to the new year!

lauren in the garden. santa fe, new mexico.
© kevin t vu

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope this holiday season finds you all w/ those you love and cherish!

As for me, It’s been an absolute hectic winter season. Work has been relentless and consistent. I’m working and making contacts w/ some great people and i am moving forward in my own work everyday. The year has flown by and it has been an utter roller coaster ride.

I finally saved enough money to buy the canon 5d mk ii w/ the 50mm 1.2f lens. its being delivered as we speak and i cant wait to get my hands on it. my next lens will be the 24mm 1.4f, but i will have to work a little more in order to get that bad boy. i’ve fallen in love with prime lenses and i dont think i could go back to a zoom.

working w/ frank these last couple of months has taught me an incredible amount in photography. w/ frank, light is a conversation. each shaft of light is a sentence. and we piece all those sentences together to start the conversation w/ the viewer. its the suggestion of his portraits that make them so powerful.

and he’s been absolutely gracious! he’s helped w/ my photographic vision and has helped me to get shooting and assisting work w/ other photographers. and he’s giving me a print of my choice for a christmas present. i’ve narrowed it down to three and am gonna let him make the final choice of which one he wants to give me.

so if you happen to be in LA, i would suggest 2 current exhibitions on display that you dont want to miss! the first is irving penn at the getty center. and the 2nd is frank’s at the icon.

cheers to a new year!! i hope it brings us all success, in every capacity of the word!

wanting more

hanging out w/ mary on a southern california sunday. west hollywood, california.

© kevin t vu

i can’t believe that the year is drawing to a close so soon. this time last year, i was in guatemala traveling w/ lauren. i have grown a tremendous amount this year and it has been a journey w/ so many twists and turns, bumps and bruises. but everyone of those turns have made me a better person and photographer.

this blog has been an incredible asset for me. it has enabled me to document my experiences. just as in my photography, i don’t do it for anyone except myself. for me, the blog is a tool for growth. i am able to look back and see how far i have come and how much further i have to go.

am i reaching for success?  for money?  or is it satisfaction w/ my life? i feel society presses me to understand ’success’ as something finite. do i consider myself successful? is it a place to be at? somewhere that i can come to and relax? in my understanding, i see ’success’ as a progression. success is the drive that pushes me to be a better person, a better photographer, a better friend, a better whatever. am i successful?! Definitely!! i strive everyday to be better! and i surround myself with those that pushes me to be better.  i find complacency lends itself to mediocrity.

” If you compromise what you’re trying to do just a little bit, you’ll end up compromising a little more the next day or the next week, and when you lift your head you’re suddenly really far away from where you’re trying to go.”

- Spike Jonze

stepping back

lauren putting on makeup. santa fe, new mexico.
© kevin t vu

having a photographic vision is definitely something that i am consistently thinking of. and as i reflect more on it, i realize that my photographic vision comes from who i am as a person, and not who i am as a photographer.

by taking a step back, i am better able to look at myself comprehensively. the decisions on who i surround myself with, what foods i enjoy eating, what clothes i wear, what type of art i’m interested in, etc. all have an impact on who i am. and i ask myself, why do i wear those clothes, why do i hang out w/ those people, why do i eat what i eat, why do i like that genre of art? my answers define the quality of life that i live and in turn define the quality of imagery that i put out.

the food that i enjoy eating elicit an emotion from me. when i plow into a good bowl of soulful chicken soup, i’m instantly taken home. the clothes that i wear are clean, simple and classic, i try not to follow the short-term cultural trends.  i love the visceral despair, ecstasy and drama of a caravaggio painting.  my close friends are amazingly loyal, trustworthy and deeply passionate about life.  (the words in bold are parameters for my vision and my brand)

you have to take the step back and see what you are saying with your life, only then can you really say anything with your photography.  this is where i want my vision to be.  my vision is a record of how i live my life.  i only hope that i can refine my vision enough to run parallel w/ how i live life and vice versa.

“I remember one of my friends saying to me ‘oh yeah, you just went to ny, you got lucky right?  you just got lucky?’  and he’s a photographer too and that comment gets me! There’s no such thing as luck for a start, you create your own. i just thought, well, you could look at it that way, but it wasn’t and you should try it and see…  You gotta be passionate about what you do, you really do.  Cause people notice it.. and they respect it. Its a very powerful drive to have.  It makes you sleep well at night if you do stuff you’re happy with that you’re making and achieving.”

- ben watts

persist

portrait session w/ ana-Lauren at her home. orange, california.
© kevin t vu

its great to have friends that are patient and willing to give you the time of day to photograph them. ana-lauren and i had a great time during our portrait session. of course, it helps to bring some good music and a chilled bottle of white wine. i shot these on a 35mm and 6×6 film camera. normally, i would look at the 6×6 frame and think that i ruined the image by not properly advancing the film. but i realize that the uniqueness of ‘flaws’ is the reason why film is still so amazing! you never know for sure until the roll is processed. you just have to go with it and make it work for your visual style.

i shot some portraits for a non-profit last week with my film and digital camera. i had a small softbox to a profoto 7a pack. it was a very simple setup. i used the the softbox as a side light and let the left side of the face drop to black. i had my 35mm film camera hardsynced to the pack and shot most of the portraits on film. i used the digital more as a polaroid to check out my lighting. it was the first time i used the 35mm konica w/ a strobe pack so i wanted to make sure i had some stuff on the digital as well, just in case nothing comes out on film. luckily i did that because when i got the roll of film back from the lab, there was nothing on the negative. i shot two rolls and it looked like the lab just processed 2 rolls of unshot film. so its always smart to cover your bases, otherwise you can easily lose some clients.

if you’ve read my previous post, you would know that i had an opportunity to move to chicago for work. i’ve decided to keep pursuing my work here. i feel that i’m starting to build the foundations here in LA and it would be a shame to leave it now. The biggest markets in the US are LA and NYC and i’ve made some inroads to both. For now, i’ll keep investing my time and work in LA.

I’ll leave you w/ some quotes I’ve been chewing on:

If I were to encapsulate what anyone must do, it would be to have a vision of life and depict that vision.
-Joel Peter Witkin

Never apologize for your own sense of beauty. Nobody can tell you what you should love. Do what you do brazenly and unapologetically. You cannot build your sense of aesthetics on a consensus.

Never compare your journey with someone else’s. It’s a marathon with no finish line. Someone else may start out faster than you, may seem to progress more quickly than you, but every runner has his/her own pace. Your journey is your journey, not a competition. You will never ‘arrive.’ No one ever does.

Embrace frustration. It pushes you to learn and grow, broadens your horizons and lights a fire under you when your work has gone cold. Nothing is more dangerous to an artist than complacency.

– Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai

creative outlets

lauren being patient and letting me photograph her. santa cruz, california.
© kevin t vu

i’ve been fairly consistent w/ work this month and it hasn’t given me the opportunity to shoot any of my work. so i decided to do a quick trip up to coast to visit lauren and her family for a creative weekend. i had a great time that really helped me to explore my creativity. we created meals that told stories, painted, drew, photographed and i was able to just let go of all the pressures that i’ve felt for the past year. i had an amazing time and am absolutely refreshed!

i wanted to add a little more about creative inspiration. as photographers, i think that we shouldn’t put all of our focus on the practice of photography. i think that one needs different creative outlets in order to approach and understand the world and one’s place within it. for me, i get so intwined into reading industry magazines and blogs, i’m consistently on the computer for ours. and its unfortunate because the world around me is such an inspiration. and i’m learning to be creative in different ways, not just through photography. these other approaches, be it cooking, sports, reading, drawing or painting, helps me to interpret my place within this world and in turn helps me with my approach towards my photographic vision. look at the masters; picasso, leonardo, michaelangelo, bernini, etc. they all had different pursuits that helped them in their art .