations where people are really feeling something—that is by far my favorite. Weddings, things like that. Real joy! I’ll get invited to people’s most special things and it’s such an honor. But anything—honestly, really anything that can convey an emotion. If a photograph can make you laugh or cry or whatever, that’s definitely what I like.”
It is not hard to see, from even a small sample of Kistner’s works, that this holds true. For instance, one of her untitled works features a close-up of a young girl, grinning cheekily as she directs her gaze to the right, donning a bright pink polka-dotted hat and holding a pair of gaudy Christmas glasses to her eyes. The glee and giddiness of her demeanor permeate the image.
One of Kistner’s other works, Hoop Dreams (2015), depicts a typical suburban scene, while still managing to capture a fresh sense of playful emotions. The picture is dominated by a blue garage with a large white door and a basketball hoop hung above it. To the right, at the far end of the image, a young boy in a bright blue jersey and gym shorts stands on two folding chairs, his arms raised straight above his head, the ball frozen mid-air. His eyes are wide and hopeful, and the simplicity of the shot, along with the palpable hopefulness the boy displays, makes this photo particularly captivating.
Yet another image (published by National Geographic in 2018), is a playful black-and-white shot of a young girl, her face occupying half of the frame, who is smirking roguishly while a hand holds a broken makeup compact up to her eyes so that one eye is visible through one circle and the other is obscured by a mirror; the image is idiosyncratic and amusing and the humor emanates from the piece.
These images represent just a few of the many moments that Kistner has captured, yet they allow for some understanding of her range and talent for capturing raw emotions that help to tell a story. Her work exemplifies the old adage that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’
Kistner names Vivian Maier and Matt Hall as two of her major inspirations in photography, citing their originality and remarkable ways of viewing the world as something she tries to emulate in her work. In reference to Maier, Kistner proclaimed, “I love the concept that—I mean, before Instagram, before Facebook, before everybody was looking at faces— she was seeing the world in a different way. I just love that she’s a genuine originator.” As for Hall, a college friend-turned-professional photographer, Kistner emphasized the importance of his unique perspective. “I love the way he looks at the world. He sees things differently, and he photographs emotions, and that is what I’m always trying to do.”
The influence of their search for originality is clear in Kistner, as she photographs people in individually emotional ways, often adding a sense of humor or irony to her pieces. This dedication to raw human emotions has translated into a keen eye for powerful portraiture; virtually every photo of her’s that contains a human subject encapsulates a distinctive sense of wonder, fear, joy, or even humor. It is this emotion that makes her work stand out among other photographers, as she somehow instills these two-dimensional images with a palpable amount of humanity that evokes empathy and relatability.
Perhaps her most well-known work, Awestruck (2017) exemplifies this well. The photograph depicts the silhouette of a young boy standing before a large, electric blue fish tank filled with striking lavender jellyfish. Both of the boy’s arms are stretched out to the side, and his head is tilted slightly upward as he marvels at the creatures before him. Through this image (as with many of her others), Kistner is able to portray visceral emotions, even without capturing the boy’s facial expression. This photograph was published in National Geographic and won the Fairfield Images competition, for which Kistner was given the chance to mount her own exhibition at the Southport Galleries in Connecticut. And this, for Kistner, presented her with a unique opportunity that she was eager to embrace.
Kistner explained, “So, both of my children have Tourette’s. When [my son] was first diagnosed and I was looking online, all I found was joke after joke, and websites of jokes, and YouTube jokes and… and all I could think was: why? There’s no attention whatsoever, and there’s a lot of people living with Tourette’s—a lot of successful people living with Tourette’s—and I feel like it’s our job to put it out there a little bit more and erase some of the stigmas about it.”
Inspired by her kids and the lack of accurate information available, Kistner decided to mount an exhibition entitled Reflections: The Faces of Tourette Syndrome. Her vision for the project was to portray those with Tourette’s just as they are: normal, everyday people, often so unlike the media portrayal of a swearing, twitching, out-of-control entity existing solely as comic relief.
In order to recruit participants, Kistner posted an open-call on the Tourette Association of America’s Facebook page. To her surprise, she received a massive response. “I was very impressed,” Kistner revealed, “because I honestly expected to have, like, two other people besides my kids, which I think shows how much people agree that they want to show the real side [of Tourette’s]!”
Kristie Kistner, Untitled (2018).
Rather than pose her subjects, or formulate a specific plan for each photograph, Kistner wanted the subjects themselves—the people living with Tourette Syndrome—to guide the exhibition, and to tell their own stories as best they could. In an attempt to capture these subjects authentically, Kistner asked each what was special about them, hoping to capture them in a way that made them feel important. The subjects had a plethora of different answers, and Kistner made sure to capture each of them in their elements. In one photo (part of a group of three), a girl stands with her face tilted toward the sky, beaming with pure joy as a large bubble hovers just inches from her nose. Although black and white, the photo radiates emotion and captures a beautiful, ephemeral moment. In another, a young boy leans intently over an electric guitar, the lime green of his shirt contrasting with the navy blue-and-white instrument, his hand curled into formation over the strings.
In a personal favorite of mine, a young girl with striking red hair stands before a bright blue background. Her hair is being blown across her face from behind her, and she seems to lean into the wind, her mouth opens in a gleeful laugh to expose her braces. Each photograph is a vivid, full-colored portrait of the lives of these children, unrestrained by Tourette’s; under each photo, Kistner included quotes from each subject about their experiences with Tourette’s.
Although the exhibition was ultimately a larger feat than Kistner had anticipated—taking approximately three months to complete, with countless hours of driving around the tri-state area to meet and photograph subjects—it was all worth it for Kistner in the end. “The kids were really proud, and that meant so much to me,” Kistner gushed.
“As a mother, you always want to try to make life a little bit better for your kids. I want them to be proud of who they are, and Tourette’s is part of it.” For her, the most rewarding aspect of the exhibition was seeing the subjects invite their teachers, thereby spreading awareness and accomplishing Kistner’s goal for the exhibition. As Kistner reveals, “The whole thing brought me way more joy than I could have imagined. I thought that I was doing a good thing, but good things happened to me.”
In terms of future aspirations and artistic directions, Kistner expressed her interest and determination to work with the Tourette Association of America once again, perhaps portraying a different side of the syndrome than in her previous exhibition in the name of highlighting the hardships that people with Tourette’s face, possibly by depicting children with the medication that they have to take every day.
Kristie Kistner, TS Collage (2017).
The determination in Kistner’s voice was clear when she said, “They don’t get nearly enough attention, you know, and a lot of Tourette attention is negative. And a lot of Tourette attention is stereotypes that aren’t even true, so if I’m given... an opportunity, why not throw it at positive attention?” Kistner hopes to use her influence to change some of the misperceptions about this disorder, fighting for those that don’t often have the opportunity to share their own stories.
For Kistner, the importance of art cannot be emphasized enough; among other things, it provides her with the opportunity to combat some of the injustice that she sees in the world. As she put it, “It’s kind of one of those things where you’ve got to fight back a little, and this is like our way. We’ve got to help each other.”
And fight she does. Her exhibition shed light on a group of people who do not often have their story told—or told well, at the very least—and Kistner’s individual knack for capturing emotion lends an innate relatability to the subjects. It is easy to feel connected to each of the subjects, viewing them as not so different than anyone else—which is precisely what Kistner hoped to accomplish through her exhibition.
As with all of her work, Kistner stresses the power of art to communicate human experiences and emotions to others in sympathetic ways. When asked what she felt the most important take-away from her story is, Kistner replied, “Art can tell a story, you know, and our story is Tourette’s, and our story is acceptance; we’re using art to tell our story. I’m using it to tell my story directly, and you’re taking the same art and using it to tell your story, and it’s wonderful how that can happen from person to person. And photographs can still live on.”
For Kistner, art is not static—it is a dynamic tool, able to exemplify the human experience and provide a platform for advocacy for all people, even those whose story is not often told.
KELLY DANIELS
Kelly Daniels is a second-year forensic psychology student at the University of New Haven. Originally from Arcadia, a suburb of Los Angeles, Kelly is a native Californian who enjoys traveling, reading, and all forms of puzzles. At UNH, Kelly is involved in a variety of on-campus organizations, including the sorority Chi Kappa Rho, the American Criminal Justice Association (Lambda Alpha Epsilon-Psi Omega), the Honors Program, and Alpha Lambda Delta, the national honors society. This is her second year holding a position on hall council; she currently serves as the Public Relations Chair of Winchester and Dunham Halls and was previously the Westside Hall 3rd Floor Representative. During the summers, Kelly works at Universal Studios Hollywood in the Wizarding World, where she is able to combine her love for all things Harry Potter with her interests as a psychology major. She enjoys interacting with people from diverse walks of life while finding opportunities to practice her French. During high school, Kelly was heavily involved in the theatre program, performing in large and small productions, as well as the bi-annual statewide theatre competition, DTASC, where she was awarded 2nd place overall in the Monologue category (2017), 2nd place in the Large Group Drama category (“A Piece of My Heart,” 2016), and 2nd place in Shakespeare DTASC’s Breeches category (“As You Like It,” 2018). Upon receiving her Bachelor’s Degree, Kelly plans to return to the west coast to pursue a graduate degree and continue her studies in the fields of forensic psychology and criminal justice.
