Light in a Box

For those of you that have been keeping up with my posts, you may be wondering where the photography content is. I assure you it is coming. For right now, I am enjoying the satisfaction of having finally figured out what the hell I want to do with my life. Based on the internet always reassuring me that, I'm only 25 and I'm too young to have my life figured out, I can assume there are many more people out there that were just like me. The ecstasy of graduating college was cut short when you realized you had no idea what you wanted to do. You finally had your fancy piece of paper covered in signatures and gold foil but that was only a ticket into a void of uncertainty. It took me three long years and a lot of moving to finally figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Even when I forced myself to pursue my dream, it took a while for the excitement to sink in. As the details are starting to get figured out, things are getting organized, plans being made, I am feeling more ...

My name is Justin Key and I am a photographer. That's really the whole story so far. I was never certain which way I wanted to go with my photography until now. So if you are reading this welcome to chapter two. Chapter one is usually filled with character introduction, so I can fill you in on the first 25 years of my life. After that though, the book is relatively blank. I was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and as far as I'm concerned, that will always be home. The world of photography started to appeal to me from a young age. When I wasn't outside playing, I was inside flipping through books and magazines looking at photographs. Eventually, taking pictures was all I wanted to do. That brought me to Marquette, Michigan at the University of Northern Michigan where I got my degree in photography. The cold never bothered me. I spent a lot of time outside shooting in conditions I wasn't sure the camera was built to withstand. The stars and northern lights are beauti...

I would like to say that, as a kid, there wasn't a condition that averted my attention from the text in a book to the pictures and since there was never a mandated trip to a professional I will continue to believe that. My parents would get me books and magazines and I would flip through them repeatedly just to look at the pictures. Eventually, my obsession transitioned from the photos to the devices that created them. I wanted a camera of my own so I could figure out the magic inside. I saved up and made my first adult purchase on a cheap Fujifilm camera. All I remember about that camera was it shot film, the proofs were constant disappointments, but having it gave me an intense satisfaction as if I was holding all I could ever want. The first picture I ever took came one winter morning in Seymour, Wisconsin. My sister was playing in a basketball tournament and across from the high school was a bright red barn. Cows were standing under the cloudless sky and the ground was c...