Copyright Kat Vildnas © Vildnas.com
A nordic soul
Hej I’m Kat.
I live in the north of Europe, in Scandinavia. My physical home is in Denmark, but my heart lives in the entirety of the Nordics, stored for safekeeping in the arctic.
I am a traveller, and have ever since childhood loved to document my travels through photos and films.
My favourite subject is landscape-and nature photography, showing the vast beauty of the north as I experience it. In recent years I have drifted more towards self-portraits as a way of enhancing the surrounding landscapes.
I live in the north of Europe, in Scandinavia. My physical home is in Denmark, but my heart lives in the entirety of the Nordics, stored for safekeeping in the arctic.
I am a traveller, and have ever since childhood loved to document my travels through photos and films.
My favourite subject is landscape-and nature photography, showing the vast beauty of the north as I experience it. In recent years I have drifted more towards self-portraits as a way of enhancing the surrounding landscapes.
Why the nordics?
I love the nordic nature with all my heart. I have been to many countries over the years since childhood, but none has captured my soul as the north.
The nordic wilderness saved me when I thought I was drowning. It is my haven and my teacher.
In addition, the nordic countries share much history and struggles, good and bad. This connects us and I feel this connection wherever I go. This connection makes me feel at home even in places I’ve never been.
The trip that changed everything
In the summer of 2018 I went on my first solo backing trip. I was in a bad place mentally, due to severe stress from working at a bad place. That summer I left that job, finally, and was going back to school to get my bachelors degree.
But before summer ended, I went north. All the way north, to Nikkaluokta in Sweden, where I embarked on Kungsleden (the Kings Trail).
On this trail, under the midnight sun, I found my heart and my courage to face the demons inside myself. I was terrified the first days, being alone out in nature with long way to civilisation. But after a few days I felt a calm entering my core. I felt as if the harsh nature embraced me and all my troubles and simply let me be as I was.
When I left the mountains two weeks later, I was changed. I left a piece of my heart in the North and I make an effort to visit it as often as I can.
Singi
After years of travelling alone and with friends, I got myself a little travel companion in 2022.
Singi is a danish spitz, an old breed native to Denmark that have been around since pretty much always. She is a fluffy goofball who loves hiking and sleeping under the stars just as much as I.
She is named after the mountain Sinnicohkka in Sapmí, a mountain where I in 2018 had a profound experience about survival. This name, this mountain, means so much to me that I knew from back then that when I finally got myself a dog, she would be named after this.
STEP BY STEP I COME ALIVE, Lift my head up to the skies
Hollow Coves, On the Way
Motivation, travel and motives
I have always enjoyed documenting the world around me as I saw it. As I grew up and became an adult with adult money and freedom to travel as I pleased, I learned that it especially is the new and unknown that fill me with most happiness. Exploring new areas, driving far and wide down small roads where I imagine no-one from my hometown will ever visit. That drives me to document and see all the facets of the world around me.
In my youth, I did this with my home. I didn’t have any other options, or even considered it. Now, I hold more complex feelings around my home. While I don’t document my travels around Denmark often, that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it. But I am a person that craves mountains and wild forests and Denmark is a land of wild beaches and flat horizons.
How often I travel
I’d say I’m properly spending around three months a year traveling. I am by no means a full-time traveller. Most days I work at my job in Copenhagen. But I make an effort to travel when I can, and to embrace the possibilities as they present themselves.
In winter I lay low and when the sun melts the snow from the mountains, I answer their call.
Motives
I mostly do nature and landscape photography, and mostly when I am traveling. That is where I feel the most inspiration, when I allow the wild nature around me to fill my senses and soul.
As I often travel alone, in recent years I’ve started to do more and more self portraits. I enjoy the contrast the presence of a human (or dog – or both!) bring to otherwise wild landscape. And as people are in shorter supply when solo traveling, I started using myself as a model to capture the feeling of being out in nature alone.
