Ashley Riffo Issue 169, Photographer Profiles

Kantaya New: The Serious Business of Being Funny

At first glance, Kantaya New’s work feels impossible to pin down.

One moment, you are looking at street photographs filled with people and perfectly timed coincidences: a dog seemingly sipping a beer, three Spider-Mans (Spider-Men?) waiting in line for some fried chicken like exhausted office workers after a long shift. The next, you find yourself peering inside a carefully constructed conceptual world where relationships fray under the glow of a smartphone, and deeply personal questions hide beneath bright colors and humor.

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Most photographers live comfortably on one side or the other of that divide. Kantaya moves between those two worlds with surprising ease. And somehow, the tension between them is exactly what makes her work so compelling.

When we spoke for the Street Photography Magazine podcast, Kantaya introduced herself not simply as a photographer, but as a “photo artist.” “I see myself first as an artist,” she told Bob and me. “Photography just happens to be the medium I use to express my art.” It is an important distinction because her work, whether spontaneous or staged, is not simply about documenting what she sees. It is about asking questions. About nudging people toward reflection. About making us laugh long enough to let our guard down. “I want my photos to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable,”” she said.

When East Meets West

The way her photographs often pull you in with humor or beauty is incredible. Bright colors or a strange juxtaposition might catch your eye. But then you linger, and you start to wonder. Why is Spider-Man waiting for fast food? Why does this image feel funny and sad at the same time? Why does this relationship feel familiar? Kantaya has learned how to disarm viewers with laughter.

Between Complete Chaos and Full Control

“Life is already complicated enough,” she told us. “I want my street photography to do the opposite. I want to make people smile. I want people to feel alive.” And yet, in my opinion, beneath the humor her images rarely feel superficial.

That duality becomes even more fascinating when you understand how she works. Street photography and conceptual photography could not be more different. One depends on instinct, openness, and surrender to chance. The other demands planning, control, patience, and intention. Most photographers lean naturally toward one or the other. Kantaya thrives in both. “Switching between them feels like switching between the logical and instinct part of my brain,” she explained later. “Or like switching between my dominant hand and my non-dominant hand.” 

When she steps away from street photography for too long, she says she loses her “hunter’s instinct,” that confidence to get close and react quickly in unpredictable situations. But conceptual work gives something back. Since every frame is planned, every color considered, every shape intentional, it sharpens her visual instincts. “When I go back to the street,” she said, “I can find the right angle and composition faster because my mind already knows what I want my picture to look like.” That relationship between control and unpredictability runs through much of her work.

Paper Plane

An Invitation to Self-Reflection

Her street photography often feels painterly and deceptively simple with strong compositions and clean frames. The vibrant colors in her photos are carefully balanced. It’s something unusual to find in photo series these days, not to mention entire portfolios: restraint. There is very little work on display on Kantaya’s website. Not because she lacks photographs, but because she is a fantastic curator. Kantaya seems to understand the power of only displaying the photographs that really hold a viewer’s attention.

She laughed and joked that part of her website restraint comes from laziness (“Updating websites is not easy”), but jokes aside, her awareness that work shown publicly should say something meaningful was clear. “I don’t go for just the visual,” she told us. “I go for meaning.”

Perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in her conceptual work. Her ongoing project, A Modern Day Affair, grew from something deeply personal: a crack in her marriage caused by constant phone use. “It starts from my life,” she explained. “Based on a true story.”

“We do not notice the space growing between us.”
– A Modern Day Affair

Her husband, perpetually absorbed in his phone, became both reluctant collaborator and unwilling muse. At first, she photographed herself and her husband together, using self-portraiture to explore the emotional distance technology creates between people. 

Later, she handed him the camera. If photography could not pull him away from the phone, perhaps participation would. Of course, collaborating with your spouse comes with its own challenges, especially when your spouse is neither a professional model nor photographer. Kantaya laughed as she described navigating her husband’s occasional “unprofessionalism.” Midway through a shoot, he might grow tired and ask, “When are you gonna stop?” But over time, she learned how to keep him motivated. The secret? Food. Deep fried food to be exact.  She told us, laughing. “Anything unhealthy and tasty.”

“Movie night, but his eyes stay on his phone.”
– A Modern Day Affair

The resulting work is funny, vulnerable, and painfully familiar. Almost everyone who sees it recognizes themselves. At one exhibition, a visitor emailed her afterward to say he initially laughed at the series but later found himself reflecting on his own phone habits. That response feels central to what Kantaya is trying to accomplish. It’s not accidental humor. It’s an invitation.

“First they laugh,” she explained. “Then they pause.” What I particularly love about A Modern Day Affair is that it never slips into moralizing. It asks questions instead of laying out what’s right and wrong. It leaves room for viewers to bring their own lives into the work. And Kantaya welcomes that uncertainty. “When I start a project, I have some idea of what I want to say,” she explained. “But along the way, new questions pop up.”

“Glued to his phone as I bathe him like a baby.”
– A Modern Day Affair

Art, for her, is collaborative in a way. Conversations with viewers, curators, reviewers, and friends reshape how she sees her own work. “The questions probably never stop,” she said. “Much like life.” 

Just the Beginning

Interestingly enough, Kantaya’s journey into the medium of photography happened almost accidentally. It was never part of the plan. It was only after living in Tokyo and meeting someone passionate about photography that something clicked.

Years later, she still sounds slightly surprised by where the journey has taken her. And maybe that openness matters. When Bob asked what advice she would offer photographers feeling lost creatively, her answer was simple. “If you’re lost,” she said, “just shoot.”

Not because photography always provides answers. But because sometimes, if you keep paying attention long enough, it teaches you better questions. And in Kantaya New’s world, questions are where the interesting things begin.

Long Wait

Where to Find Kantaya

Current & Upcoming Exhibits