Dreams of Digital
1990’s
Kyle Pero’s mastery of the image began at the digital frontier. His first exposure to the power of manipulation came through Photoshop, which he had to learn to create custom video game textures for the PC game DOOM.
Photography wasn't even on the mind. This early immersion in digital tools laid the groundwork for a lifelong pursuit of pushing creative boundaries through technology.
The Foundations in Chemistry
Early Darkroom Work
2000’s
While his start was digital, Pero’s photographic soul was forged in the darkroom and optical printing labs. Working with photographic chemicals, hand developing film, and creating enlarger prints, he gained a foundational knowledge of photography that is rarely taught today.
This period instilled a deep respect for the craft and the disciplined technical mastery of masters like Ansel Adams. Before Pero ever sought to break the rules of reality, he dedicated himself to the objective science of the medium by learning to manipulate light with surgical precision and produce pin-sharp imagery that captured the world with absolute clarity. This foundational standard for excellence ensures that every purposeful blur or digital collapse in his current work is an intentional act of artistry built upon a bedrock of technical perfection.
Technical Mastery
2010’s
The acquisition of his first digital camera in 2002 opened a world of endless experimentation. Suddenly it cost almost nothing. This drive to explore eventually led to a thirteen year tenure at Wieden+Kennedy Portland, where he established the agency’s first in-house photo studio.
The incredible variety of creative requests resulted in Kyle becoming highly technically proficient in many types of commercial photography.
Fail Harder
2020’s
Pero walked away from his advertising career with one of the most important lessons of his creative life: “Fail Harder”, meaning that it is ok to fail, in fact a true artist never succeeds because there is a new lesson to be learned after every venture.
He used the resources at his disposal to engage in constant creative experiments where he was free to try ideas that might fail. This philosophy transformed every setback into a learning experience, fostering a fearless approach to art that remains central to his work today.
A New Form Factor
NOW
After decades of mastering objective photography, Pero returned to his longtime admiration for the Impressionists. Seeking to bring the essence of Monet’s vision into the photographic medium, he discovered the potential of 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS).
By navigating the unstable areas of digital data where models collapse, he finally found the bridge he had sought for twenty years. This discovery allowed him to transition from the role of a traditional photographer to a pioneer of Point Cloud Photography, capturing the atmospheric memory of a place rather than its literal record.
