Statement
October All Over is the culmination of several years spent living in, working in, and documenting the Southern Oregon cannabis industry prior to legalization and during the time shortly after. I began this series in 2014 and stopped in the fall of 2017. I started with no motive or intention that was specific to photography. In the way I prefer to work, I was just there and had a camera that could fit in my pocket. I certainly wasn’t given an assignment. 

Sometime late in 2015 or early 2016, the realization that things wouldn’t remain as they were started to sink in. The industry was rapidly changing and continuing to operate in a dubious legal manner was becoming more difficult than it was even prior to legalization. Around this same time, the idea that capturing this may serve as some kind of “first person” historical account began to develop. I realized that this was the end of an era and the beginning of something much different. 

Up until that point, any concept or idea of a project, if there could be one, was always rather open ended: “people living and working in this crazy underground industry from the perspective of someone also embedded in it”. Since I was doing the work and living a similar life as everyone else, it just made sense. Some part of me still wanted to portray a narrative that remained personal, while also making clear that this was in one sense a dying industry; or at least one that had for better or worse shed its chrysalis and emerged as something very different. -KS

Bio
Kyle Souder is a Portland, Oregon based photographer. From 2009-2014 Kyle played bass in math-rock band Duck. Little Brother, Duck! During this time, he toured the US and Japan. It was through these frequent travels, often finding himself on the other side of the camera, that his infatuation with the alchemy of candid photography was rekindled. Kyle prefers to work in the vein of documentary and candid based photography. He is deeply infatuated by the pursuit of serendipitous moments, often finding the camera more capable than his philosophy education in helping to make sense of our shared reality. Kyle recently was awarded a scholarship to attend the CENTER’s 2019 Santa Fe Review.

Kyle is currently working on a book that is an extension of his series October All Over.

CV

Publication 

“Photographers: Color” Eyeshot, September 2019 

Freeman, Jesse “Jesse’s Visual Interviews: Kyle Souder” Japan Camera Hunter, April, 2019 

ACCCG Press, “ANTIBody Vol. 1” ACCCG Collective Publication, May 2019 

Awards and Recognition 

Attended – CENTER Santa Fe Review 2019 

Short List – Athens Photo Festival 2019