How Jon Kreye Turned a Love of Places into a Career Photographing Hospitality

The useful part

Jon Kreye has spent more than eight years photographing cabins, vacation rentals, hotels, and resorts around the world for major travel and lodging companies. In this exclusive PetaPixel interview, the award-winning photographer shares how his love of travel and unique places shaped his career, his approach to storytelling and light, and why staying true to his creative voice matters. Curiosity Has Always Been the Foundation Jon Kreye grew up in Minnesota, where lakes, cabins, road trips, and time outdoors were a regular part of life.

How it works

• I love traveling, exploring new places, meeting interesting people, old buildings, cabins, architecture, the outdoors, and learning the story behind why something exists or how someone ended up doing what...
• You notice the light differently, the architecture, what people eat, how they live, the landscape, the little details you might overlook at home," Kreye says.
• As he photographed more vacation rentals, he began to see a gap in how many properties were being presented.
• It showed the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen, but it didn't necessarily make you feel anything," Kreye says.
• One project led to another, followed by referrals and eventually work with hotels, resorts, tourism organizations, and larger hospitality companies.

What to take from it

For Kreye, being somewhere unfamiliar creates an opportunity to notice details that might otherwise disappear into the background. His interest in unique places eventually led him to contact properties simply because he wanted opportunities to photograph them. "It still feels funny sometimes because the career essentially grew out of photographing places I personally wanted to visit," Kreye says.

Example or evidence

• Those memories were not simply about the buildings themselves, but about what happened in and around them.
• Those experiences gave him an early appreciation for the places he now photographs professionally, but travel eventually expanded his perspective far beyond the Midwest.
• He is interested in the people, history, architecture, and circumstances that make a place worth experiencing.
• Photography became a natural way to investigate those interests while sharing his discoveries with others.

Details worth keeping

"Outside of photography, I'm someone who is endlessly curious. That curiosity is not limited to the visual qualities of a location. "I think curiosity is probably the common thread through all of it.

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