Asia Kepka
Asia Kepka is a photographer based in Arlington, Massachusetts. Her background in art stems from set design - which she studied in her native Poland - and modeling, before turning to cameras and photography. Kepka's ongoing project Horace and Agnes, in collaboration with her partner, author Lynn Dowling, chronicles the love and adventures of Horace and his wife, Agnes. Horace and Agnes: A Love Story was published in 2016 by Penguin Group's Blue Rider Press.
The day I was born my grandmother cried. The tears were not tears of joy, she cried because she had never seen such an ugly baby. Many years later, I became a model and a whole new world opened up to me. It was fun, but even more fun awaited me when I landed in New York City 20 years ago. I arrived with $100 in my pocket but my boundless enthusiasm was priceless. My friend greeted me at the airport and gave me my first point-and-shoot camera. Things were never the same.
I felt like a dog hanging its head out of the window of a fast moving car. With camera in hand and very little English, I embarked on a career as a photographer. I was lucky to start with the best clients imaginable: Wired, TIME, Fortune, and the New York Times.
I am a girl with an enormous amount of imagination, creativity and hunger for learning. I love shooting everything, from labor- intensive productions involving a crane and an 8 x 10 camera, to doing a cover shoot of Bill Gates where I’m only given 90 seconds to do it, to emotionally charged stories that require patience and the gaining of someone’s trust. I can make people laugh but I can also sit down and cry with them.
My background in art (I studied set design at Polanski’s Alma Mater in Lodz) comes in quite handy. From making clothes to building sets, I am a one-woman orchestra.