Meet Photographer Taras Semchyshyn
Taras’s love of the South Bay and his eye for the inherent beauty of diverse landscapes are evident in his work.
By Maureen Kingsley
Born in Hollywood and raised in the San Fernando and Antelope Valleys in a family of Ukrainian immigrants, Redondo-Beach-based photographer Taras Semchyshyn has called the South Bay home since 1998. While maintaining a successful full-time career as a project manager in the entertainment industry, Taras began pursuing photography in earnest four years ago, when, he says, he picked up his first Nikon DSLR camera and started shooting. Self-taught, and taking inspiration from his Uncle Taras, also a photographer, the younger Taras spent his free time shooting in and around the South Bay and elsewhere, posting his images to social media, and just generally enjoying practicing his art. Friends and family quickly became fans, and, in time, started requesting Taras shoot events and portraits and make prints of his South Bay landscape images. Word of Taras’s talent spread, and he next found himself shooting products for a local start-up and for King Harbor Brewing Company in Redondo Beach, where, in 2019, he held his first art show and sold some of his work. Then 2020 arrived, and the pandemic hit. Like many of us, Taras began working his day job from home and found extra time in his days. “It was during the lockdown and working from home last Spring that I decided, ‘Let’s do it,’ and began formulating an idea of how to turn my photography into a bigger venture,” he explains. Serendipitously, right around that same time, Taras’s friend Brian Fife welcomed Taras into his budding Zoom networking group, Local Links, in which entrepreneurs and business owners were connecting virtually during COVID-19. “And there I was,” Taras says, “starting a business in the middle of this, frankly not knowing what or how to do it.” Through that group, Taras partnered with a travel-concierge start-up off-shoot headed by Brian called Easy Alfred, and became their photographer. Most recently, Taras signed on with Aleta Rochelle Daria’s Artlita gallery, which holds pop-up exhibitions and maintains a virtual gallery and store. Taras’s photography highlights color and interesting focal subjects. Originally inspired by his family’s old photos of Europe and the East Coast of the United States, Taras loves shooting both the South Bay and wherever he travels. Taras Semchyshyn lives in Redondo Beach. View his photography on Instagram at @socaluke and at artlita.com. Readers interested in Local Links can visit locallinks.online.
All photography by Taras Semchyshyn. Images left to right, top down: Sunset Ramp, Vortex-Manhattan Beach Pier, Sentinel, Tower 60-El Segundo, Point Vicente, Walking on a Dream-Manhattan Beach, Oz-Los Angeles, El Prado Streetcar Bridge, Poop Deck, Dusk Dreams Hermosa Beach, Fire Sky, Insane Sunset, Crashing Wave, Orange Palms.