Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2018 - 40

BUILDING A FOLLOWING

'LIGHT CHASER,

ADVENTURE EMBRACER'
Photographer Jared Kreiss captures
the mysteries of East Tennessee
and beyond.
By NANCY HENDERSON

ot long after Jared Kreiss posted
a dreamlike Instagram photo
of the U.S. 421
bridge over South Holston Lake in Bristol,
Tennessee, a follower snapped a screen
shot and shared it on Facebook. Self-critical, modest and reserved, Kreiss thought
nothing of it-until the image, which he
captured from the air with a drone, suddenly went viral.
"Basically, everyone in Bristol knew
about that photo, which was pretty crazy
to me," says Kreiss, 26. "Random people
would come up to me and be like, 'Did
you take this photo?' And I was like, 'Yeah,
that was me.'"
Born in New Zealand-his American
parents loved it and settled there after they
married-Kreiss and his family moved to
East Tennessee when he was 12. The landscapes were very different, he says.
"New Zealand is a really hard place to
compare with just because pretty much
everywhere you go is just so epic and unbelievably beautiful. The scenery is very
unique-massive mountains and hot
springs and geysers and glacier water. It's
just very diverse.

38

BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

"But I love East Tennessee, with the
mountains and the lush green and the
rivers," he quickly adds. "I've traveled a
lot, and East Tennessee and the Blue Ridge
area is probably one of my favorites."
A natural at sketching as a child, in his
teens Kreiss shelved his art skills to focus
on sports. He later earned his degree in
exercise science at East Tennessee State
University with the intention of working
in the fitness industry. But after a year as
a chiropractor's assistant, he grew restless,
sold his car and belongings, and bought
a one-way ticket to New Zealand to explore his homeland as an adult. This was
the time to satisfy his wanderlust, while
he was still young and untethered, he reasoned. Besides, he could stay with friends
who lived on one of the islands.
But he soon ran out of money, so he
booked a flight to Sydney, Australia, hoping to find steady work.
"I knew no one and didn't know what
to expect," Kreiss recalls. "I only had like
$800 to my name. I didn't even know
where I was going to sleep that night
when I came in. So I kind of walked
around the city-and I'm not a city person at all-and it was very intimidating.
It was way out of my comfort zone, but I

JARED KREISS: He describes his
photography style as "soft and supernatural."
FACING PAGE: Kreiss, intrigued by the
contrast between the snow and the road, used
his drone to look down on U.S. 421 between
Bristol and Damascus,Virginia.

wanted the challenge."
That night he found a hostel, where
he stayed for the next two months while
working at a fitness facility. After that, he
was hired as an au pair, caring for children
in Melbourne and Brisbane. On weekends,
he explored the terrain. In March of 2017,
with no prior photography experience, he
began shooting mountain ranges and glacier rivers and ocean waves with his trusty
Olympus camera. (He later won a newer
model in a photo competition.)
"I pretty much lived on the beach, so
I'd catch almost every sunset over the horizon," he says. "With each photo I took, I
http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2018
