Some of you may recall Katy Chan’s work from when she photographed the launch of All City Vs. Johnny Fu back in July for us…

Some of you may recall Katy Chan’s work from when she photographed the launch of All City Vs. Johnny Fu pop up store back in July for us, now on the verge of a brand new website (and launch party to boot) we caught up with the girl herself for a quick Q & A…

Tell us about your background in photography, you’re largely self taught?

Photography is a creative output. I’m sure many others who own a SLR or a camera would agree. I never studied photography; I started out as a makeup artist and I did that for three years. My story goes a bit like this… I was a confused artist looking for many different artistic avenues to express myself - I used to paint abstract ‘dark’ / ‘morbid’ stuff in high school and one day I thought this would look cool if it were a real person “eat your heart out”. So I went out and bought a camera, did the makeup, staged the whole thing and snapped away. Then in May ‘08 I decided to go backpacking for “three months” (which turned out to be a year and half now). I had a photo blog of my trip and people at Suck UK were following it and asked me to join them as an intern. By the time I made it back to the UK to start my internship my boss asked me to shoot some products one day and I kinda got stuck doing it. I guess it’s not so bad if I could live off my hobby.

Do you find being self taught helps or hinders your work? What advice would you have for aspiring photographers?

I have a hard time telling people that I am a “photographer” because like I say I’ve never studied photography - formally. My philosophy is that anyone can take photographs and a lot of people can take nice photographs, but only half of those people can make a decent living off of it - very few can be photographic superstars. I want to land somewhere in between the last bit of the aforementioned and still be able to create my art pieces. If you’re a creative striving to survive through your art you’re going to have to sell your soul a little bit like doing jobs that aren’t really that interesting or fun, at least for the first bit of your photographic/creative career. I believe the appropriate term to be used during this time is called hustling. You have to hustle. I am hustling to see what the outcome could be.

 Aside from your work at Suck UK you’ve also worked for the likes of Inspired Flight? Tell us about some of the clients you’ve worked/work for. How do you adapt your styles to suit different subjects/clients?

My first gig with I.F. was documenting the first Polo Bike Tournament held in central London last summer and I was also sent to Sweden to document the Dragonfly Festival held within the heart of the Swedish forest, which to this day is still one of my favorite projects that I’ve worked on. I also shot for I.F. like Ignug, Samuel and the Dragon, Little Dragon and a few others. I also did an interview with Guru and Solar and Nedry just off the top of my head and have shot many club nights. Just doing what needs to be done.

Although you’re originally Canadian, your based in London today how do you find London as a city to shoot?

London is a gray city everyone knows that. It’s a gray city with lots of opportunities floating around, with lots of history and much of it dark history; I only started shooting the city recently. To be honest, I haven’t ventured out of East London much, which is a shame because London is a photogenic city much like Paris and Rome. But I must say Berlin is still my favorite city to shoot – at the moment.

Any particularly memorable experiences/stories from shoots?

Some of the most memorable moments I must say it had to be at Suck. We didn’t have a proper photo studio or anything so I had to build one using white cardboards and whatever is laying around that I can use to hold the boards up. A lot of the times I have to take it down for meetings as we use the same “pool table” space/area in the studio. I sometimes went in on weekends so I could use a larger area of the studio to build a better mischief studio with lights bouncing off white boards etc. Orderly mayhem.

Are there any particular photographers that inspire you or your work? How would you describe your photographic style?

That’s an easy one. I like to get personal. By that I mean, I throw myself to the very people that inspire me and see what happens. James Harris and Benedict Redgrove have been a great help over the last year that I’ve been here. James is awesome architectural photographer and Ben is amazing car photographer (he might kill me for saying that). Then there’s Ashley Ledebev her work enthralls me. Google her and you will see what I mean.

Tell us about the relaunch of your website, what can we expect?

You can expect it to be a lot cleaner and organized thanks to the boys at E-noise who worked really hard on the site and got it completed in a short time frame. Also big kudos to Sam for doing the initial site, which inspired the making of KTCHN 2.0 (http://www.ktchn.com). The site is due to go live on Friday, February 12th @ 00:00 GMT and for whoever is up for a party here’s the Facebook invite for the launch party on the same day!

Check the full event details here.

Tags: Katy Chan, KTCHN, Photography