Kiliii Yuyan
Image by Kiliii Yuyan
Photographer Kiliii Yuyan tells the stories of lives bound to the land and sea. Informed by ancestry that is both Nanai/Hèzhé (East Asian Indigenous) and Chinese, he searches for human insight through different cultural perspectives. On assignment, he has survived a stalking polar bear, escaped pounding waves diving with sea otters, and found kinship at the edges of the world. Kiliii makes photographic stories for the pages of National Geographic Magazine, TIME, and other major publications.
Hi Kiliii! Tell us a little about yourself — when did you first become interested in photography and how did you get to where you are today?
I have long been a traditional kayak-builder and kayak guide. I was leading tours around remote Vancouver Island by sea kayak when I discovered that my family and friends responded to photographs more than text emails. No one would read, but everyone looked at the photos. So, I began to take more photographs on these beautiful coasts and appreciate photography as an artistic medium.
Eventually, after becoming a professional photographer I switched into documentary photography and began working with Indigenous communities of the Arctic, which led me to National Geographic Magazine. For me, going to the communities of the Arctic was not initially about photography, but more about a person of Indigenous descent with a need to find a place where they would fit in. That perspective and role turned out to be valuable in the world of documentary photography.
Photographer Kiliii Yuyan
“My greatest lesson is to trust in the process. You build a good process, a way of working, and you have faith that it will pull you through.
You cannot cut corners, get impatient or try to get away without asking permission to do things. You just have to be there when the right time happens and be ready. That takes time, and the greatest gift to myself as a photographer is to give myself enough time.”
Ever since I left East Asia as a young child and settled in the United States, I felt like an outsider and felt the need for belonging. It was this need to fit in with people like myself that led me to spending time in Indigenous communities. The communities of the Arctic in particular felt both familiar to me as a person of Subarctic Indigenous descent, but also novel because of the land and the ways of life that revolve around sea ice and the tundra.
Your photos are very intimate and tell powerful stories. Can you share more about your approach to working with Indigenous communities?
I come from a different perspective than most Americans or even Chinese people because of my multicultural upbringing and my Nanai grandmother’s worldview. From a young age, I was fascinated by her stories and I learned so much of the way that we Nanai people see ourselves in the world and how we go about in it.
When approaching a community that is not my own, I need a long period of time, as well as the ability to set aside my own cultural perspective.
I approach a community by researching as much as I can, going there, meeting people, and eventually learning to become a part of the community. I chop firewood and skin seals and play with the kids and I make sure to ask permission for everything.
I begin by knowing that the community I am working with learned how to live on this earth sustainably and how to love each other. From there I start to unravel the questions of how they accomplish this amazing feat. How do they see the world and their place in it? What are the cultural values that help them live with each other? Learning these things is the key principle to becoming a good storyteller with useful insights and hopefully that comes across through my images.
Do you think photography can play a role in understanding cultural differences?
I don’t think it can by itself. But photography has the ability to both show people what they have never seen before and to make them feel, to move them. Good photography can show them a way of life they never dreamed of and at the same time almost force someone to pay attention because they have been grabbed by their emotions.
This power, combined with the writing of insightful wordsmiths, can help people see that the world is incredibly diverse and in that diversity lies the solutions to so much of human life.
Image by Kiliii Yuyan
What is the most memorable project that you’ve worked on?
The project I just completed called ‘Guardians of Life’, on Indigenous conservation, has been the most amazing by far. It’s five different countries throughout the world where we look at different Indigenous communities and how they have stewarded the most biodiverse and beautiful (yet with people) places on earth. I was swept away by the everyday offerings to the land in Mongolia, stunned by the glorious coral reefs in Palau, and heartened by the traditional kayak-hunters in Greenland. Each one of those places made me optimistic that the natural world has the best possible defenders and that we can protect nearly everything that remains by empowering their Indigenous communities.
Tell us about a challenging shoot and what made it worthwhile. What did you learn from that experience that you carry forward in other shoots?
They are all challenging, but in different ways.
In Australia, the relentless pace of climate change caused unseasonal heavy rains and my story on cultural fire was hung in the balance. I waited for over three weeks before the weather dried with only 3 days of possible burning time. I made basically the entire story in those 3 days despite being there for a month. It was nerve-wracking to on assignment for National Geographic and not able to do much but wait.
In Mongolia, I was sick half the time with a GI illness and living in a yurt with very limited amenities. At night it was below freezing and I had to tough it out and just get out there on the open steppe every few hours while I was sick.
My greatest lesson is to trust in the process. You build a good process, a way of working, and you have faith that it will pull you through. You cannot cut corners, get impatient or try to get away without asking permission to do things. You just have to be there when the right time happens and be ready. That takes time, and the greatest gift to myself as a photographer is to give myself enough time.
You’ve traveled across the globe with your work from the Arctic to Australia to Finland and beyond. What gear do you take with you and why?
On assignment, I use a lot of gear because I am trying to examine the relationship between people and the land. I dive, I fly my drone, I hike, I kayak to make pictures. Not every assignment requires everything but I am surprised at how often I use everything I pack. I bring two camera bodies, an infrared camera, tons of lenses (from 8mm to 600mm), drones, underwater housings, strobe lighting, tripods, gimbal heads, and more. Of course I also need camping gear, diving gear, etc...
The most useful gear for me sometimes is a set of waders, waterproof boots, and good gloves.
Image by Kiliii Yuyan
How do you balance work assignments with personal projects?
Nowadays, my work assignments are personal projects. I am very fortunate in that I can work on these enormous multi-year stories that I pitch myself for a grant through National Geographic Society or is accepted for an assignment for National Geographic Magazine.
If left to my own devices, I would simply plot out my personal work on the calendar before I plan out my work assignments. If you are not incredibly driven by your work as a photographer, it’s a tough career to sustain. I put in so much more time than I am paid for, but that’s for the love of the story. It’s worth every second.
What advice would you give to photographers who are interested in pursing documentary photography?
Show us what we have never seen before. Read books. Gain insight. Tell us what we do not already know. Upend our understanding of the world. Talk to writers. Immerse yourself with the people.
What are you working on now and what’s up next for you?
I am just wrapped on the Guardians of Life project fieldwork and am now off to Antarctica aboard the National Geographic Resolution.
The next thing for me is the National Geographic Live Lecture circuit where I’ll be giving a talk called ‘Life on Thin Ice’ across the US and Canada for the next few months.
And of course, some shark diving in between.
Image by Kiliii Yuyan