If you catch Heffron Drive’s Kendall Schmidt during one of his days off while he’s on tour, there’s a good chance he’ll be looking at life through the lens of a camera. Take, for example, his recent tour of Italy, which included accepting the Ischia Global Icon Award. “On my days off, I would run around taking pictures,” he tells us.

“I would go out in Florence, for instance, and I would have my Pentax K1000, and I also had one of those instant mini Polaroid cameras strapped to my shoulder.”

Schmidt knows that his love of film, versus digital, makes him a bit old school, saying, “It’s kind of out of character to see a normal camera anymore.”

Although his passion for photography is relatively new – he estimates he started to get serious about it within the past year – he knows it had been bubbling up inside him for a while.

“I can’t tell you how many cameras I have that I purchased from the Best Buy kiosk at the airport,” he says with a laugh. “I have so many Sony Cyber-shots, because I would go on a tour, and I didn’t have a camera ... so I would buy one of those cameras. Eventually, one day, I don’t know what came over me, I just wanted to take film photos. I got a Lomography camera when I was in New Zealand, and I came home, and took a couple photos, and I just loved it. I went on eBay, I got myself a 1977 Pentax K1000, (and) I figured it out. Now, Pentax is a learning camera. I’d eventually like to get to a place where I could get a Leica, or a Hasselblad, or something like that.”

Interestingly, in an age of social media, where everyone is quick to share everything, Schmidt has kept the vast majority of his photos private. “I’ve taken 50 rolls since last year, so far, and I’ve posted like seven pictures,” he says of his photography. “It’s 95% for me, and I’ll share the stuff that’s like, ‘That’s too cool. I have to post that.”

Schmidt continues, “I’m a very nostalgic guy, and I really want these photos for later on in life. That’s a really big reason why I’m taking them ... I’m trying to document more for my kids eventually, and their kids. It’s a historical thing, as well.”

While Schmidt’s passport is already littered with stamps, five places still on his photography bucket list include...