THE COLORADO WILDERNESS
Haley Kissell
When asked when my photography journey began, I often think back to a moment about eight years ago, when I found an old Nikon camera at a garage sale. However, in reality, my relationship to photography goes further back than that. It all started with a digital Sony camera that my mum bought when I was nine years old. It was a cheap, easy to use, point and shoot camera that she took with her everywhere when I was a child. I have fond memories of her taking photos of Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison. When I grew older, she would let me play with it until I decided to buy my own camera at sixteen, after stumbling across a bag full of Nikons lenses and camera parts at a garage sale.
Years later, that old Sony camera is broken and gone, and so is my first Nikon camera but, instead, I own a very special Nikon D500 camera that I pack with me any time I feel an adventure brewing. With this new camera and now at the age of twenty-four, I am proud to call myself a wilderness photographer. I like to chase images that induce deep movements within our souls; images that inspire myself and those around me, and images that have the ability to relax. I seek to chase photos that encapsulates the same movement and magic that landscape photographer Ansel Adams produced decades ago in his renowned work, or photos that have the graceful composition of those taken by wilderness photographer Galen Rowell. I am grateful for the art of nature, and most grateful to be an artist that can capture one second of it at a time.
This article first appeared in PRISMA, Issue 16.