Artist Spotlight: Johannes Yue
- visualvokeart
- Jul 13
- 3 min read
Meet the Artist:
Johannes Yue
Hi, I’m Johannes, a media student in Leeds from Hong Kong. I mainly go around places with my camera as a street photography. For most of the time, I like to keep the meaning of my photographs simple. Personally, the purpose of street photography is to simply document, with no ulterior. (Though this ideology is flawed.)
So why street photography? (out of any other style) Personally, it’s the one that makes me feel the least socially anxious XD. I’m not that good with one-to-one social interaction, so I’ve always avoided doing portraits. Landscape and astronomy while being magnificent and astonishing to look at, felt slow and a bit boring from the perspective of a photographer. But in street photography, I find comfort in observing my surroundings. My presence is not that noticeable, so I never felt shy pointing my camera around the streets. Lots of things happen within a fraction of a second, making the result of capturing the perfect moment very satisfying. Instead of sticking to the screen of my phone most of the time, it made me look out more and realised just how beautiful the city is.
As much as I like to think of my work as pure documentation, to be purely objective. It could never be. One of the more memorable things I’ve learnt in class (out of the few things they teach you lol) is that no photos are objective. As documentative your intention is, the photo is shot through your lens, under your will and under your emotions. Your subjective feelings and interpretations would always be represented in your photos in the end.
And I guess that’s where the editing of the photos is for. A lot of my photos are edited, colour graded and cropped to my liking. Unless the photo already looked as I have intended it to be, in which I will just post it without any alteration. At one point, it has certainly come to me as a bit of a dilemma of what my photographs are. On one hand, it is a documented record of things that happened on the street. However, with the amount of correction I made, would it still qualify as a documentation instead of an “art piece” for the sake of visual aesthetic? If so, can I still call it street photography. That is where the ideology hits me that no photos are truly objective. It helped me embrace my work and the decision to edit the photos as I please. By doing so, the photos have become a documentation of the world as I see it. Which I once again became confident in showcasing them to others.
That is what I make of photography, and there is so much to learn as I continue. It has been a great tool for me in getting to know myself and build up my character. While I will do my best to push myself into other types of photography, I will always keep on documenting the things around me. Without that, I would never become who I am today and have the skills to be confident in reaching for more.
Check out @johans_.00._ and @raccoonmedia_.00._ on Instagram for more!
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