Shooting For The Stars
Find out more about Instagram and TikTok famous photographer YK’s content and what he’s been up to since Covid-19 struck.
Written By: Merrilyn Teng
Pictures By: YK, Shannon Ho
With a following of over three hundred thousand followers on Instagram and having travelled as a tour photographer with American singer and songwriter Lauv - Lee Yik Keat (popularly known as YK), 24, has certainly made a name for himself in the photography scene. Aside from that, he also uploads content on video-sharing sites like YouTube and TikTok and has shot multiple adverts. Safe to say, he has already hit the prime of his career at such a young age.
Interestingly, YK’s interest hadn’t always lied with the camera. Before he picked up photography, he was studying aerospace in Temasek Polytechnic. “I still have a passion for aviation and flying, it’s just that photography kinda took over everything else,” he shared.
So how did it all come about? It began as a simple curiosity that YK had with people taking pictures of sceneries and posting it on Instagram back in 2014. When he asked those people about what they took their pictures with, to his surprise, it wasn’t with digital cameras like he had initially thought, but iPhones. At that time, YK was also helping his relatives part-time with hardware deliveries all around Singapore. So he took the opportunity he had with travelling, whipped out the iPhone 4 he had back then to snap pictures and the rest is history.
A quick scroll through YK’s Instagram, you’ll see that he loves to photograph architecture. Iconic landmarks around the world like the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque in Brunei, Choi Hung Estate in Hong Kong and the streets of New York are pictured on his Instagram feed. Not forgetting the local scenes like HDB flats, the Cloud Forest at Gardens By The Bay and Marina Bay Sands. “Initially, I started with very abstract and architectural stuff. [But] through the years, maybe about two to three years of shooting, I’ve come to realise that those are really nice pictures - but yet, something is lacking,” said YK.
Since then, YK explained that he has “evolved” and “re-purposed” what he wants to shoot: by incorporating human elements in his photos. In doing so, there is an added layer of hidden stories which adds more depth and substance to his photos.
Aside from shooting urban photography, YK also had the chance to be the tour photographer for American singer Lauv for his Asia tour. The opportunity came about when the singer’s management contacted YK to help shoot for the two-night show in Singapore. Loving the content that YK produced from the two nights, the arrangement then progressed to the whole Asia tour and what would have been the other tours in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. However, Covid struck just as when the tour was about to commence. When asked if there were any memorable moments from the tour, he shared, “I cherish the intimate and private moments. There was once we were talking till the morning about all things deeper – relationships, self-awareness and all that.”
Since plans for work (which included a lot of travelling) had to be cancelled due to the pandemic, YK found himself stuck at home longer than he ever did for the past few years. His schedules had cleared and he had a lot of time to himself. As someone that likes being on the go, YK found himself having some difficulties trying to relax during the first few weeks of lockdown in Singapore. “At first, I didn’t know what to do. [For] the previous years, I was also always travelling for work - I was barely home. So it was a drastic change, in fact the direct opposite [compared to how it was like before],” YK explained. As much of his content is centred around travelling, during this period, YK found out that it wasn’t sustainable.
Luckily, it may have been a blessing in disguise as YK realised that he needed to pace himself. It also gave him more time to get inspired and delve into past ideas which he never got the chance to expand on. His content now has been revised to what he could do during such a restricted period, which involves him being in front of the screen more – including self-portraitures and tutorial videos.
Career-wise, in order to continue creating relevant content, YK started a TikTok account. Initially, like many of us, he thought that the video-sharing site was mainly for people to post dancing videos. But he has since changed his mind and said, “It slowly evolved [into a platform] where you can see all sorts of content.” Now, he has well over nine hundred thousand followers and posts many videos like photography hacks and his very own edits that have gone viral a couple of times. TikTok also served as a platform where YK could freely post casual content as compared to his professional and specially curated pictures on Instagram. His favourite TikToks are the ones that show the behind-the-scenes on how he shoots certain photos as it’s able to depict the process that can’t be shown in pictures.
For photographers that are starting out like YK on Instagram, he advised to keep consistency in content. YK also encourages to analyse which types of pictures do better (in terms of social engagement) on the account and also find out which kinds of pictures one would like to shoot and find that balance between the two factors.
“Keep being consistent and if your content is good, you’ll get there someday.”
Check out our interview with YK here:
