Behind the camera

Curious by nature.
Created with heart.

I am a photographer, a student leader and a traveler, and I am based in Orinda, California.

Skylar Cantando smiling in a cafe, holding an iced matcha — Skylar Cantando

Hi, I’m Skylar.

I want to make creative work and understand what makes it matter.

I’m happiest when I can connect ideas that are usually kept apart: photography and business, fashion and everyday life, ambition and fun.

I first picked up a real camera because I wanted better photographs of the places my family and I traveled. I became interested in how one frame could preserve a memory, a feeling, or the energy between people.

At school, I’m Student Body President and mentor 80 Leadership students across all four grades. I am also President of Cultivating Thinking, where I help elementary students talk about identity and belonging. At Vogue Summer School in New York, I chose Business and Marketing because I wanted to understand everything behind the creative work, from brand strategy to customer experience.

I don’t want to choose between taking the photograph and shaping the bigger story. I want a future that includes both.

How I see

I usually notice what someone is wearing first.

A woman in bright green pants on a bench. A scarf trailing behind someone crossing the street. I watch how the clothing moves, how the color plays against the setting, and where the light falls. When I edit, I either heighten the thing that caught my eye or mute everything else so the pattern and the feeling come forward.

My favorite painting is The Swing, by Fragonard. It tells a whole love story at once: a secret admirer in the back, a woman completely free on her swing, a suitor below her.

Looking closely

I love the moment an image stops being a record and becomes something you can feel.

Leading fully

Leadership taught me how to listen, organize, adapt, and make ambitious ideas real.

Still becoming

Created by Sky is a business now and the beginning of a creative life I’m still building.

Pink, black, gold and ivory swimwear hanging over a white wall against a blue sky

Black and white view looking upward between New York skyscrapers

Also part of the picture