Last Updated on 07/19/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
Photographer Kien Quan joined us on Inside the Photographer’s Mind to talk about his dance photography.
We had our first dance photographer recently on Inside the Photographer’s Mind as Kien Quan graced us with his presence. Kien started out as a dancer and then decided that he wanted to get into photography. As Kien explains, he always goes about stuff the hard way. So he got a camera, lights, looked up tutorials, and then got into capturing his friends in his dance crew. From there, he networked with other dancers and did the same thing.
For Kien, dance photography was really about finding a way to capture the soul of what he was seeing in front of him. As time went on, he started to change up his routine and work more with natural light and become more of a documentarian than a creator. Why? To him, it just feels more authentic. When Kien uses flash and works to coordinate the dancers, he feels like he’s putting his own stamp on the image. When he simply just lets them do their thing, he feels like he’s just an observer. He is content in doing this.
What is great about Kien is the fact that he pushes himself to keep trying new things because he gets bored. It has resulted in him gaining sponsorships, gigs, etc. Sometimes he does stuff like drone work and much more.