about the kraken's lens

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Hi there! My name is Damian and I am an aspiring photographer from the Central Valley area in California. I grew up in a small rural town where there wasn't much to do. I would skateboard around town with my friends, and eventually adopted the nickname "Squid". It was perfect for me, especially as a kid born in the '90s. If anyone remembers, there was a show on Nickelodeon called "Rocket Power" and in the show there was this group of kids who loved extreme sports. The newest, and nerdiest group member was this kid who had glasses (like me) and was a little awkward; something that I related to 100% because I didn't really fit in with the other skaters. I didn't know anything about skateboarding when I met my friends, I was just a nerdy kid who liked computer class because we got to play with photo editing software, build websites, and even make simple Flash games...when Flash was still around.

With a small background in photo editing, I loved spending hours on my pictures for social media. I was addicted to making it look edgy and artsy. I found myself taking more and more pictures of myself in high school, just trying to I came up with the idea for The Kraken's Lens back in 2021 when I knew I wanted to brand my art. I was thinking of a way to include my identity in my brand , and came up with the name. 'Cause let's face it, Squid doesn't really grab the attention like Kraken does and I'm a sucker for fantasy and mythical creatures. 

My photography career is rather young, but I have a passion for the craft. I started out with a Sony a6000, which is a good camera to learn with. I eventually outgrew my a6000 and recently came into 2024 with a full-frame camera. My goal for 2024 is to collaborate more with photographers and models to learn as much as I can. If you are either of those located in the Central Valley area in California and would like to collaborate, please check out my gallery or hop on over to my page on Instagram.

Thanks for reading if you got this far! Cheers!