Building a following. Photographer Jared Kreiss captures the mysteries of East Tennessee and beyond. (See instagram.com/j_kreiss for more photos and contact info.)
Jared Kreiss
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.
Not 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.
Jared Kreiss: He describes his photography style as “soft and supernatural.”
“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.
“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.
Jared Kreiss
Kreiss' favorite shot so far, he says, was taken at Linville Gorge in North Carolina. The storybook-quality photo depicts an ethereal silhouette of a girl bathed in sun rays while perched on a massive rock at the top of the mountain. A pink-tinted cloud hovers overhead.
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 wanted the challenge.”
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The story above is a preview from our Nov./Dec. 2018 issue. For the rest of the story, as well as a full photo essay by Kreiss, subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription.