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In July 2018 I was interviewed by writer and editor Evan Gerdisch.

Roy Kerckhoffs is an award-winning artist based in San Diego’s North County. He and his wife, Marie, founded Eyeball Photography in 2008, which became Roy Kerckhoffs Art in 2014. In 2015, he opened his first studio in Carlsbad. His photography often captures man-made objects in various states of decay, contrasted with natural surroundings. As Roy himself puts it, his art aims to convey “a history of a place.” Roy develops his photos in high-contrast black and white, and then paints them using oils, employing much the same technique as was utilized in the early days of photography.

Do you feel that your background as a scientist informs how you approach photography?

Yes, it does, in several ways. I like straight-on shots for one, with straight lines going across the image, which is probably the engineer in me. I also typically—whenever I can—try to shoot a subject from all sides using a variety of focal lengths, as if I’m researching my subject. In science, you convey your research through scientific papers to your peers, and that is done as unambiguously as possible. With photography, you also convey your story to the public with your images, but ambiguity is absolutely allowed here, as people usually have their own interpretation of art.

I used to work in the field of mechanical computational modeling. In that field, a distinction is made between kinematic and mechanistic modeling. Kinematic means that when you create a model, you don’t care about the underlying physics, and only describe resulting motion. In a mechanistic model, you do make use of the underlying physics to obtain the motion of that model. I feel that photography is more like kinematic modeling: you describe what you see. For example, you don’t care that light is composed of electromagnetic waves of a certain wavelength that interact in all kinds of different ways with matter.

What features of California drew you to it as an artist?

Well, in the first place, I came here as a scientist to perform research at the University of California in San Diego. That it was in California was a big bonus; I had not realized before that California was so diverse in terms of landscapes. Within an hour or two drive, you go from the coast through hills, forests, mountains and the desert. And saying it like that in one sentence doesn’t do it justice either. The highest and lowest points in the contiguous states are less than 100 miles apart and they’re right here in California. 

Many of your photographs seem to contrast older man-made objects with natural settings. What do you feel draws you to photograph man-made objects that are in a state of decay?

My attraction to that probably originates from my early childhood; my father taught me to draw and I have created a lot of pencil drawings in my life—I still do. You can obtain a lot of contrast and texture in drawings and that is what also gets my attention in photography.

In particular, human-made objects that are aging will show lots of texture and contrast; just think of rusting versus shiny new metal. What’s more, because these objects have been around for a while, there are so many possible stories that are linked to these objects and the scenes that they exist in. Sometimes we (or I) know them—think of the ghost town Bodie—and sometimes I don’t.

In general, do you actively search for scenes that you’d like to photograph, or do you encounter them unintentionally in your day-to-day life?

Both situations apply. Just two weeks ago I took my daughter on a road trip through California. On day five we were driving from Humboldt Redwoods State Park towards the coast, following CA-1. While we were still relatively far away from the coast, I noticed some abandoned houses along the road. Old trucks were sitting next to them, and one house had a rusting tricycle sitting in front of it. The scenes went through my mind, and I had to make a U-turn as I couldn’t just let it go, and I ended up taking lots of pictures.

What are some locations that you would like to photograph that you haven’t yet been able to?

If you had asked me this question yesterday, I’d have said Newport Beach, but I just visited it this morning and I have a lot of new work to add to my portfolio from there. Some of the other places I’d still like to visit are Yellowstone National Park and Eastern State Penitentiary. As for places in the world I’d still love to visit, New Zealand and Iceland rank among the top.