Kanights grew up in San Francisco, California, photographing and skateboarding throughout the city.[2] Kanights was the first skateboarder to be sponsored by Billabong but earned very little money from the sponsorship and his photography continued to be his primary source of income.[9] Kanights worked for Thrasher for many years.[2] As he describes on his website,[10] he started shooting his first photographs as a teenager, when he was skateboarding in San Francisco. Since then his passion for photography only grew, until he was able to make it his job.