Today we’d like to introduce you to Caden Van Cleave.
Hi Caden, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I began as a question with legs.
At first, I did not know what I was doing. I wandered forward with curiosity in my pockets, tripping over mistakes and collecting them like shiny rocks, insisting they were experience. Over time, I learned that figuring it out is mostly doing things badly until they start cooperating.
There were detours. Some were chosen. Some were sinkholes pretending to be opportunities. I said yes when I should have said no, said no when my gut was quietly waving a green flag, and learned slowly and stubbornly that momentum has more to do with direction than speed.
Today, I am here not because I followed a straight line, but because I followed the things that refused to leave me alone. I kept showing up, redrew the map while walking, and trusted that growth often looks like confusion wearing a convincing disguise.
In short, I started with a hunch, survived the learning curve, and arrived with fewer answers but far better questions.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth is a generous word. This road had potholes, missing signs, and at least one stretch where I was pushing the car while pretending I meant to.
The struggles showed up as doubt that spoke very confidently, plans that fell apart on contact, and seasons where progress was so quiet it felt imaginary. There were moments of comparison, moments of burnout, and moments where the only skill being practiced was endurance.
Money was tight at times. Confidence was tighter. Learning curves felt more like brick walls, and mistakes had a habit of repeating themselves until the lesson finally landed.
But each struggle left something behind. Better judgment. Thicker skin. A clearer sense of what was worth the effort and what was just noise. It was not smooth, but it was shaping, like a river arguing with a rock until both agree on a new form.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a photographer, which is a socially acceptable way of saying I collect light before it escapes. My job is to convince moments to sit still for half a second while I steal their likeness. Some moments resist. Most give in when I ask nicely.
I specialize in taking photos that feel like they happened on purpose, even when chaos was doing most of the planning. I am known for arriving with a camera and leaving with proof that something mattered. People often say my images feel familiar, like a memory they forgot they had.
What I am most proud of is my ability to see. Not just objects or faces, but the thin, invisible tension between people, the quiet story happening one second before and one second after the photo. I catch that middle part. The blink between thoughts. The pause where truth leaks out.
What sets me apart is that I do not chase shots. I wait. I let the scene relax, let the light settle, let the moment think it is alone. Then, when it drops its guard, I take the photo.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Risk and I have a complicated, handwritten relationship that smells faintly like coffee and bad decisions.
I do not see risk as a dramatic leap off a cliff with heroic music playing. I see it as standing very still while a quiet voice says, “If you do not move now, you will calcify.” That voice is never loud. It never yells. It just waits, tapping its foot inside your chest.
The biggest risks I have taken did not look impressive from the outside. They looked like choosing uncertainty over comfort, choosing curiosity over approval, choosing a path with no guardrails and trusting my balance would show up late but eventually. I have stepped away from the illusion of safety more than once, traded predictability for possibility, and signed invisible contracts that said, “I will figure this out or become very interesting trying.”
I have failed in unglamorous ways. Slow failures. Private failures. The kind that do not teach lessons immediately and instead sit with you like a fog until you learn how to see through them. Risk taught me that fear is not a stop sign. It is a weather report. It tells you what conditions you are walking into, not whether you are allowed to walk at all.
These days, I think about risk less as danger and more as alignment. The question is not “Will this work?” The question is “Will I regret not trying?” Safe choices keep the lights on. Risky choices turn the lights into a room worth being in.
So yes, I take risks. Carefully, deliberately, sometimes trembling. I take them because staying still has its own cost, and because the scariest outcome is not failure. It is realizing you built a life that never once asked you to be brave.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cadenvphoto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cadenvphoto
Image Credits
Caden Van Cleave
Patrick Hardwig
