Born and raised in a small town in the south of the Netherlands, Kay Van Huisseling is a passionate media creative and adventure filmmaker. His progression as an artist and social media influencer along the past year has been remarkable. As he said, “It all started for me last year when I decided to spend my summer traveling to Indonesia with Julius. We both had a real urge to get out there and explore and create as we followed a lot of creators who were doing so. This was one of our biggest goals back then: to travel and create with likeminded people.”
Inspired by Benjamin Hardman and his minimalistic work, Kay has been creating art to inspire others to go outdoors and explore. His ultimate intention is to show how wonderful Earth really is. To do so, he has been working on his style really hard and hanging out with photographers to learn as much as possible from them.
One of the most important lessons Kay has learned along his exciting journey? “Anything is possible, dreams become reality and you better never get rid of that passion and curiosity that got you here in the first place!”
Welcome Kay! Over the past years you have collected so many photographs and visited amazing landscapes and countries. But, in the end travel is not about the places you visit, it is about the people you are with. Don’t you think?
Yes, especially over the last 12 months I have been able to travel to some places I would have never thought I would visit and for a fact did not know about three years ago when I was 19 years old. I am a big believer in that too, fun fact, I used this quote in my last YouTube video alongside with some of the funniest moments I captured during that trip.
I have to agree with you on this, even though I am someone that loves the desert, waterfalls and high hikes the most, for me the destination is half as important as the people I am traveling with.
During the past year, people and travel companies have had a huge impact on my trips in fact they have been the entire reason I have been able to travel so much and are still. It all started for me last year when I decided to spend my summer traveling to Indonesia with Julius who goes by the name of VisualsofJulius on Instagram. We both had a real urge to get out there and explore and create as we followed a lot of creators who were doing so which was one of our biggest goals back then to travel and create with likeminded people. During that trip we ran into a ton of content creators and I can remember each one of them being really passionate and having one of the greatest times of my life. However, this is not always the case and I learned later that sometimes it’s good to find out if the people you want to travel with are on the same line.
For a content creator and especially videographers traveling can be quite intense and I think there are definitely a couple main things that people need to have the same thoughts about before traveling together even if you are great friends. Therefore I think people can shape your trips in both a positive and negative way depending if you agree on things before your travels or not but in the end your mindset will decide the outcome of your trip but finding the right people to travel with is very important and finding out if someone is before your trip will safe everyone a lot of trouble.
I have for example done a trip with my best friend who in the end did not really like camping and if you are someone who wants to camp, photograph the stars for both it does not work out to travel together. For me for example, it is important to travel with people who want to catch the most sunrises and sunsets, people that want to create together and are open to sharing, and people who are easy going but for other people it can be very important to travel with people who these things don’t mind as much. So every time I travel with people who are very passionate about getting out there and going after the content each day it shapes my trip in a very positive way but there also have been times were I had to go out alone a lot of times and this of course affects your expectations even though you can still remain great friends.
On the other hand, I feel like travel companies mostly shape your trip in a really positive way. I do think that clear communication about what you are doing for each other is very important for example through a contract even if there is no payment involved. I am someone who loves to travel out of his own budget whenever possible as it gives you a lot of freedom but creating content for companies related to travel is the best thing there is.
I am sure that your travel companions have influenced your trips. But you have also been an important part of their trips. In this regard, could you define yourself as a traveler? Who is Kay when he is on the road?
I think in most cases people’s actions are based on their personalities and if someone has different values, you’re simply different. This will also influence your companions’ trip in a negative or positive way.
I am someone who lives very much in his head, always thinking about ideas whether it is about which client and what idea to pitch, if I should release presets or luts next or what shots I want to get in the next stop. This causes me to be very unorganized and someone who has a hard time figuring out what time or day it is which of course makes you miss a bus or lose your hotel key sometimes, haha. Living in my head definitely makes me a quiet travel companion sometimes for sure. On the other hand, I am someone who likes to help others, who likes to be easy going, optimistic, who is always ready on time and who is very passionate about creating content.
By now you should have countless anecdotes of your trips! Looking back in time, would you be able to share with us a moment you would like to re-experience again?
There is definitely one moment I would love to re-experience. I was between the border of Finland and Norway chasing northern lights together with my friends, Julius, Alex, Jakob and Conor. We had seen them slightly but that night it was about to be KP 6 which can be very intense. I convinced everyone to send it all the way to Segla as the northern lights were going to be extreme over there and as I can be quite stubborn sometimes I convinced them. We last minute drove for 8 hours all the way to Senja where we started hiking Segla right away on arrival. We already noticed slight northern lights above us and when we got up, we sat down and waited a bit. Suddenly when I was setting up my time-lapse pointing directly at the mountain the northern lights starting spiraling above it followed by the most intense northern lights we could have ever wished for dancing above us for more than 3 hours straight. I remember everyone screaming and jumping of joy and at one point we saw Alex laying enjoying the show and we all just fell down in the snowed and enjoyed the view.
Among all the beautiful countries you have visited, what country surprised you the most?
Morocco, I had visited Morocco before and I liked it but once I got invited to visit the country again. This time far out into one of the most isolated places on earth, it surprised me completely. We visited Walking with Nomads with who we walked around the deserts of Erg Chigaga for four days and this experience surprised me a lot.
I don’t know if you have had the opportunity to travel since a really young age. If not, would you say that these pasts years of content creation and travel have shaped you somehow? What are the three most important lessons you have learned traveling?
I always traveled a lot but never outside of Europe and I never had a real interest in it. I remember some people around me being very excited about traveling back when I was finishing high school in the Netherlands but I cared more about fitness and gaming. Only once I got into photography and video, I started knowing about all these beautiful locations, cultures and I got really into it. I am definitely someone who likes to stay true as much as possible to himself so before traveling I already knew a lot about myself and I feel like I was already quite shaped into the person I am comfortable with being. However, traveling shaped me in many ways still.
The first lesson I learned was that I got way more comfortable in any aspect of life such as social conversations, taking action, being responsible for myself and so many more things. Once you start traveling you will run into so many uncomfortable situations that the more you do it the better you get at being very comfortable in any situation out there.
A second really important lesson I learned was getting so see people as for who they are instead of for the amount of money they earn, number of followers, skin color, religion etc. During your travels your mind expands and you get to know thousands of people along the way. The more you travel the more you start caring about staying true to yourself and care about things that really matter.
The third lesson I learned is that anything is possible, that dreams become reality and that you better never get rid of that passion and curiosity spark that got you here in the first place. When I started getting into photography, I was busy studying nursing in the Netherlands and this was right when Beautiful Destinations did their job campaign and I ran into James Relfdyer account. I was completely inspired and I started discovering how damn beautiful the world really was which absolutely blew my mind. I had an old iPhone and a personal Instagram and I remember starting to take photos during sunsets and sunrise around home. Once I started uploading and writing captions a lot of people around me thought it was a joke, but I was so passionate about it and no matter how long the road was I was going to achieve it.
I decided to take a gap year and work for half a year to afford my camera equipment. After the gap year I decided to take another year break to see if this passion could make me a living. A year later, and here I am being able to make a living of this passion that all started with really bad photos on my personal account that no one took seriously but as long as you know your path you will get to that end of the path even though it may take a while and might seem unrealistic at the start. Now my goals have changed. If I tell my goals to my friends now, they would sound unrealistic but who knows that if I take the path that can get me there, I might be able to achieve those too.
As I mentioned before, your progression as an artist has been remarkable. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you studied film and photography in your home country. So, you already had a background. In this regard, I would like to know: what three strategies have allowed you to grow as an artist and influencer? What did you learn from the actual work that you didn’t know from your studies?
Thank you so much for that. I actually studied high school and one year of nursing back in the Netherlands but I never had a background in film or photography at all. I only picked up a DSLR camera at the age of 21.
I was still making a lot of mistakes at one point which I learned to correct once I started hanging out with photographers that were better than me. Videography I learned by watching a ton of tutorials online and analyzing the films. I was constantly watching videos from Beautiful Destinations and creators. I always had big gaps of around 2 months between my travels and this was how I was able to improve so much with each video. After learning the basics, I got more and more interested in the storytelling of Sam Kolder and Bryn North which is what I am trying to improve on now as well as learning about commercial film which has me really interested too. I have never really been able to link up and create with other film makers that I look up to compared to photography so for now my main strategy is analyzing other work and trying to use the same techniques such as camera movement, storytelling, using different angels and trying to come up with wow moments during my films. Another thing I am learning now for example is Davinci Resolve.
I think that your photographs are really catchy. You can spend a lot of time contemplating them. That is something pretty unique, I believe. How did you developed such style? What emotions do you want to convey with your art?
I think I always knew the style I liked already and over time it developed a bit more into my own, with inspiration of other creators. I always loved Benjamin: his images and his simplicity is definitely something I want to involve in my style more and more too. The emotions I want to convey is “wow.” I want to share images that makes people stop for a second and think: “Wow, our earth is epic.” That feeling I want to convey. With videography on the other hand I would like to convey more emotions such as love, motivation and passion.
When you share a photograph on social media, what is your aim? What is your ultimate goal with @kayvanhuisseling – besides using it as an online gallery…
My aim is to get better and unique images out, but ultimately I want to use @kayvanhuisseling to share my work with hopefully emotional and inspirational stories on a more commercial standard beside sharing vlogs with a more behind the scenes and story. If I can do these three things at the same time while getting better and having fun with amazing people, my goal would be achieved.
I think that for all of us being creative is important. It allows us to express ourselves in different ways and share our emotions with the world. In this regard, I would like to know two things: To what extent is important for you to stay creative and how do you ensure a constant flow of creativity – if that is even possible?
I agree with you. Creating content is my passion so staying creative is important to me. With photography, taking a relaxed approach on shooting helps me to stay creative when on location. These days I try to trust myself and try to come up with angles that on the location seem cool to me. With videography I do the same but try to come up with a creative idea before to tell. Then just doing it helps a lot too. I think a lot of people are too scared to go through with ideas but sometimes just doing is all that needs to be done.
What are you looking forward to do in 2020?
I am looking forward to a year with a lot of amazing experiences and to grow as a photographer and videographer while not getting to caught up in it!
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