PAYTON VAN PELT

A self-taught photographer, Payton Van Pelt’s been experimenting with color, composition, and light through photography since her teenage years.

Her nomadic childhood, traversing the United States, born on the East Coast, a sizeable stint in the Midwest, some escapades on the West Coast, and finally settling right back at the heart of it all, translates into her work. Like her upbringing, each image feels like a fleeting moment, gone in the blink of an eye – a memory perhaps. Drawing on auteurs like David Lynch, Wong Kar-Wai, and Agnes Varda, informed by her formal education in film production and screenwriting, her images carry an innate cinematic language, adding another layer to the stories they tell.

In her more creative work, portraits elicit dreams with bold, hazy colors and unnatural poses. In her commercial work, she strives to capture the warmth of the moment, whether it’s the triumphs of graduation or the celebration of love with proposal and engagement shoots.

Working in both digital and analog, Payton Van Pelt is a versatile photographer with a distinctive, colorful, and bright voice, always striving to capture the memory, dream, or moment not as she sees it, but rather as she feels it.