Born and raised in Southern California, Kyle Cowling is an award-winning cinematographer residing in Long Beach, CA with his wife, daughter, and pup. Growing up, Cowling had a strong passion for the world of action sports and spent 12-years racing motocross. Throughout that period of time, Cowling grew a passion for photography and, in doing so, spent his junior and senior year of high school in both photo 101 and advanced photo, shooting analog, which solidified his idea of becoming a photojournalist instead of professional motocross athlete. 

 

After graduating from high school in 2005, Cowling worked numerous customer service jobs while pursuing his dream of photography. In January of 2008, Cowling’s determination would be rewarded as he earned his first-ever job as a photojournalist at TransWorld Motocross Magainze. He travelled all across North American photographing the best Supercross and motocross racers in the world for the magazine. However, throughout this process, Cowling discovered he wanted to tell more of a story with his images and decided to transition into the world of filmmaking. Thus, in February of 2009, Cowling stepped away from his full time editorial position at the magazine to, instead, become a freelance cinematographer. Since then (completely self-taught) Cowling has gone on to work with international clients such as Red Bull Media House, American Honda Motor Co., American Suzuki Motor Co., and more creating docu-series’, branded content, commercial spots, and more. 

 

However, Cowling being a dreamer, eventually had ideas of moving into the scripted narrative world as a director of photography/cinematographer. And, in August of 2018, he commenced that journey by DP’ing what was not only his first-ever narrative gig, but it also happened to be a feature length film. Since August 2018, Cowling has gone onto DP multiple short films, winning multiple awards at film festivals for his work on No Runners (2020) and WHO IS: Gunner Wright (2022) and working with commercial clients such as Petco and SportClips. He is also apart of the I.A.T.S.E International Cinematographers Guild Local 600.

 

Cowling prides himself on being very light-hearted, yet passionate about his craft behind the camera. For him, it is imperative that such an attitude is translated across set so that the cast and crew all feel respected, heard, and free to be themselves and achieve their highest level of work while also having fun in the process.