Member Spotlight: Kirsten Nicolaisen

Tell us a little about the beginnings of your photo journey. When did you get started? Why did you feel compelled to start making images?

I’ve been interested in photography since I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of LA. In high school I always had a disposable camera or digital point-and-shoot in my bag, and I’d plaster my bedroom walls with photos of my friends — my favorite moments watching over me. 
I studied journalism at the University of Oregon, which gave me access to some nicer cameras and editing tools. My love for photography deepened as I explored beautiful landscapes in the Pacific Northwest, and occasionally photographed community events while working at a local news station in Portland. 

As I started to travel more in my twenties and moved to New York City, I became increasingly serious about my photography practice and love of storytelling. Although I gained some photography experience in college and through my work in the news industry, I felt I had so much still to learn having never formally studied the subject (I still feel this way).  So during the dark days of COVID lockdown, I spent my free time studying and taking notes from a photography book, playing with and learning everything about my cameras and shooting styles, and going for long lonely walks in an attempt to improve my skillset through practice. 

Today, I work as a freelancer in media production and as a wedding photographer while I continue to grow and evolve my practice. Whether I’m hiking, traveling to a new city, walking around Brooklyn, or simply admiring the sunlight streaming through the windows of my apartment, what compels me to pull out my camera is the desire to share what I’m witnessing – however exciting or mundane – in hopes of telling the story of a moment, and evoking whatever it is I feel in that moment in others.

You shared some of your travel photography at a recent CMC critique. When you're shooting on the road, is there a particular mood or subject you gravitate toward? What are you trying to hold onto when you document a trip?

 This is a question I’ve been pondering a lot lately when it comes to my current passion project about the Camino de Santiago.  For context, I’m working on a documentary-style photography project about pilgrimage along a series of trails in France and Spain that all culminate in the city of Santiago de Compostela. I solo-hiked my first Camino in 2018 before moving to New York City. Nearly 900 kilometers and 33 days later, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’d find any way to continue returning to this adventure – my soul having been broken and cleansed and rebuilt and changed forever. I've since hiked five different routes of the Camino with nothing but a pack, a few cameras, and newfound friends, totaling over 2,350 kilometers, and am now workshopping the beginnings of a project about it.

In the past when I’ve traveled, I’ve tended to gravitate towards details and scenes that evoke the feeling of the particular place I’m in. My style of photography centers more on structures, architecture and details than it does on people – something I’ve questioned and tried to change, feeling as though my shyness gets in the way of more human-focused images I could be capturing. 

When I showed recent work from my last few thru-hikes on the Camino, I lamented about this to my fellow CMC members. The most beautiful part of the Camino is the people you meet, yet I felt my photos did not have enough of a human element. But after feedback and reflection, I’ve been realizing that while many of my images don’t contain a face, they are deeply human-centered; three empty chairs on the lawn where friends sat and drank wine under the stars the night before; clothes fresh out of the albergue washroom hanging up to dry; battered and bandaged feet with half-eaten apple on the side of the road. And after all, the Camino is a lonely experience as well. So I think I’ll continue to lean into this idea of what we leave behind, the remnants of people once there – like blurry flashes of time-worn, sun-drenched, cherished memories of people you miss. 

How did you first come across CMC, and what drew you to join the collective?

I met CMC’s founding director, Erica Reade, by chance at one of her favorite spots in the world: Rockaway Beach. My boyfriend was at a surf shop down there and called me and told me to hop on the train and meet him there as fast as I could because “there’s this woman showing her new photography book and I know you’d LOVE her work.” And I absolutely did. I exchanged Instagram info with Erica that night and learned about CMC from her Stories. It took me a few years to join – shyness and a demanding corporate job always giving me an excuse not to – but I’m SO glad I finally showed up on a Tuesday night in late March, 2025. 

The CMC members were so welcoming, and I felt incredibly inspired after seeing the work shown that night – eager to share my own! A lot of spaces in the photography world in New York City can feel intimidating and cliquey, but CMC is anything but. I value the feedback, shared interests, diversity, and wonderful personalities of everyone in the group so much. And finally, I’m becoming less shy. 

Could you share around 5-8 images from your most recent project or photo series? We’d love to hear the story behind these works and what inspired the project.

These works are from my aforementioned project about the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. This project was inspired by my love of thru-hiking and the outdoors, love of travel, and desire to tell a story about what this experience means to me and the thousands of others who make the journey each year. There’s pain. There’s loneliness. There’s endless beauty, connection, love and freedom.