From Where You’d Rather Be: Kayla Byles’ Feet Photos

Annie Sebel

Join us in daydreaming that we were photographer Kayla Byles‘ feet for just one day.

Raise your hand if you’ve snapped a photo of your tootsies. Now, keep them raised if that snap just happened to be on a frozen lake. We thought as much. The one lone hand waving in the air belongs to Bendigo photographer Kayla Byles. Given her first camera at the tender age of nine, Byles says, “I took so many photos of my friends and family, they got sick of it.” Their annoyance was no deterrence with her continuing to snap photos of landscapes and friends’ portraits, when they let her get close enough.

An adventurer and photographer, Byles says she’s happiest when “standing in the middle of a big forest with the sound of nature ringing in my ears, my camera in my hands and being wonderfully lost.” So it’s no spoiler alert that her latest series sees her combining her two loves, hiking and photography. Her feet photos, starring her trusty Timberlands, are all shot against sigh-inducing backgrounds, the first of which was in Canada. “I was standing on a frozen lake for the first time and I was wearing my Timberlands and I thought to myself, ‘Now how the hell am I supposed to prove to everyone in Australia that I’m standing on a frozen lake?’ So I took a pic of my feet and it turned out pretty cool,” says Byles. “On each hike I went on, I would take a photo trying to get the scenery in the background and I would upload it to Instagram. I stopped for a week or two and then my sister said I had to continue to do it because everyone back home was loving it and so I did.”

Quizzed which of her photos is the most memorable, Byles is happy to play favourites, and not the most obvious, it’s the one with branches and leaves in the background. Byles says, “I had convinced my cousin to come hiking with me and we thought we would take the ‘path less travelled’ because who wants to be mainstream? We followed the stream of water down, being careful not to slip on the melting ice, and finally reached this beautiful little waterfall. I went to walk towards it and went to step on some snow but actually went straight through it into the freezing cold water. So after being soaking wet and muddy we thought we would continue walking. I started to hear noises on our walk and was quickly convinced that a cougar was stalking us. So in the midst of thinking I was going to die we decided to start climbing up this steep hill but failed numerous times. The ice was way too slippery for our feet and we had to pull ourselves up using tree branches. When we finally reached a safe spot at the top, after a lot of effort, I snapped a photo of my feet, feeling accomplished and relieved that all of it was over.”

Byles spent four months working, hiking and avoiding cougars in Canada before scooting back home to continue her new obsession. She has been hiking locally and saving her pennies for more travels. Next on the list is New Zealand – to see family and hike through the South Island – but after that she has her sights are set on Ireland. “I can just imagine my feet in front of all these magnificent rolling green hills and also the cliffs that they have there,” says Byles. “The contrast would be spectacular!”

See more: @kaylabyles