Usually at the start of an interview, to provide an easy way into their story, I often ask nature photographers a simple question: “Which interest came first: nature or photography?” More often than not, the short answer is nature, and that is certainly the case with Norway’s Lina Kayser – but it is her longer answer that provides the insight into how her life has evolved.
Lina describes her childhood and upbringing in a way that suggests a life in nature photography was almost inevitable. “When I was a kid, we spent all the weekends hiking in nature. My mum taught me about birds and flowers, and my dad got me interested in dog training and hunting. When I got older, I got my own dog and started bringing a camera on hikes. The beauty and tranquillity of being alone in a forest or in the mountains was something I wanted to keep as a memory. In the beginning, I was photographing my dogs as well as landscapes. My favourite subject was to capture the mood of rainy and foggy days.”
Today, Lina is based in the mountains of central Norway, living her dream by making regular trips above the Arctic Circle and to the icy terrain of the Svalbard archipelago. Although her family played a positive role in nurturing her interest in the natural world and photography, it was also her intense dislike of office work that spurred her to pursue a life
