THE HUMAN BEHIND THE LENS
THERE and
BACK
AGAIN:
A STORYTELLER'S TALE
THE HUMAN BEHIND THE LENS
THERE AND BACK AGAIN:
A STORYTELLER'S TALE
Before I step into your story, let me share a bit of mine.
ABOUT KYLE KHALIL
I was born in Germany and grew up in sixteen different places across two continents: never settled, always moving. No matter where I lived, you’d be most likely to find me barefoot in the nearest creek, the first place I felt the siren pull of The Call: Here. this.
My dad handed me his 1982 Canon AE-1 when I was thirteen, and that's the second time I heard The Call: here. This. I never could have imagined how far I'd wander before I finally, truly, answered that call. And I never could have imagined what was on the other side of the portal once I stepped into my work behind the camera.
lifelong omnivagant • raising two daughters, two black cats, & a dog, by the river ﹏
multimedia storyteller & artist
dirtbag eldest daughter
raising a dog, two daughters, and two black cats
on the river
lifelong omnivagant
scorpio sun ♏︎𖤓 arien moon ♈︎ ⏾ libra rising ♎︎︎⇡
ANSWERING
THE CALL
Camera in one hand, passport in the other: I'm an everything, everywhere, all at once kinda gal. The loves of my life are my two daughters and my dog and the four of us live on a river I stand ankle deep in near daily to ponder this or that.
A decade as a writer and teacher of literature followed by seasons of loss and a fight for survival that reordered everything I thought I knew taught me that life is too precious to perform, joy is why we're here (and it's too sacred to postpone), and presence is all we have. I learned that I don't have to trade my joy for impact or my freedom for belonging; I learned that freedom, play, and purpose don't have to compete, and these days, I walk with all three in deep, hard-won alignment.
ky khalil co exists because I decided to wholeheartedly answer The Call to fully live this wild and precious life. I alchemized my gifts and what makes me feel most alive into this work: to put myself in the direct path of joy and wonder and our shared humanity as often as possible - out in the places I love, recreating in the ways I’ve done for decades, building relationships and connections with people, writing stories, and making art of it all with a camera in hand.
If you're still reading, I'm so glad you're here. Come chase the magic of mischievous movement and light with me. Let's create something true and real together, and see what kind of wild, beautiful life takes root from it.
Tiny perfect things.
Little did my father know when he asked me to walk the Tour du Mont Blanc with him in 2025 the sheer battery of Absolute Unmitigated Shenanigans he would be subjected to.
Nothing beats a Moab river day with my girls.
Loki turns 14 this year, and we've been together this whole time.
About 05
Climbing was the third Call I heeded, and it led me to all of the greatest parts of my life; it developed my relationship with risk and exposure, it humbled and disciplined me, and it dynamized the relationship between my body, my mind, my heart, and this planet I call home.
I'm so lucky I got to do this with him. It's so rare to get this kind of time with a parent, as a parent.
this is our favorite place on earth.
my soul dog.
someone tell this girl
how juicy
it's going
to get.
Hi Dad!!!
it's an
unbelievable
honor to be their
mother.
of note
01
I also love: magical realism, Lord of the Rings, Dimenson 20, anything Vic Michaelis does, Star Trek, growing things, WOMEN
02
not a single nonchalant bone in my body
03
tarot readings are a love language (I work with the wild unknown archetypes deck)
04
INFP; 4/6 projector + emotional authority; enneagram 4w5
♏︎𖤓 / ♈︎⏾ / ♎︎︎⇡ / I've never gotten over anything in my entire life
05
hey look at this cool stick I found! hey look at this cool rock I found! hey listen it's a black winged grosbeak! hey look at this cool bug I found!
06
IMO the most important thing about any relationship (romantic or otherwise) is that you gotta be in cahoots
I couldn't do what I do without the trust and vulnerability of the couples I work with. I feel so lucky to know each and every one of you, and it's an honor to be an ongoing part of so many of your lives. And if we don't know each other yet... let's change that ASAP.
Season after season of loss and survival across every part of my life collapses all the illusions, and everything I thought I knew about life and my purpose in it reorganizes. I leave my education career.
Instead of photographing a friend's wedding in Yosemite and kicking off a photography and outdoor ed career, I chose grad school. For a decade, I read for a living. I studied literature, I wrote, and I taught hundreds of students to find the story running under their own lives and say it out loud. I loved my students, and I loved teaching writing. I just couldn't survive the underfunded, overworked, often violent system the work existed in.
I attend the National Outdoor Leadership School's Outdoor Educator Semester and afterwards move into a van on the Sierra East Side; I spend 330 days outside this year
I, A Dirtbag, become gainfully employed by Yosemite National Park and promptly reorganize my entire future around the idea of being outside as often and as adventurously as possible
I heed The Call, sell most of my belongings, and use the proceeds to buy rock climbing gear, much to my mother's displeasure.
My dad hands me his old film camera. The camera whispers to me the way The One Ring whispers to Gollum.
I will spend the next two decades pretending I wanted to do anything else.
One of the first images I took with my "new"
there and back again:
a photographer's tale by kyle khalil
ky co LORE DROP
camera; in line with my enduring obsession
with the details of the natural world
Slowly, I start to live again. Slowly, art, adventure, travel, and standing ankle deep in the river about it brings me back to where I started. Not empty handed, though: I came back to it with ten years of writing and working with story - a treasure. My own story brings me back to The Call: Here. This.
I remember that I didn't come here not to love my life.
I pick up the camera again and ky khalil co is born.
xx, Kyle
plot twist!
we've had one plot twist, yes. but what about second plot twist?
I thought I was okay, but I wasn't. But I was committed to trying to make a difference there
I believe that beneath all of the earthly identity and experiences we collect as individuals are beings who are honestly just amazed to be here, who can’t believe we get to inhabit bodies and have hands and feel sunlight and rock and water and experience connection in all the ways that humans do.
I think that true presence in a moment is what allows us to play and connect and be fully in our bodies and that’s really the juice we’re all here for.
And I think that the way we go about crafting experiences for presence and play can build emotional architecture that gives rise to everything that comes next.
AT THE heart of it all
About 02
