Pixiq

About Andrea Kaus:

Andrea Kaus began photographing as a child, with her father as a teacher. Technical lessons were mostly forgotten, but the sense of sheer fun in catching tick-marks in time never went away. While undertaking fieldwork for a doctoral degree in anthropology, Andrea used photos as a way to connect with ranching families in northern Mexico. They taught her that a photograph is not taken, but instead a random moment captured as one might catch a wild horse. As a result, the thrill of photography for her remains the thrill of a hunt for a universally recognizable moment.

Andrea established Chaos Graphics as a side business in 2004, and started photographing local car shows. A local rodeo promotor soon asked her to take background event shots, which allowed her to combine her knowledge of horses and observations of people. In the last year, much of her photography has concentrated on the fast-paced sport and community of extreme cowboy racing. Joking that it also requires some extreme photography to get ahead of the competitors on course, she keeps in mind that the purpose is to document an unpredictable and unreplicable sequence of moments for the competitors and the event coordinators. The idea is to think ahead to get the shot that will look both unique and iconic to them. That said, her goal remains close to that of her fieldwork photography. Her focus tends to be on the interaction of people, horses, and other animals with their surroundings, and her hope is that the photos will evoke a sense of recognition even for someone who was not at the event.

She also maintains a daily photo blog and hopes to include wildlife photography in her repertoire when she grows up, maybe in her 60s or 70s. To see more of her diverse work, visit her site at chaosgraphics.smugmug.com.

Do you want to be considered for our Featured Photographer weekly? Email me at kara@pixiq.com for more details.