Hawai‘i-based Kirsten Whatley is a filmmaker and editor, author, and photographer, with a focus on documentary, nature, and dance.
She is currently editing a series of short films for Whale Wise Productions that combine underwater whale footage from the South Pacific with sound therapy. She recently co-edited the short documentary Vulture Guardians with Kenyan filmmaker Kiki Cheptoo Ng’ok. She has also edited dance films for Dancing Camera, a movement film production company in New York, and for the Migration Dance Film Project in Montreal. A lifelong dancer herself, she brings a lyrical style to her film work, using light, texture, and sound to give viewers an immersive, sensory experience.
After completing the writing and editing of the short documentary How’s Your Mom for Canadian photographer Ann Leese, the film was an award nominee at the Yorkton Film Festival and semi-finalist for the Lunenburg Doc Fest. Her own short film You Clapped, Delighted was an Official Selection of the Maui Film Festival.
Kirsten’s photojournalism and nature photography have been featured in Orion magazine and Black and White magazine, where she won two Single Image Awards, including one People's Choice Award. She was also a finalist at the SIPA (Siena International Photo Award) contest in Italy. Her image of a young hula dancer at the East Maui Taro Festival took 1st place in the Hāna Festivals of Aloha Photography Competition. She previously had the honor of dancing and performing for 7 years with traditional East Maui hālau hula, Hālau o Nakaulakuhikuhi.
Kirsten’s writing credits include Orion, Tin House, AFAR, Saveur, The Washington Post, Honolulu Magazine, Civil Beat, and elsewhere. She has edited over 70 books on culture and counterculture for the Hawai‘i publishers Island Heritage, Inner Ocean, and Bess Press. For 18 years, Kirsten was the director of communications for award-winning nonprofit Ma Ka Hana Ka 'Ike, a community-based vocational training program for Native Hawaiian youth.
She is the author of Preserving Paradise: Opportunities in Volunteering for Hawai‘i's Environment (Island Heritage), winner of a merit award for Best Travel Guide from the North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA). She then ran a related environmental outreach organization, Preserve Hawai‘i, and served as consultant to the Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance’s Conservation Connections.
Kirsten has a deep-seated curiosity of other peoples, cultures, and places. It has taken her from Tokyo to Ubud, Papeete to Cusco, Havana to Marrakech. She has studied flamenco in southern Spain and pounded curry paste in the garage of a Thai chef. She is planning her next adventure as you read this.