We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kyle Fang a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kyle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
I am a photographer whose main medium is film. I process, edit, and print my own work in a darkroom. There are several things I can think of regarding how I learned to do what I do! I believe that wanting to speed up a learning process is not always about textbook learning. While lessons on technicality are important, I believe that carefree explorations of your fascinations for a new craft or hobby is key, by going out and learning through discovery I also believe learning through idolizing other artists is important, that is, digging deep into their work and what about it excites you to want to do the same.To quote one of my favorite musicians on how he thinks one should learn and understand something: “With everything you learn, learn the thing that is the building block for the thing you just learned.” Essentially, to learn why something draws you in, work backwards from product to foundation. To me, that meant looking at my favorite photographers’ work, dissecting the composition, and picking out the elements that continue to draw me to other photos that often utilized the same techniques. This inevitably led me to developing my own style. Thanks to John Mayer for the above advice that I hold dearly to my own craft of photography. Would I have changed anything to speed up my learning? I don’t think so! There were certainly times where I really wanted to get good, and get good fast. But sometimes , to go fast you have to go slow. Don’t push it, allow ruts to happen, and good things will come.
Skills I felt were most essential in learning the craft of photography–and something I didn’t always have–were social skills. Despite being a bit introverted, I feel that it was important that I found a sense of community in others who also shared the same love for the craft. Half of the joy in photography for me is connecting with larger communities through social media platforms. .A sense of community is essential to learning, becoming comfortable with, and loving a craft. I am grateful to have made many friends and supporters of my work.
Let’s talk about obstacles, an inevitable thing in learning absolutely anything. One obstacle I faced in recent years with my photography was a bit of imposter syndrome. Through my small success in a self-published photo book back in 2020, I received overwhelming amounts of support worldwide. Some of these new supporters and friends included Youtubers and Instagramers that I looked up to through my journey of learning photography. This all led to me feeling a bit spotlighted as I had never expected it all. Nonetheless, I had learned to overcome that with gratitude instead, and more importantly to not undermine my own creative excellence. . Another obstacle that I often faced, and still sometimes do, is the sense of competition. Social media can often make me feel that photography is a game of being speedy and consistently pumping out of work. Sometimes when I go out and work, I have this idea in the back of my mind when shooting that my photos must be what the internet deems, a “banger.” Fortunately, I find ways to persevere through this struggle by focusing on photographing what I want, and not what I thought others wanted to see. It’s important to stay focused and true to creating for your own enjoyment first–more on this later!
Kyle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Hey! I’m Kyle, a photographer born in China, raised and based in Vancouver, BC. The question of what kind of photographer I am is one I will never be able to answer. But if I had to give myself a label, it would be a contemporary or documentary photographer. I see life, I enjoy life, and I document it! Aside from photography, I am a coffee snob who loves his flat whites and a gamer who spends his other hours of the day in front of a screen if not otherwise editing work.
I had my first exposure to photography (no pun intended) when I was about 10, from my fifth grade teacher Mr. Wong who is a photography nerd himself. He had introduced our class to basic photography as a part of his curriculum. Fast forward to about age 15 in high school, I had the pleasure of being in a photography class taught by the great Mr. Friedrichs, whose lessons on modern photojournalism and its histories are some that I will forever cherish. In the same year, I was also lucky enough to learn basic darkrooming, as the school still had one in commission. These key points in my formative years were some that have defined my love for this craft today. Now, I sling a camera on me most days just about wherever I go, making sure it’s a part of the “phone, keys, wallet” check before leaving the house.
What I try to capture in my work is that it is okay to appreciate everyday, mundane moments . I tend to photograph a lot from where I am naturally, without the need to chase a good photo down the street or without effortful set ups, because I enjoy just being there in the moment as it flees. Essentially, I let the photos come to me. What often results are photos where it feels like you are there in the scene as well. A feeling of immersion and appreciation for these moments is what I look to share in my work because I feel this fast life we all live today makes us blind to those slower, fleeting-moments that pass us everyday.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I do, and I will digress with story time about what photography means to me. There had been a period earlier in my journey where I had been chasing the Instagram American dream with my photography as I had no clear intentions and goals. I found myself in a race of chasing trends and getting the best photos that could rack the most likes and attention online. This quickly led to an effect on my mental health and the demise of what I had believed photography was as I could not keep up. That spark and love for the craft was gone as it felt more like dread than joy doing photography. So, one day I decided to sell every bit of digital photography gear I had and jumped head first into film photography to start afresh, with the mindset of being a student of the craft all over again. This leap of faith was therapeutic in that I was forced to return to a slower, more intentional state of work.
At the end of the day, I realize that what photography means to me is that it is a meditative outlet. It’s self-counseling, it’s a form of thinking or talking to myself, and a form of grounding. I struggle with anxiety, especially with uncertainty and the meanings of my life. Photography is, again, where I can explore and appreciate those fleeting moments in a fast-moving life. “It’s the closest I come to not existing,” Garry Winogrand had once said, “and that when you go out and make this work, it’s,, “not a photograph. It’s just life.” Thus, I’m just a spectator of life, whether it is my own or others, and I’m here to notice and capture it. I guess that’s my enlightenment for any who seek why they do something and haven’t really found out why. Art can often be seen and described by its end-products, , but a lot of the learnings and doings of a craft are really the therapeutic qualities that keeps me going.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Yes! There are several books, videos, and films that always live in the back of my mind that have and continue to influence my photographic philosophies:
– Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable. Directed by Sasha Waters Freyer, Greenwich Entertainment, 2018.
– “KQED Spark – Henry Wessel.” KQED, uploaded by KQED, 1 Jul. 2007, www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7SXO91sR8g.
– CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHIE IN THE USA. Directed by Michael Engler, Michael Engler Filmproduktion, 1982.
– Wagner, Andre D. “Street & Documentary Style Photography: The Ongoing Moment.” Vimeo, uploaded by Andre D. Wagner, 4 Nov. 2015, vimeo.com/144615713.
– Frank, Robert, and Jack Kerouac. The Americans. Steidl; Reissue Edition 2008, 1958.
– Wessel, Henry. Traffic / Sunset Park / Continental Divide. Steidl, 2015.
– Meyerowitz, Joel. Joel Meyerowitz: How I Make Photographs. Laurence King Publishing, 2020.
Contact Info:
- Website: kylefangfilm.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/kylefang_