This week’s Member Moment features work by Kaiden Van Brunt, who captures images of nature and landscape. Scroll down to see his pictures and to read the interview!

PL: What got you interested in photography?

KVB: As young as 8 I remember always wanting to take pictures of everything I saw and wanted to document my life. My family & I grew up always carrying around at least a disposable and video recorder! My uncle is a photographer which lead me to follow his steps a bit

PL: What type of camera do you shoot with?

KVB: My main duo is my Sony A7III and Canon AT-1. Sometimes you will see me use my Ricoh AF-40

PL: When taking pictures, what are some objects or elements or feelings within a scene that inspire you to take a photo?

KVB: I mainly photograph nature, landscape, anything to do with the outdoors and architecture. I gravitate being authentic and natural in my ways of shooting style, rarely using flash. Manually focused on the subject and settings of my camera. Drawn to the woods and water. Usually when viewing my photos people say there's a mood and unique style within them that is rare and I agree.

PL: Of the pictures you submitted, can you share an interesting story about one?

KVB: This night was my sister's birthday and I was heading back to Philly from Jersey. I had no clue there was a solar storm happening that night! Driving down Rt. 70 back roads and kept seeing weird lighting happening and I thought I was going crazy or some weird reflection was happening from cars passing and their lights...

A few minutes pass and I opened up my sunroof to notice what was happening from above! I pulled over and texted my family in shock and awe, others started noticing it too!

I decided to book it home to grab my camera and go to the nearest darkest park to photograph a first time experience that I still can't believe I saw with my own eyes here in the US. Such a rare beautiful sight!

PL: What do you enjoy most about digital/film photography and what is challenging about it?

KVB: I love the experiments you can do with film alone! It's so fun and keeps you entertained especially with waiting for your photos to come to life instead of instant gratification with digital.

I love using my digital and film cameras for different things and I love challenging myself with B&W photography on digital vs film. I prefer not to heavily edit my photos, and with film naturally coming in B&W v.s. having to edit your digital photography work to be B&W seems like cheating to me (haha), so I try to find the happy medium with myself when it comes to that area of photography.

PL: Do you have any goals or ideas of how you want to grow this collection of photographs?

KVB: I would love to grow my collection of landscape, nature and the outdoors by going on my first ever cross country road trip this late summer / early fall! Focusing on using film along the way for my photos and documenting it via digital camera. Hoping to make a book afterwards about it and get published in some nature magazines! Big dream of mine would to be in some National Geographic's mags or books.

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Member Moment: Kaiden Van Brunt