VICTOR

LE (LITTLEVICTAH)

Photographer, Videographer, Design Graduate, Founder of DECENT HUMAN BEINGS

Victor Le is a photographer and videographer specializing in night street photography. Originating from Montréal, Canada, his lens captures the essence of nostalgia with a vintage diffused look, crafting a dreamlike tapestry that merges the modern energy of the city with timeless allure. He is also involved behind the scenes in Montréal’s Street Dance community as a photographer and videographer. Outside of dance and photography, he works on his clothing brand DECENT HUMAN BEINGS.

His work was featured at Place Des Arts/Quartier Des Spectacles for JOAT Festival (Montréal) , PhotoEd Magazine (Canada) , Art Square Gallery (New York), and C³offee Magazine (Taiwan).

Website: victahgraphy.com
Clothing Brand: decenthumanbeings.co
Instagram: @littlevictah

SEED + CATALYST

VICTOR: My grandfather played a huge role in my profession. Since I was a child, he was the one in the family documenting everything with a camera/camcorder. Most of my baby pictures and home videos were taken by him. When he passed away, I kept most of his equipment as a memory. That is also one of the reasons why I go for a soft vintage aesthetic because of the nostalgia. Although it was just a hobby for him, I’m the first one in the family to do this as a career.

PIVOTAL MOMENT

VICTOR: The first moment was when I spent a whole summer in NYC for the first time. Through that trip, I learned how to live like a local New Yorker, went to many pop-ups and galleries, discovered their dance scene, and connected with a lot of friends through Instagram. I was able to capture moments in the city and show to my friends that NYC isn’t just Time Square.

The second moment was my most recent trip when I visited the motherland for the first time. At first, I thought I wouldn’t enjoy the trip because like most CBCs (Canadian-born Chinese), I still struggle with speaking the language. It turned out to be my favorite trip! I managed to navigate with basic Cantonese and Mandarin for a month and I learned so much about my mom’s side of the family. Her hometown reminded me so much of Montréal and NYC because of the large buildings, metro station and the festivals they have over there. Even though the lifestyle is completely different from the Western world, I felt like I could blend in to the crowd. Plus, I also got to take beautiful night shots inspired by Wong Kar Wai films which was one of my goals when travelling to Asia. I can’t wait to go back in January.

3 LESSONS

VICTOR: Learn how to take a break. As someone who is a workaholic, it feels weird to not work at all. I remember almost feeling burned out because I kept accepting projects that were not worth my time. I’ve gotten better over the years and made time to at least go on a vacation after finishing a big project. Travelling also helps recharge my creativity by visiting local art exhibitions and pop-ups!
VICTOR: It’s okay not to be okay. Mental health is very important and if you ever feel sad/stressed about anything, just reach out to someone because there are people who are willing to take their time and listen to you.
VICTOR: Remember why you started in the first place. I saw many people I connected through social media that stopped doing what they love and moved on to something else. During the pandemic, I almost gave up on a creative career (both photography and my clothing brand) because it was a difficult time for artists due to the lockdown and the lack of socialization. The thing that kept me going was all the messages that I’ve received from friends and supporters.

3 TOOLS

VICTOR: Playbook is the perfect cloud storage for any creatives in any field. They offer free 4 TB of storage by simply submitting your portfolio. I use it everyday and deliver my files to clients with it!
For teams, Playbook makes it easy to share and collaborate on visual projects. For freelancers, Playbook makes it easy to collaborate with clients and share their work with the world.
VICTOR: If you can’t afford a video monitor for your camera, Monitor+ is the best alternative! I use it for all of my video projects.
Monitor+ is a professional app that can run on your mobile phone to enhance your video production workflow through a series of advanced features that are usually only available on a dedicated hardware. It connects to your camera with wireless or wired connection, taking advantage of the dominated screen of modern mobile phones to achieve a more accurate and usable monitoring experience.
VICTOR: I love this book (Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs by Henry Carroll) because it helped me a lot when I first started photography. It is easy to read and it breaks down the basics of photography by showing photos that applied the techniques.
His other series are also good (Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs of People & Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs of Places). Definitely a must-read for everyone who wants to explore photography!