About : My name is Hanko. I am 24-years-old, currently in my final year studying communications design in Berlin. I was born and raised here but spent some time in China during my childhood. I got into photography after high school. I started by talking pictures of my friends during parties and inside nightclubs. Shortly after I was much more interested in what’s happening on the street and in public spaces.

Statement : For some reason I noticed that the type of camera I choose heavily influences the way I shoot, even though I wish I could say that cameras don’t matter when it comes to street photography. Luckily there are no more bad cameras in today’s world. At the beginning I was running around with camera gear, too expensive to talk about. I don’t know why I never tried talking pictures with my phone. I made the switch from digital to analog pretty quickly. After some rubbish cameras which I picked up from flea markets, I bought off a Leica M6 from one of my teachers from University. It was the best decision I ever made.

Shooting with a rangefinder really taught me a lot and I still prefer shooting with them. Today I mostly use compact film cameras due to comfort reasons. I tried out many of them over the past year and I currently stick to my Contax and Yashica. As for my methods of shooting, I try not to stress or force myself. Some days I succeed, some days I don’t.  Pictures will come anyways, it’s just the amount of self-enjoyment that will vary.

My photo projects : I will have a group exhibition at the end of this month which will feature different works of my classmates and me. For this show, I was shooting my Series called “6” which basically contains different places and situations I spontaneously encountered here in Berlin. I want to continue this project because I really enjoy slowing down my shooting style. Other than that I have a few other series on my website, mainly dealing with topics in and around Berlin. I’ve been really thinking about spending some time outside Germany but for now I’m just trying to keep on shooting whatever passes by.

Influences and inspirations : I’m heavily influenced by the movies I watch. There are no specific genres I prefer although I really like good horror movies. Anxiety keeps me intent. In terms of photographical influences, I currently really enjoy looking at stuff by Max Pinckers, Charalampos Kydonakis, Tim Barber, Jeff Mermelstein (check out his Instagram, it’s wonderful).

Links : Hanko Ye | .Com | Instagram