Edina's David Kasyanyuk Transcends the Photograph

David Kasyanyuk will tell you he stumbled on photography by accident. But after briefly scanning hisportfolio, one would be hard-pressed to chalk up all this talent to a fluke. This humble photographer—no, artist—has been dabbling in photojournalism for only three years and yet he has already built a name for himself.
   
“I’ve been an artist my whole life,” says the 21-year-old, a 2010 graduate of Edina High School. “When I got my first camera, my intention was to shoot video. But I started taking more stills and found the joy you can get from creating art from what’s already there in front of you, rather than what’s in your head.”
   
Kasyanyuk started posting and sharing his photos and other art on social media sites such as Facebook and Flickr. This catapulted him into a new realm of artists and photographers. “I felt so connected to them in a way, even though many of us had never actually met,” Kasyanyuk recalls. “We all had the same vision and drive—to create art with photography.”
   
Kasyanyuk also attracted the attention of potential clients—especially those wearing white, sparkly dresses and with matrimonial vows on their mind. “I didn’t mean to go into this as a business,” Kasyanyuk says. “Someone asked me to shoot a wedding and I posted a photo or two from that. From there on, more clients started reaching out.”
    
While this talented artist enjoys photographing weddings, he has his eyes trained on a different goal.
   
“I want to move into the world of fashion photography,” Kasyanyuk says. “I’ll start a portfolio here, but my end goal is to move to the West Coast. I love Portland [Oregon]. I’m pretty laid back … like a cabin-in-the-woods kind of guy.” A cabin-in-the-woods kind of guy who happened to conceive of the cover art for Chasing Lovely, a country music duo originally from Edina (see the September 2013 Edina Magazine). The cover of Chasing Lovely’s album “Breathless EP” shows the musical sisters levitating in a meadow of wildflowers outside Nashville. “The light and airiness fit well,” Kasyanyuk says, reflecting on that image. “It matched the sound and style of their music.”
   
He approaches his photography with a systematic eye as well as an artistic one. One such shoot involved a dingy garage, a pile of books and himself. He positioned a stack of books to his right and methodically moved the books around him, shooting the picture multiple times so the end result showed him surrounded by mounds and mounds of books. This labor of love—which Kasyanyuk says took many hours—allows the viewer to see more than just an ordinary garage. In fact, the viewer doesn’t even notice the garage—but rather feels an emotion due to its stoic nature, whether that’s sadness, awe, emptiness, passion or any other. And that’s his goal.
   
Arranging the photo, light and subjects, or in this case books, is only the first step. After he snaps the photos, Kasyanyuk can spend up to 60 hours using Photoshop, which he taught himself to use. In fact, he doesn’t have formal training in photography, either. Kasyanyuk was enrolled at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) after graduating from high school in 2010 but had second thoughts shortly before the fall semester.
    
“I knew that pursuing a career in the arts was what I wanted to do,” Kasyanyuk recalls. “But it came down to a couple weeks before I was supposed to start and I decided to hold on. I wasn’t sure if that was the right route for me. I didn’t want to be burdened with debt and regret going to school when I could have used that time exploring my options, traveling and getting a feel for what I really wanted to do.”
   
As for the future, this budding young artist is not sure if photography is the be all and end all. He is keeping his options open; he can still see himself in the film business, making movies. But, for now, he remains behind the camera lens, following his muse.
   
“Anybody can shoot a photo,” Kasyanyuk says. “It’s more about having a vision for what you’re creating that matters.”