Photographer / Prop Stylist / Art Director: Lisa Yang
Interview with Lisa Yang
by Lisa Yang
Interviewed by ilovecreatives
Take a peek into the creative process of photographer / prop stylist / art director Lisa Yang.
We’ve chatted with Lisa about what inspires her, and got a glimpse into her creative process and how she got to where she is today.
Can you describe what you do?
I am an artist working across creative direction, prop and set styling. I mainly look for props and move things around!
What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
My journey wasn’t linear. I studied English and Communications in college not really knowing what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t super stressed about it—I enjoyed my studies in school.
While in school, I’ve always taken photos but didn’t know it could actually be a viable career. I didn’t have a lot of of guidance in terms of career paths growing up, so it took a while for me to find my way into the field of set design, and photography.
There wasn’t a specific mindset shift, Instagram was the start of everything. It encouraged me to share work and discover artists who have inspired me to experiment with my style in so many ways.
Instagram was the start of everything. It encouraged me to share work and discover artists who inspired me to experiment with my style.
How would you describe your inspiration and style? Is there any key experience that inspired you?
I would say that my style is very much about finding new forms out of found objects, and very much guided by light.
Natural light, especially harsh sunlight and golden hour are when I am able to see the macro textures and shadows in objects.
When it comes to commercial work, how do you think about creating the scenes that products will live in? What informs those creative decisions?
I like to imagine the object being promoted as a character which needs the right environment to tell its story. What kind of scenario would this product make sense in? What story does this scene tell you? Is this scene fun to look at? Is it eliciting some sort of emotional reaction?
Can you walk us through your favorite project? Or the process behind creating one of your images?
One of my favourite projects I did this past year was my orchid grid. This was a very spontaneous shoot with one small orchid on my counter. The sun was setting and it was casting long shadows on the flower. Photographing it in different angles revealed so many forms. I then started playing with the hues and saturation and created a variety of different treatments for each photo.
There were so many I liked from this series that I felt it all deserved to be shown, therefore a grid made the most sense.
