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The creative mind behind the Autumn Carolynn Travel Photography Exhibition has traveled to 30 countries in 30 years.
She’s been to 48 states and six continents and now, she’s sharing her work with the public.
She goes by Autumn Carolynn and said she started saving money when she was 12, working odd jobs, babysitting through middle school and working every weekend in high school. She saved her money from an early age knowing from the beginning, she wanted to travel.
Her exhibit “30 Countries by 30” is on display now at the Paramount Center for the Arts. It features 18 of her photographs from around the world.
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“It makes me feel really good knowing that my photography is able to connect with someone even though they had an experience in a different place,” she said. “I use my photography to bring them a memory they had forgotten about. It makes me excited to see other people who remember those amazing experiences they have previously taken.”
Her exhibit is filled with the images that to her are the most representative of each country, from Austria to Japan.
Autumn Carolynn went to college at Illinois State University and she studied abroad for a semester, deciding the last semester before she graduated to fly to a different country every weekend. She would leave class on Thursday, take the train from Canterbury to London, sleep in the airport and fly out on Friday morning. She spent the weekend traveling and would return to her flat in time for class on Tuesday. She traveled for 13 weeks, going to 13 different countries.
She spent most of her nights in hostels, but other times her travel plans were less cohesive and she slept in a casino bathroom in New Castle, a park bench in Paris and the floor of a McDonald’s bathroom.
After college, she continued her travels as a flight attendant, going on to become a travel agent and then a travel design manager before COVID-19 hit and she decided to focus on photography full time. She completed her last three countries, with her last one in May, officially making it 30 countries in 30 years.
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Now, she’s attending art shows every weekend to display her work and connect with visitors. She has 14 exhibitions this year alone. And, she’s in the process of publishing a book. Her work has been edited, beta read and she’s in the process of querying literary agents to have it published. Each chapter focuses on a different life lesson she learned in each country.
Her work is on display now through Sept. 28 in the Paramount Center for the Arts lobby.
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