An International Beauty
(credit: @asasteinars via instagram)
When one hears the wanderlust call, one must heed its voice. Asa Steinars – photographer, model, and creator extraordinaire – did just that. A love of the great outdoors, rich and vibrant locations full of diverse cultures, have been the photographic playground of this Icelandic beauty.
Hailing from Norway originally, Asa has found great beauty in her more recent home of Iceland. This wasn’t immediate love, however. Sometimes, it takes venturing outside your own backyard to find true beauty in it. Asa has spent her time since graduating with a degree in engineering experiencing all the riches over 50 countries in our world has to offer.
Although only 30 years old, this master of Instagram (@asasteinars) has travelled the world over, in search of adventure. This spirit leads to exploring what the five senses have to offer us through the viewpoint of different cultural experiences, sights, sounds, smells and tastes, and an overwhelming feeling of emotion. These explorations take front and centre in her beautiful art.
Nurture the Love of Nature
In Asa’s own words from her website, she has been gifted “a tight bond to nature and its forces.” Asa has made it her mission to share her viewpoint of nature and all the love and passion she has for, viewed through the eye of her lens.
(credit: @asasteinars via instagram)
The beauty found in nature’s glory is not comprised of exclusively sunshine, rainbows, butterflies and bright, blinding colours. Asa not only recognizes this through her work, but she also celebrates it. Nature’s beauty is found also in the cold and seemingly unforgiving landscape, ones found in places like Iceland. It can be discovered and explored in dark places, on grey and stormy days, in stark and minimalized spaces.
Asa also shares love with many of her followers of the challenge and exhilaration of activities such as scuba diving. Through living on an island and this love of the dive, Asa embraces the picturesque waters of our world’s oceans and seas through her vision.
Loving in Shadows
The use of light and shadow is something photographers around the world work at perfecting continuously. Asa has found a beautiful balance and tips her scale to embracing the darker effects that the right play of light can create.
She has taken her adventuring to new heights and depths through the use of her lens. Asa is not afraid of drinking in the wilder landscapes of the world through her lens. This creates works of art that encourage her followers to be captivated by the raw and powerful feelings these places of shadow provoke. These spaces in which Asa spends her life command notice, and notice she has.
(credit: @asasteinars via instagram)
To help create what has become a signature look for her images. Asa doesn’t wait for just the right weather to take out her camera and shoot. She takes advantage of days that are less than perfect, especially as those are the days that she is most likely to encounter in locations that are her favourite to capture. To capture images that embrace the dark, it’s important to just shoot. Working around lighting that isn’t ideal doesn’t always need to be an impossible task. Drink in your surroundings and take your shot. Take multiple angles and images and the blend of light and darkness will come to you.
While one wants to believe a photographer’s finished product flows immediately from their lens to whatever media they choose, there is often a bit of work to do after the initial image capture. This helps evoke the message behind the image with more power or soften it, brighten or dull it – creating the desired emotional response from its viewer. Available on her website, Asa has enjoyed creating valuable editing tools to help achieve that perfect balance to give the look she has become famous for.
Not So Cold Partnerships
Collaboration makes a good social media following grow, as is evident through most influencers and creators. When a creator has a multitude of talents, they are fortunate enough to expand their abilities to create viable partnerships, each contributor helping the other. Many of these partnerships may be able to connect with one another as well. Asa has made good use of her brand to build relationships with other great brands to further both their interests.
(credit: @asasteinars via instagram)
While Asa has been able to create great connections and partnerships with many vendors, she has also worked hard to create these connections with conservations groups like Ocean Missions. She has granted herself the opportunity to engage her passion for the great outdoors, her love of photography, and her desire to give back by working with conservation groups to help build a better planet by studying and saving our oceans.
Just Chill on Instagram and TikTok
Asa engages her followers through her distinctive brand on several social media platforms. Her YouTube channel is just starting to take off with some great vlogging of her adventures. Asa can be found with a growing presence on Facebook, Twitter, and her newest digital adventure, TikTok.
(credit: @asasteinars via instagram)
In just over a year, Asa has accumulated almost 81k followers on TikTok. Through this platform, she can share her poetry in motion through short videos, created as moving echoes of her photography. Her followers feel like they are right beside her in the wild and breath-taking hills and waters of Iceland.
However, with skills as amazing as hers, Asa has her true home on Instagram and her webpage. She shares her adventurous spirit with almost 250k followers on a platform designed for artists like her. She takes her art to the next level by being truly present on the platform. With hashtags like #discovernature, #wondermore, and #welivetoexplore no one has to wonder what drives Asa and her stunning art.
Asa encourages her followers to truly take the plunge and follow in her footsteps through her inspirational locale choices, instead of simply living vicariously through her images. As Asa says, “Love what you do. Do what you love.”
Solyndria Creative 