Ep 028: Heami Lee

A SHOT: To start, can you describe the photo that we’re going to talk about?
HEAMI LEE: The photo is a vertical image of a restaurant called Kisa on the Lower East Side of New York, and it has a few elements going on, but it’s pretty simple because it is also somewhat monochromatic. There’s an old-school fan, and it’s plugged into the wall, and you can see the wall socket. And there’s another wall plug that crops out. There’s an old-school, kind of an Asian-y painting that also crops out. And there’s a wall lamp. It’s pretty simple to look at, but it’s a good entrance into the restaurant. You kind of are displaced in where you are or what it is, and that’s also fun. I love elements of things cropping out because I feel like the story extends beyond the image. And I personally love cords, so I gravitated toward this first. 

Why were you there making this photo?
The New Yorker hired me to do their food section. It’s a Korean-American owned restaurant, and it’s a Korean-themed restaurant, so I was super excited. There’s a lot of buzz about it because also it’s on the corner of Houston Street and the awning is in full Korean in bold red lettering, and that was really exciting. So there’s a big buzz about it already. 

Why was that exciting?
I can only speak from my experience, but I know that in the past [displaying Korean lettering] wasn’t a thing. I grew up in Queens, and back then a lot of the restaurants, a lot of the stores, it was just singular language: If it wasn’t English, it was considered problematic, and they had to re-do their awnings. So seeing that, especially on the Lower East Side… I take a lot of equipment, so I was in a Lyft, and I was doing e-mails. I looked up from my car, which was stopped on Houston, which is a huge street in New York. I looked up, and I could clearly read it [in Korean]: Kisa Restaurant. There’s other words to it, but it just hit so much for me in different ways. So I feel like this was all-around amazing. My experience there was amazing. I walked into the restaurant, and everyone there was Korean-American. It was right before it opened [for the day]. You’re just transported into a Korean diner. I guess it would be considered a Korean diner. Kisa means “driver.” It’s a play off a kisa restaurant in Korea for blue-collar workers, so all the taxi drivers would go there and have their meals. And this is more than a restaurant. It’s an experience. It transports you into a different moment. I wouldn’t say “time” because the restaurants are still there. You’re not in Korea. It’s all created by Korean-Americans. So it’s like an experience restaurant. 

Do you do any kind of preparation beforehand?
Not really. I already have it pretty down. I go in — you also don’t want to burden the restaurant — so I try to be as quick and efficient as possible. As soon as I walk in, I’m already scoping out which parts speak to me, and then I start shooting it. I start shooting the interior of what I want while they’re making the food, and as soon as the food comes out, I’m ready to shoot the food. I’m a flash photographer for a lot of these [type of assignments]. I don’t want their clients having flash while they’re having this nice meal experience. Going out is special. I mean, I think it’s special. I love restaurants, and I want to be respectful for their clients. I want to be respectful to the restaurants because they’re letting me into their space. It’s always an exchange. At least, I think that way. 

Is there ever a point when you would maybe struggle to get what you want then because you’re having to work that way, or is it just this is the way it works, and you get the magic because of that?
That’s part of being a professional. You should always hit your goals. It’s not like a hurdle. It just makes me work in a different way. If I’m at the studio alone, I’ll take my time. I’ll finesse more, but these aren’t jobs like that. You walk in, you assess the situation, and you take the images that you want to shoot. Because I’m technically a studio photographer, these type of jobs… It’s exciting. I get to go into a space that’s not a studio and just roll with my intuition. That’s why it’s so fun. 

So then what’s your setup for taking this photo?
I have portable lights, two lights, that I move around however I want. I feel like the two-light part, I’ve been doing it for a while, so it’s so instinct-based. I feel confident walking in and popping it up wherever I want and just blasting through. I actually… OK, I also don’t blast through. I never use continuous [-shooting mode]. I hate doing it. So it’s always like click…click…click, which annoys some people, but that’s how I like to roll. In the studio, it’s not like that. That’s why I get so excited about these jobs. I get to be almost a different type of photographer, almost like how you are when you first pick up a camera. You look at something. You already have the lights in your head, I guess, because you’re considered a professional, so it’s like being a kid. You look at something, you love it, and you take a photo. 

How would you describe your presence behind the camera here?
This is actually the first photo I took when I went in there. For me, this image, it can be anywhere. If you recognize the elements, you’re like, “Oh, are we in Asia? Are we in Korea? Are we in a small restaurant? Are we in a shop?” I knew I was gonna get all the food images because this is a food story. I felt like this was such a good lead-in image, and it has all the elements that I like, like the parts cropping out and the cord. I love the randomness. I guess I’m a little bit random. 

What do you like about cords?
They’re everywhere. Some people hide it a lot. Aesthetically, sometimes in parts of our house, we do hide it, but it’s literally everywhere, and people hate on it, but it’s also kind of decorative. It’s very industrial. It’s so common. It’s also a little bit goofy. They all come in different shapes and forms. I don’t know. I think it’s beautiful. 

There’s an Alec Soth photo of a woman in a chair reading a book, and there’s a bright white Apple phone cord coming out of the outlet. And it’s so interesting because every instinct in your mind is just, like, “Let’s just delete it.”
But it’s also in our life. It’s always there. In these polished images that we make for clients, they always like to take it out and act like it doesn’t exist, but in our life, it’s everywhere. 

This photo’s part of a series of images documenting the dining experience at this restaurant. I’m curious about your decision-making when building a series of photos when you’re telling a story. What sort of thing are you looking for generally when you’re documenting a restaurant?
For me, it’s always instincts. It’s so important for you to listen to your own voice. That separates you from the next photographer who’s next to you — what I think is beautiful. We talked about cords. I love cords. The next photographer might not. It’s important for you to hone into what you actually want to shoot and what you want to show. Especially for these jobs, you walk in and you assess. In my head I already know what I wanna shoot, what targets I want to do. I don’t know where that comes from. I guess it’s always been like that for some of us. You go in somewhere, and you have to take that photo. 

So what do the elements you’ve shown here tell us?
It’s important for the lead photo — at least from the way I organize it — for it to lead into something. It’s the beginning that extends, not a beginning that is cut short. And composition is a big thing with that. Even in a simple moment like this, I feel like I wanna know more. Like what’s going on on the other end of that cord on the top right? If this is the decoration, what’s happening to the wall on the left on top? What’s the rest of the painting on the bottom? And then it leads you into the question of “Where is this?” Also, if you’re not familiar with this culture, you’re like, “What am I even looking at?” Those are all fun things. Sometimes I feel like we forget that we take a photo… And I’m pretty selfish. I take photos for myself. But also sometimes when I do other projects, I think about the viewer. So what is the viewer looking at? What is their experience from this photo that I’m gonna take? And for this, this was all instinct based. But you go in here, and you take this photo, and you hope that it asks more questions and it sparks curiosity. I guess a lot of people already know it’s a restaurant though.

Yeah, but it’s interesting because the food photos in this story are so dynamic, and one of the things I was wondering about is when you posted these on Instagram, you led with this photo. And it would be so easy to lead with the plates of food and the people having a good time eating, but that’s not leading people anywhere else?
I did consider that because it would reach more people. I have to admit that I ran this by my partner, who creatively I respect so much. This is only part of the restaurant. The other half is vibrant. It’s bright. It’s colorful. There’s patterns. The food itself is served on stainless steel. Everything’s vibrant. But should I lead in with this photo that I resonate more with, that hits me more? Obviously, she was like, “This is the photo you should lead with.” I have a luxury: I have the privilege of having this person that I always talk to more in an intimate and safe way. So I have to give her credit. Also she knows me the best. Right after the shoot I texted her and told her how much this meant to me, the shoot itself. When I was going through the photos, she was like, “You have to lead with this one,” because this fits my story better. 

Sometimes I don’t know why I take the photo. And I feel like, you took that photo because it resonates with you, which is hard for a lot of photographers, especially commercial photographers, recognizing we might be artists, too. And that’s part of art, right? You create something, or for us, we make a photo, and it hits home with somebody else. That itself is what art is all about. 

For sure. One of the best lessons I had from doing these conversations was from my interview I did with Chris Buck. He gave this example of how he shot the comedian Chris Farley. Everyone knows this Chris Buck photo because it’s this photo of Chris Farley standing at a window with this beautiful light on him, and he has a crown on his head. And [Chris Buck is] like, “The thing about that photo is that photo never ran in the magazine.” He did that job, and he was like, “I recognized throughout my career that no matter what the assignment is, you always have to come home with something for yourself.”
That’s what we do a lot, too. We talk about that a lot because I do have a lot of friends in the industry. So we’re commercial photographers. Our goal is to finish whatever is started by the client or the agency. And our job is to pull through with whatever they need. But especially for editorial, even if we have to please the client — which is our job, and we’re happy to do it — we take one extra photo just switching one thing around that nobody else cares about that makes us happy. 

Let’s talk about the composition of this photo. What’s an example of a decision you’ve made here with regard to the composition?
The wall is pretty long. So you open the door, and you walk in, and this is the wall that you see in front of you. And already in my head, I saw the croppings for it. I love the cut-offs. Like, if I were to move this a little bit to the left, this crop, you would see the whole painting. You would crop out the lamp. And you would see more of what’s going on. But the story there is already told. And it’s also not my voice. Photography is so personal in that way. That one little move no longer becomes your voice. 

Do you think that’s something you had to learn as a photographer? Like, how did you realize that you could do that with a photo?
Photography is also a skill that you work on every day. The more you work on it, the better it becomes for you. The more you listen to your voice, the more apparent your voice is in your images. But it’s also just innately just you. So from the beginning to now, I’m sure there’s been years of practice where now I know to walk in, and I can see it already in my head. Maybe before I just knew that I wanted to take that photo. But it’s more defined now in my vision. Sometimes I feel like you don’t even have to know why you want to take the photo, but if you take that photo over and over again every day… Like, you love this trash can, and you take a photo of it every day, not for anyone else but for you, you kind of understand why you’re doing it. Maybe you won’t ever understand, but you’re doing it, and you’re being true to yourself, and that’s important. 

One thing that I find interesting about this photo is because the fan is a blurred object in motion, the shapes you’ve created with the objects aren’t entirely defined, so instead you’ve tied these together through their color. How much are you thinking about color when creating a photo like this, and maybe even more generally, how does your consideration of color play into the work that you make?
Color is super important in my life. Also, I can’t separate photography from my partner. We talk about color all the time. She has paint swatches with her all the time. Sometimes one of my favorite questions to ask children and my partner is, “What’s your favorite color right now?” And I feel like even if this image might seem very minimal in color, there’s a color play definitely happening. And the reason why I wanted to lead with this photo is because the restaurant is so vibrant and not that this photo isn’t vibrant, but some people think white is boring. But to me, it’s not. And I feel like every week or so, my favorite color changes, or I find a new color in nature or on a paint swatch, and it’s so exciting, and I try to bring those elements into my photos. 

One of the things I like about the color play in this is even in the shadows behind the fan, because the blades of the fan, the light is passing through them, you get that tiny little hint of a shade of the color of the photo. 
It’s also so pretty. I feel like because of the shadow it makes the fan feel bigger than it is, but it’s actually a tiny old-school fan. Also the size of the images are kind of questionable, and you’re like, “Are we looking up at it a little bit, or are we looking straight into it?” All those questions that you ask, it makes the photo fun. 

You shoot a lot of still life. How do you think your work in still life has affected how you see things?
Because I’m a still-life photographer, I have been blessed with a partner who’s a prop stylist who constantly teaches me how to see things in tiny little objects differently and how special they are, and maybe way before, I didn’t appreciate tiny little details that somebody might walk by, but now we stop, and we both look at it. We also look at how light hits it. We also talk about every element of it. I’m a big life-lover. I love little elements of life. I believe in a little magic in life, and all those things are very important. But she taught me to see all of that in little objects. There’s no way I would be a good still-life photographer if it wasn’t for her. I feel like I would see it in not this way of love. 

How often are you seeing those objects and not taking a picture? Or do you always feel like you need to make a picture of it?
In life and projects, sometimes I don’t take a photo because it is special. Is that funny? Because I feel like sometimes I just want to look at it. What’s that saying? “Take a photo. It’s gonna last a thousand years.” Maybe it’s so beautiful that I don’t want it to last a thousand years, and I just want it to be this fleeting thing in my memory. So sometimes I don’t take a photo. 

I also have this personal project. I haven’t gotten to shoot it in a while. It’s called “Strangers in My Room.” It’s about human connection. I meet a stranger, and within minutes, I assess the situation to see if we have a connection. This is a traveling [project]. If I’m traveling somewhere, I ask them to come into my hotel room, and I take a portrait of them. In that project, a lot of the moments, I can’t take a photo because they are no longer strangers. But those elements are part of that bigger project where a lot of the time, because we become friends, we’re no longer strangers. I can’t have them in my room anymore because the tension’s not there. The vulnerability, all of that, is gone. But those people that I approach for that project but I don’t get to take a photo of are actually part of the project. So I’m a big believer in you don’t have to take photo for everything. You can also just enjoy it with your eye. And that’s part of being a photographer for me, at least. 

How would you describe the quality of light in this photo?
I like to do a lot of these [assignments] in a pop-flash, on-the-camera kind of look. Sometimes that brings a viewer closer. You obviously know this is artificial [light], but it almost feels like you might be able to take it with a little point-and-shoot with the flash on top, and I love that kind of play. It brings you closer because photography is an element that anyone can do. But you have to dedicate yourself to the skills. Because we are professionals, we do little things that make us happy, like we talked about the shadow of the fan, how it creates a bigger presence because of the shadow. So those are all thought-out. It’s just simple but fun. 

What do you think we can learn about you from the choices that you’ve made here?
I think you can learn that there’s playfulness but there’s also thoughtfulness. And what might be perfect to someone isn’t perfect to me, and that maybe not being so perfect is a way to go for me. I don’t think you can tell that I’m Korean-American though. Maybe if they see the whole story, they might feel that. There’s gestures in the rest of the images that are understood by us. There’s elements that I caught the people doing that resonate with Korean-Americans. Maybe in this moment, that’s not what we’re saying. It’s more about the composition itself. 

What have you learned as a photographer that’s given you the instinct or ability to make this photo?
It comes easy because it’s years of shooting, years of really listening to yourself. When I talk to younger photographers, that’s the best advice I can give them. It’s really hard to do. Especially when it’s so oversaturated with constant image flows, and everything’s so wonderful. It’s hard to really listen to yourself and shoot what you want to or light it the way you want to or make a composition the way you want to. And I think that’s the most important thing. 

So since you brought it up, what is your favorite color right now?
I think it’s red, but it might change. I’ve been wanting a perfect vintage red T-shirt for two years now. I have a red bag, and I have a little red hat. And I seem to not get enough. I have a red sweatshirt I can’t wear right now because it’s so hot. I’m saying bright red, but all my backgrounds on my desktops are bright blue right now. So I’m not sure. Maybe I’m lying to you.

Interviewed on July 17, 2024.
(This transcript has been edited for brevity.)

Links:
Heami Lee
Kisa
The New Yorker: A Pitch-Perfect Ode to Korean “Drivers’ Restaurants”