Kyle Cassidy

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Kyle Cassidy

Cassidy in the Mojave desert
Born (1966-10-31) October 31, 1966
Woodbury, New Jersey
Occupation Author, photographer
Notable credit(s) Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes
Website
www.kylecassidy.com

Kyle Cassidy (born October 31, 1966 in Woodbury, New Jersey) is an American photographer and videographer who lives in West Philadelphia. He holds a BA in English from Rowan University,[1] and also holds an MCSE.[2] His latest book is Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes.[3] He is a frequent lecturer on topics of art, culture, visual imagery, virtual communities, marketing, and technology.

Contributions to technology

In 1993 Cassidy wrote Saturn: A Beginners Guide to Using the Internet in response to a growing desire among the public to use the Internet. Cassidy followed up with Stickman's Way Cool Guide to Network Wizardry which used stick figure illustrations and humor to bring a technical subject to a popular audience.

Cassidy published two additional technology books, The Concise Guide to Enterprise Internetworking and Security and Introduction to Windows 2000 Network Administration. Cassidy also co-wrote the paper "Can You Trust Your Email?" in 1993, warning of a flaw in the protocol used to deliver email, which could allow information to be forged.[4] The flaw was not addressed in time contributing to the rise of spam as a multimillion-dollar industry.[citation needed]

Contributions to photography

A publicity shot of band Ego Likeness by Cassidy

Cassidy is commonly attributed with inventing photo-blogging with his "Photo-a-Week" project[5] which let viewers into his life on a weekly basis starting on January 1, 2000. With the advent of digital photography and blogging software, the project changed into more frequent photographs. In 2008, there were approximately 20,000 daily viewers.[citation needed] A 2007 Washington Post article cited it as popular with their staff photographers.

His photographic subjects are known for flights of fancy and a distinct sense of humor. In them, laws of nature are applied inconsistently; people and objects are often levitating, and non sequiturs, whimsy, and cryptozoological intrusions are common. "I think the world in my photographs is a lot darker in many ways than the real world that people insulate themselves in, but it's also a lot funnier. My world is malevolent but humorous, as opposed to the real world which is malevolent and relentless, but is often packaged in a friendly box and rabbit ears," he said in a 2004 interview with A.D. Amorosi in the October issue of Art Matters. His images often explore themes of "truth" and "fiction". This culminated in his July 2006 show "Lies" at the Sol gallery in Philadelphia. "Photography," he says in the artist's statement for that show "is about lies just as much as it is about the truth."[6]

When he lends his eye to serious subjects it takes on even more gravity. His work with cutters and homeless orphans presaged his 2004 fascination with American gun owners which led to the critically acclaimed book, Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes,[7] which provided a view into the lives of a culture mysterious to some and ordinary to others. Praised by both advocates of gun control and gun ownership, the book made an exceptional splash[citation needed] and made Cassidy a photographer to watch. It was named by Amazon as both one of the ten best art books of 2007,[8] and as one of the 100 best books of 2007.[9]

Portrait Photography: Kyle's unique approach to shooting portraits has made him a favorite among artists, writers, and musicians. His shots can be seen on book covers, album art, and all over the Internet. His portraits are often shot in context (writers at work, gun owners in their homes) but in the early days of Occupy Wall Street he set up mini-portrait studios at both the NYC and Philly protests, to remove the context and focus more on the individuality of the people attending. The photos were published at the Huffington Post, and he hung a show of the Occupy shots at the Bluestocking Gallery in Manhattan.

In 2012, Cassidy released War Paint: Tattoo Culture & the Armed Forces, a book of photographs and interviews with tattooed veteran soldiers.[10]

In 2013, he became involved with the North Dakota Man Camp Project, a project to document the lives of oil workers in the area around the Bakken formation.[11]

In October 2013, his poster and photo for the Curio Theatre Company's production of Romeo and Juliet[12] was reviewed in the New York Times, including an interview.[13]

Background

Cassidy has been documenting American culture for more than two decades. He has photographed goths, punks, cutters, politicians, metalheads, dominatrices, authors and scholars in addition to less prosaic subjects. In recent years, his projects have extended abroad to Romania, where he captured the lives of homeless orphans living in sewers; and to Egypt, where he reported on contemporary archaeological excavations.

Published work

His publications include several books on information technology, as well as a regular appearance as contributing editor for Videomaker Magazine. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Barron's Magazine, Photographers Forum, The Huffington Post, Asleep by Dawn, Gothic Beauty and numerous other publications.[14][15]

  • Cassidy, Kyle (2012). War Paint: Tattoo Culture & the Armed Forces. Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 9780764340864. 
  • Palmer, Amanda; Neil Gaiman, Kyle Cassidy, Beth Hommel (2009). Who Killed Amanda Palmer: A Collection of Photographic Evidence. New York, NY: Eight Foot Books. ISBN 0-615-23439-9. 
  • Cassidy, Kyle (2007). Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes. Krause Publications. ISBN 0-89689-543-2. 
  • Cassidy, Kyle (2001). Introduction to Windows 2000 Network Administration. Que Publishing. ISBN 0-7897-2419-7. 
  • Cassidy, Kyle; Dries, Joseph Francis III (2000). The Concise Guide to Enterprise Internetworking and Security. Que Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7897-2420-5. 
  • Cassidy, Kyle (1994). Stickman's Way Cool Guide to Network Wizardry. Glassboro, NJ: Rowan College Academic Computing Press. ISBN. 
  • Cassidy, Kyle (1994). SATURN: A Beginners Guide To Using the Internet. Glassboro, NJ: Rowan College Academic Computing Press. ISBN. 

References

  1. ↑ Ponzi, Katie (May 2008). "Alumni Profile". Rowan Magazine. Retrieved 2008-05-25. 
  2. ↑ "Kyle Cassidy Profile". informit.com. Retrieved 2008-05-25. 
  3. ↑ Stained Glass, With Shotguns (New York Times book review)
  4. ↑ Cassidy, Kyle; Berman, A. Michael, Ph.D. (1993). Can You Trust Your Email? (PDF). Retrieved 2008-06-23. 
  5. ↑ "Join PAW". Retrieved 2008-06-23. 
  6. ↑ Cassidy, Kyle. "About Lies". Retrieved 2008-06-23. 
  7. ↑ Cassidy, Kyle (2007). Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes. Krause Publications. ISBN 0-89689-543-2. 
  8. ↑ "Best Books of 2007: Top 10 Editors' Picks: Arts & Photography". Amazon.com. Accessed 5 April 2010.
  9. ↑ "Best Books of 2007: Editors' Top 100". Amazon.com. p. 3. Accessed 5 April 2010.
  10. ↑ Cassidy, Kyle (13 June 2012). "War Paint: The Intimate Stories Behind Military Veterans' Tattoos". Philadelphia Weekly. Retrieved 8 June 2013. 
  11. ↑ Dalrymple, Amy (11 February 2013). "UND: Life in the man camps". The Jamestown Sun. Retrieved 8 June 2013. 
  12. ↑ "Romeo and Juliet". Curiotheatre.org. Retrieved 2013-10-04. 
  13. ↑ Erik Piepenburg (October 4, 2013). "Maximum Shakespeare, Behind the Poster: ‘Romeo and Juliet’". The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2013-10-04. "Curio enlisted two local artists — the painter Elizabeth Gallagher and the photographer Kyle Cassidy — to design promotional artwork for the show. Ms. Gallagher, a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the daughter of Aetna Gallagher, a founding member of the company, created a colorfully feminine illustration featuring two women dressed in period gowns and holding hands. Mr. Cassidy took a darker route with his image of two underwear-clad women cuddled in bed and surrounded by candles and a gun." 
  14. ↑ Amazon.com: Profile for Kyle Cassidy
  15. ↑ Wells, Steven (August 1, 2007). "Friendly Fire". Philadelphia Weekly. Retrieved 2008-05-25. 

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