Could you share a bit about yourself and what made you fall in love with photography?
Hi, my name is Caitlynn. I grew up on the east coast of the United States, in Pennsylvannia. I was a competitive swimmer since the age of six and most of my weekends as a kid were spent doing something active. Wheter that was a swim meet, hiking or kayaking, we where always doing something outdoorsy. My first memories with photography are getting my first point and shoot camera as a christmas present in fourth grade. I had so much fun with that camera, I eventually got a “real” camera (a dslr) as a christmas present in 8th grade. My friends and I would go do “photo shoots” at barns and other pretty spots that we could find in Rural Pennsylvannia. I fell in love with photography for surface level reasons at first, it was a good way to take cool instagram pictures for my friends and I.
Then it started to change when I realized how fun it was to get creative with portraits and how empowered I saw my friends feeling when they had a picture they loved of themselves. After college I made a huge jump and moved out to Washington State. I started my hiking instagram as kind of a joke but I think its helped me grow so much as a person to have a spot where I can put out whatever kind of artwork and content I want! I now mostly shoot landscapes and pictures of my friends on my weekend warrior adventures. I love having photography as a creative outlet, whenever I am in a bad mood it is one of my go to activites to make myself feel better. I also appreciate the perspective that being a photograher gives me, I think of it like a super power. We get to take something and play with lighting and framing it in a way that tells a story or makes someone else feel something when looking at our work.
Congrats on winning the contest! How did you react when you found out?
At first I didn’t believe it, then I was just super excited. I told all my friends and started thinking of exactly how I was going to tell my story. I definetly am still working on how I want to tell the story and I am excited to see how it unfolds. I also was just super grateful for this opportunity to get to meet some other amazing photographers and get the chance to learn more!
Can you explain a little bit about the content creation project you are going to work on with OM SYSTEM?
As I mentioned earlier, I adventure a lot in Washington, and I am super fortunate to do it with an amazing group of women. I am in a lot of spaces that are predominatly male, working as an aerospace engineer, skiing, climbing, hiking and even the photography scene is predominatly male. The fact that I have such a large group of women is amazing. I want to tell my story about my journey with loving the outdoors while learning about other women’s journeys as well. I want to take this oppertunity to learn and ask others questions about their experiences. Another motivation for me is to inspire younger generations of women, I truly believe if you see it you can be it.
Which equipment are you going to use? Are you enjoying it so far?
I am really liking the OM-5 so far. I had the chance to take it out for a little hike so far and it is amazing how light it is! I am using a 12-200 f3.5-6.3 lens and the 25mm 1.8 lens. I like to have one lens that can get more detail shots and portraits and I think that having a shalower depth of field helps me focus more on telling a story or pointing something out. Then I like to have a lens that allows me to show more things around me or zoom into the distance, capturing things like light going through the layers of the mountains.
Looking ahead, what are your goals and dreams as a photographer?
I would love to be a full time photographer one day, possibly even help with camera design in some aspect, the design behind cameras fascinate me. One of my goals is to be able to work with a big brand to capture their products. I enjoy working with products almost as much as people because you can also tell a story with a product. I also would love to be able to keep doing amazing projects like this and showcasing important stories.
One of my goals is to learn more about videography because I think its a great way to tell stories. At the begining of every ski season part of the ski culture are the hype movies to get people ready for the season. I would love to help make a video that showcases women and bipoc skiers because there really aren’t too many out there!