johann van tassel

November 1, 2025

In this interview, staff member Chantale Van Tassel joins fellow staff and frequent submitter Johann as he reflects on his early submissions and discusses the development of his photography journey.

Chantale: I’d love to start off with asking about comparison between your earlier dialogue pieces and your recent ones. When you look at your first photo in Dialogue versus now, what's different?

Johann: I’ve had three in every Dialogue issue, since first semester of freshman year. This is my third year now.

C: Wow. So you've had a streak going.

J: You can call me an all-star.

[laughter]

This could potentially be last year, if I continue to be on staff. Maybe next semester, yeah. My first photos were... “Stranger on a Motorcycle,” “City of Fog,” and “Rainy Neon Street.”

C: Oh yeah! Your neon phase!

J: That’s kind of how I got started, yeah. That was my early work that was a lot of my inspiration for photography in general. Just seeing Hong Kong’s neons. That's how I learned a lot of techniques. So that's where a lot of my better photos came from. Then I shifted, because I liked exploring other categories such as landscape, or just more tasteful images. I think it's called “Linger”, in 57.1. The one of the girl in the cathedral, just the legs. Yeah. Stuff like that is more unconventional, less formulaic. But I've also—how do I say, for classic’s sake?

C: Like traditional?

J: Like, I've still submitted street stuff, like Hong Kong stuff.

C: Like almost your trademark, sort of going back to your roots? Your first love of photography?

J: Yes, trademarks. I still submit some street photography from Hong Kong. But I've sort of run out of those.

C: Of Hong Kong shots, specifically?

J: Yeah, ones that I like.

C: In terms of your newer work, you've still done street photography. Like, you went on that Canada trip with the Arts Collective, and you did a lot of work there. I’m interested in discussing sense of place, of how art can be rooted in geographic settings. How does that translate to photography? How much does that matter to you?

J: For my work, yeah. I'm a travel photographer. That's what I classify myself as. That's all based on seeing new things, rather than longer projects. Like revisiting the same park or something, or portraits or stuff like that. So location is very important. Culture is very important. World culture.

C: Obviously you can't control, like, every moment that happens. So, like, how do you approach capturing a location?

J: In Canada, my approach... We went to two cities. My approach was to spend at least a day, like, the first day, just taking minimal photos and just sort of gauging what the overall dynamic of the city is. And then I pick the series I want to do based on what I notice. So for Montreal, the thing that stood out was Brutalist architecture.

C: And can you explain that a tiny bit for our non-architecture friends?

J: Brutalism? Yeah. It’s very functionalist architecture, a lot of raw material. Like concrete, very blocky design. Very Soviet, sort of money-efficient design, not really psychologically friendly, typically.

C: Interesting. So like, do those sort of naked concrete walls fit into that?

J: Yep.

C: Okay. So, you have a lot of photos that capture the surrounding environment, but also focus on a specific person, a candid moment.

J: For Street, yes. Although a little bit of skill in Street is knowing when they'll pose right, candidly. There's a weird way they walk, but you can capture the right moment and they'll look better. Yeah. I look for stylish people, because they're just easier to take pictures of. They have more character than just old people.

C: What's one person that stands out to you?

J: In a recent piece I have called “Cells,” there’s a lady on a pink chair who’s wearing mostly black, which is, obviously color's important in your photo, in your subject. But she was just stylish, so that's an example.

C: What are new things you're finding interesting and playing with and experimenting with that have sort of developed over time?

J: In the early stages, well, just learning how to compose. You kind of take what you can get, any subject kind of works. There's not much intention behind it as long as there's someone walking in the right spot, or something that's a subject. Now, when there's more intention it's like you can pay attention to more of a theme, or like a message. So you have to choose more carefully what your subject's doing. I've thought about doing series called “Faceless.” Because I take a lot of photos where faces are not seen. So intentionally trying to get subjects that fit that theme is how you move forward. But also, in terms of technique, there's always something to work on. One compositional technique I've heard and have been practicing is to treat your entire image as sort of a story with a main character and supporting characters. Where your main character is typically the subject that most stands out. and then everything else around it is supporting the character in some way.

C: Got it. What are you excited to try in the future?

J: Like, longer term projects?

C: Sure.

J: Like year-long projects or something, that document like one thing over the span of a year. Like a tree. I've thought about themes of decay, because decay is a part of life too… I don't know. More travel, that’s exciting.

C: What's your dream place to shoot? And maybe as a second follow-up question, if this question even makes any sense, what would your idea of a perfect shot be?

J: My dream place would be Mont Saint-Michel. It’s in France, it’s ike a castle on a beach. Yeah. That place seems pretty cool. And there’s no such thing as a perfect photo, it's context-based in your theme. I think I've already taken the perfect photo for my series, “Flesh and Slate,” because it's my series. It's perfect because it's mine.

C: Amen.