On the Vastness of Space

Khromi: I’m Hamed, I play a few different instruments and I produce electronic music under the alias ‘Khromi’. I have been experimenting with electronic and organic music for around 18 years.
From a young age, I’ve had a vast taste in all different kinds of music thanks to my parents’ tastes and a lot of the friends that I had during high school and college.
It was in high school that I decided to take my interests in music further so I started to learn guitar, bass and drums. Eventually I started a band with some close friends of mine but sadly it didn’t last so I purchased my very first recording equipment which was a digital 4-track recorder (Tascam DP-004). I would record on it every chance I had and would eventually add drums and other layers over the course of a few days or weeks.
A few years later a friend of mine introduced me to some music production software (FL Studio) and that’s when I decided to start experimenting under the alias Khromi.

Kelter: I am Anne-Mette, from Denmark and I work primarily with Polaroid photography.
Back in February 2022 my husband and I moved to Ireland and now live in the countryside in a very rural area, by the feet of the beautiful Connemara mountains in County Galway. It was a lifelong dream for us to move from the busy city to the countryside. So moving to Ireland was a very good decision for us. County Galway is the perfect place for me as an artist. I have the most beautiful landscapes just outside my door, so every day when I put my shoes on and go out, it feels like stepping right into a beautiful painting.

Kelter: I got my first camera when I was 7 years old…back in 1978. It was, of course, an analog camera and a present from my grandfather. The photos from this camera had the measures 7×7 cm. So when I did my first polaroid back in 2018 I think it was a flashback of this first photo format that lit up my love for polaroid photography.

What’s your creative process like?

Khromi: Anything from a sound, an image or even a memory can inspire ideas. Most often than not, it’s a combination of these that can make me feel nostalgic and melancholic and get the gears grinding.

Where do you go when you want to recharge your creative energy?

Khromi: I like to take long drives around the country as it calms and refreshes me. I always end up in a place I’ve never been before which is the great thing about exploring Scotland. I’ll park the car, go for a walk and try to find somewhere that’s close to water or just some nice place among nature. It clears my head, makes me feel more spiritual and helps me de-stress.

Kelter: Either to the ocean or to the woods. I go to the ocean if I need fresh and new energy and clear thoughts. I especially enjoy the ocean on a stormy day with high waves. Then it feels like the whole brain is washed and renewed. A Lot of my inspiration comes from my visits to the ocean. On a day when I am maybe in a darker mood or I need to focus more, I will go to the woods. In Ireland we, unfortunately, do not have many forests, so normally I visit the forest when I am back in Denmark. There, I know the woods in my old neighbourhood inside out and it feels very warm and welcoming to go there, even on a day with a darker and focused mind.

Kelter: For this project, I was inspired in various ways by Khromi´s music. Listening to it, I instantly knew that I wanted to capture landscapes, light and movement in various ways. 

For the track Bubbles: I closed my eyes and listened to the music. I wanted to recreate the visuals I got from listening to the music, in my photos. Most of the shots were done on a dark afternoon and evening. I went on a car ride in Connemara. I did some of the shots while driving (my husband was my chauffeur) and others with the lights lit on my car and started dancing in front of the car while photographing the light on a long aperture to get the movement I felt from the music into my polaroids.

For the track Waterfalls, I was, of course, inspired by water and landscapes. So again, I went into my neighbouring surroundings while listening to the track and photographed sceneries that I also felt and saw in my imagination when listening to the music with my eyes closed.

The track NightOwl gave me the inspiration to capture the Irish skies in various formations. One of the things I discovered immediately, after moving to Ireland, was how many times during the day the skies change. NightOwl gave me a feeling of wanting to just put my head back and cloud watch all day long.

In the track Last Exit I was inspired by the title and the flow in the track. I wanted to show how a polaroid from my hand looks when it finds it´s “last exit”. So I went into the landscapes again, did a photo series of trees, lakes, and hills and using the decaying technique where I dissolve my polaroid in a liquid containing some kind of acid, I got the look of destruction that I think of when hearing the words LAST and EXIT.