Meet Kyle Camerer | Photographer & Cinematographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kyle Camerer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kyle, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My thought process behind starting the Flash Truck started with I was laid-off from the company that I moved to San Francisco for from Minnesota. I was a photographer in Minnesota before getting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work for one of the most influential brands (at the time) and decided to put my photography career on pause and moved out west. The idea was that I would work for this company for a while, learn new skills and meet new people and then leave to go after my own thing… that didn’t happen. I got comfortable with the paycheck, perks, job variety, and travel I was doing. That was ended after 6 years when they had to cut operating expenses and laid off its entire video production division. That event short-tracked my pursuit in starting my own thing. In San Francisco, the photography market was, well, actually, I have no clue what the state of it was when I was laid off. I just knew I couldn’t afford the overhead of starting a photo studio in one of the most expensive commercial real-estate areas in the world, let alone, make a name for myself in a saturated market. So I took the concept my good friend and old roommate who has always been successful at everything he did, he would say, “Its not market place, its market space. Find an area that is missing, and fill it.” Well, I noticed most of the photographers in the Bay Area were all in deep in the South Bay or in the East Bay, and no one was going to make the over hour trek to a studio to get their headshot taken. I loved food trucks at the time, and hence, the idea of the Flash Truck was born. To make it easy as possible for people to get their portrait taken – to remove all the barriers and have the studio come to them – which also removed the barrier for me in having to pay to have a studio space. Just the initial investment, and then little to no overhead.
In the time I was planning on the build out of the photo truck, my now wife, got a job at a tech company in LA. So I bought the truck, packed it up with all of our stuff, and moved to Santa Monica. Over that next year, 2017, I spent a majority of it building the Flash Truck, doing all the work myself.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Have you seen the movie, Slumdog Millionaire? My career path feels like that. Its be forged from a combination off all the life experiences I’ve had. From growing up in a small town in Minnesota to a son of a fabricator, having my media arts teacher in high school take me under his wing to me photography and and how to use the darkroom, failing out of college, working for the most exciting company in the world… it all lead me to be able to do what I do know – creating images using light.

…I’m still working towards the millionaire part.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
First stop for them would be In-n-Out, obviously. We would probably do a weekend trip to the desert and play some golf. Would swing by and show them my friend’s company, Race Service, in midtown because they are probably the coolest and most genuine people around. We’d probably go to In-n-Out again. Then Pizzana a few times as well. Would go to R+D kitchen for ding’s crispy chicken sandwich. Would make a pit stop at Mashti Malones. Basically, it would revolve around food and scenic places.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
All the recognition goes to my wife. From day one, she has been nothing but supportive in my vision for the truck.

Website: theflashtruck.com, kylecamerer.com

Instagram: kylecamerer, theflashtruck

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylecamerer/

Image Credits
Kyle Camerer