The Beginner Photography Podcast

How A Wedding Photographer Pushes Boundaries to Think Fearlessly with Huy Nguyen

• Raymond Hatfield

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#377 On this episode of The Beginner Photography Podcast, host Raymond Hadfield interviews Huy Nguyen, a wedding photographer known for his unique and creative approach. They discuss the importance of focusing on specific aspects of photography as skills improve, capturing emotions in photos, and the creation of Fearless Photography as a destination for non-traditional photographers. The conversation applies to all aspects of photography, and aims to provide inspiration and practical advice to listeners. Listeners learn that mistakes are inevitable, but it's important to treat everything as a new beginning and focus on earning the trust of clients. Huy Nguyen shares his experience using candid photos and photojournalism to shoot weddings, and how his people skills were essential in earning trust.

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Value Emotion Over Perfection: Capturing authentic, emotional moments will resonate deeper than simply creating technically “beautiful” images.
  • Embrace Discomfort for Growth: Personal and artistic growth happens when you push past your comfort zone—step closer, get involved, and seek new perspectives.
  • Consistency Isn’t Enough—Strive for Originality: Avoid repeating old habits; challenge yourself to make every photo session unique and meaningful.
  • Build Trust and Presence: Great photos come from genuine trust and connection with your subjects—develop people skills to earn that access and capture intimacy.

Links and Resources

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Huy Nguyen:

So at the same time, you have to sort of be confident that even though you are a wedding photographer, this may not be a time for beauty photos. This is an emotional photo. So you have to put all the notions about wedding photography, like, wedding photography should be beautiful. Well, that's not, this is not the time to make that beauty photo. There's going to be plenty of time. Later, save those beauty photos for the sunset. This is a time we make the emotional photo.

Raymond Hatfield:

Hey, welcome to Episode 377 of the Beginner Photography Podcast brought to you by CloudSpot, the all in one solution for photographers like yourself to deliver and even sell your photos online. As always, I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield, and each week Here's what I do. I interview some of the world's most interesting photographers and I learn what it really takes to capture beautiful images and compelling stories so that I can share them with you so that you can start to do the same. Now today we have an episode from the BPP vault. So after years of interviewing just world class photographers, I've built up quite a rich library of photo tips and tricks that guests share to help you to get better at capturing amazing images. Every single day, new listeners are finding the podcast. So these rewind interviews allow new listeners to discover those gold photo nuggets from the past and allow long time listeners to revisit an interview with fresh ears and more hands on photography experience. So, in today's interview, we are chatting with photojournalist turned wedding photographer Huy Nguyen. Now, I have heard it said that Huy Nguyen is your wedding photographer's favorite wedding photographer. He is known for thinking outside of the box to create, I mean, really unique images that you just wouldn't typically think of. You know, when you think quote, unquote, wedding photography, and this prompted him to start fearless photography, which is a destination for couples to find wedding photographers who are less traditional and more dynamic in the images that they capture. So, you know, for a long time, it has really been my source to find images like right before a wedding that just inspire me to go that extra mile when shooting, because honestly, really creative stuff on there. A great library of images. Now this conversation can honestly apply to just so much more than just wedding photographers, but all aspects of photography. So I encourage everyone to listen in to this one. So with that, let's go ahead and get on into today's podcast interview with we win. We do you remember The first photo you took that, like, really stood out to you? I do, I

Huy Nguyen:

do. And, yeah. now that you, you ask me, I do remember that photo. it was like a photo from, my university when I was just starting out. And I got this angle of, kind of above, and there's like a row of, It must have been graduation or some kind of, ceremony, you know, there's a bunch of, you know, white dressed up, ROTC type, kind of like wearing naval white ish outfits. Maybe they were something else, but I remember they're all uniform and they all had hats on, and I thought the pattern was really cool. It's black and white film, so it was like a row of white, like four rows of white. You know, so I, I don't know. I took it. I thought it was the greatest thing ever. And I loved it for a long, long time until, the more you grow, the more you realize, ah, you know, it was okay. It wasn't that good. We got better. If

Raymond Hatfield:

we move on, but yeah, it was a long time ago. So what was it about that photo that now when you look back, you think, Hmm, it's not so good.

Huy Nguyen:

Well, because there was no, Uh, there was, this was kind of predictable. There was no, surprise. There was no, breaking of the pattern. It was very patterning. And I loved that pattern when I was starting out. And you start to see light pattern. Things shapes and I was drawn me to it But now I realized that it needed some I needed some disruption to make to make it interesting. Otherwise, it's so predictable. It's just Too easy

Raymond Hatfield:

It's just it's just how we all start. Yeah, I get that at this point. Were you already? Interested in photography or did you have a camera you took the picture and then once you saw it you thought wait There's something here I

Huy Nguyen:

think at that point, I was maybe taking a class at the university, maybe a summer, a summer night class, and I was using my camera, and I was trying to get into the school publications, maybe working for the school newspaper or the yearbook, or a out. Any other smaller publications I was ran by the school and I was just shooting a lot and at that point I was just running around with the camera and developing my own black and white film and having fun with you know, just learning and discovering photography

Raymond Hatfield:

I think back to when I was learning photography and there was this time where it was like everything that you did was brand new and it was so exciting to just go out and shoot every day but then we get to a point I don't want to say that we hit a plateau, but we faced maybe our first struggle. What was the hardest thing for you in the beginning from a photography standpoint to, to learn or to understand about photography?

Huy Nguyen:

What was the, the struggle was to, to stand out. The struggle was to, to keep producing. To keep them coming. To always, make things that are not the same as, as before. So I think that was something that we learned. When we first do it, we were happy that we got it, and then, after a few months maybe, like, well, we got it, so now we have to produce something new, or we have to shoot the same thing from a different viewpoint, or to strive to make something that's a little bit not the same as what we did. Always. So what would it be for? So how do you overcome that? And I, that's part of the fun. That's part of the challenge, but that's also the fun is that you do dig deeper. Oh, you, um, you learn to expand your, your awareness. You learn to expand your artistic awareness so that you are not stuck where you are artistically or emotionally or, visually, right? So you're not stuck in the same place for months that you grow as a person and that you grow as an artistic person or an emotional person because you know, a lot of wedding photography, I guess we'll get into that. It's about emotional connection. So we have to grow emotionally. Also, to do wedding photography, maybe food photography, not so much, right? Anyway, but in wedding photography, yes. So we have to grow and we have to change and we have to, evolve to get different perspectives, to approach life differently. Otherwise, we will be doing We'll be tempted to be doing the same stuff over and over again because we don't know how to do anything different. We don't see anything different. We don't feel anything different. And we don't, experience things with a different point of view if we don't change ourselves.

Raymond Hatfield:

did I hear, do you went into your college newspaper? You were shooting for your college newspaper, is that right?

Huy Nguyen:

I did. I was lucky enough to, to get to do it. yes. and I did that. I did the yearbook and I did the newspaper. And it was a great experience.

Raymond Hatfield:

Mm hmm. And then you went on to shoot for, is it the Dallas, is it the Dallas Star newspaper as well?

Huy Nguyen:

Well, when I first, um, you know, when I graduated from college, with an engineering degree, I knew I didn't want to be an engineer. So I, at that point, I tried really hard to get on to an internship with, some newspapers around the country. Cause that's how you do it. You know, you, as a student, you get out of college and you're trying to hook on to a summer internship and work at some, some newspaper, big or small. It's very competitive to get a, an internship. And then from there on, you can jump to another internship or maybe make connections or get kept on as, you know, get a real job, get a newspaper job. And, so at that point I just started doing internships with some different newspapers and eventually land in Dallas. Eventually that was my, you know, my, the biggest goal, my biggest job that I wanted was to work for the Dallas Morning News newspaper. But that took many years to get there, and uh, eventually.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, as a photojournalist, because, I know that you spend years shooting weddings, but before that, being a photojournalist, what did working for a newspaper, like a proper newspaper, teach you about, capturing the story.

Huy Nguyen:

Working for the newspaper was a really good experience because of the challenging assignments. So let's say, I have a work week, I work five days a week. We all, you know, we have normal work weeks and we go in and we'll get, We've got assignments given to us, here's your two assignments for the day. One might be a basketball game at night. And before that, you have to go photograph a portrait of, a politician you know, or maybe, that's the plan, right? You have two assignments, maybe three. And you go and, here's the story. Here's what this person did. And you have to do the picture. This person is a podcaster. This person is, uh, just won the podcaster of the year. Raymond Hatfield. Right? He just won, he was just right, you know, he won the Texas Podcast of the Year. He works out of his office and you find out all this information about Raymond and you try to make a picture that, it has relevance to what you do, what Raymond does, who he is, where he works, what his environment's like, what he's like. So you don't just take him to the beach and do a sunset shot with Raymond because that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense, right? So you don't do that. Sure, it would be lovely. It would be lovely, but it doesn't fit the story. So you learn how to make pictures that fit the story. That's a portrait, right? So maybe, after you photograph Raymond, you know, there's a news, there's a fire and you have to go to a fire. It's like, okay, you know, that's a fire over there. Go to it. So you go to it and you put your portrait mindset away, you get your long lens out, you show whatever you need and you can't get close. So you got to put your, Spot news mindset on and learn how to negotiate your way into somebody's balcony So you shoot down on the fire? Maybe you want to talk to some people who's been affected by the fire Just make pictures that show the effects of what's going on. You know, it's big flames Maybe you want to shoot the big flames because it's a big deal Maybe it's the aftermath and you're like an hour late and you're like, okay, that's not much flame So you're just gonna shoot the remains of what's going on. I mean, there's people who were sad because of, you know, affected by that. So you photograph something to bring back for the newspaper, and then you still have enough time to, uh, go to the ballgame, you go to the ballgame and you, sit on the sidelines and, uh, sit on the ground. the floor and make some good basketball pictures. And that's your day. You know, you learn, you have all these things thrown at you. You never know what you're going to do. You got to solve these problems right away. When you're doing it, that's fun, right? It's fun to not know. It's fun to have a, diversity of assignments. And, uh, your day is like, I wouldn't say never the same, but your day is pretty different and you have fun seeing the whole city. Driving around seeing what happens in real life in the whole city. And that was a great job. and that, and, and sometimes you get a, a sign, a long term project, say you have a project that you can check on, you know, you're like. It's a long term thing, because when you have time, you like, drop by, see this family, see how they're doing, take some pictures, things like that, keep up with your project. Sometimes you get to travel, maybe there's political news, an election or something, and you know that it's going to happen, and you, get ready, and you fly to another place, solve that, solve those problems, try to make better pictures than your competitor, try to make good pictures so that the competition The company will send you again. If you don't make good pictures, they're gonna send someone else. Or they're gonna say, well, why would, why did we, go through all the expenses to send Wei when he can't even do better than what we get from the wire services. So, you know, right. Maybe someone else can do better. Maybe that's not his thing. And so, we always have to work hard to, uh, just to find our jobs and, uh, but that's the fun, right? That's the fun. That's always the challenge. So just take that whole thing, all those skills we learned, all those problem solving skills, all the pressure, and just apply it to weddings. There you go. That's wedding photography right there. Quite a big jump right there. It's just the same assignment over and over again, but it's, it's, uh,

Raymond Hatfield:

anyway. Well, how did, how did you get into weddings? Like when did that start? Why did you leave, the newspaper and get into weddings?

Huy Nguyen:

So I was working in Dallas for maybe five, six years and, uh, it just kind of happened, you know, just met some people and, you know, it was the same story with every wedding photographer. It just went to one wedding and you're like, Hey, this is fun. And people start asking, asking me to shoot weddings. And I did. And the thing that I did was I hooked up with, I connected with a local wedding photographer, FA studio, Gary Donahue. And he was a great friend. I mean, we became friends, but I, I first started with him and he took me into the studio and, recommended me to his, extra clients. And then we became partners later. So I, he gave me a really good start to, to jump in from photojournalist to become a wedding photographer, because I, for a while I did both. Right. I just, I still did my newspaper job. And then I, booked. And book weddings at the same time. So it was just a slow transition. And after a couple of years, I just went full time and did weddings.

Raymond Hatfield:

So when it comes to weddings, you know, one thing that I'm, that I always get interested in is obviously there's a subset of photographers who have never shot a wedding. So before they do so, they just like going to Google or Pinterest, like wedding photos. And then what you're going to see is just like the traditional head and shoulders, portraits, those camera wear type photos. And then there's somebody like you who has years of experience in photography, albeit another genre being photojournalism, and then you get into wedding photography. Did you just trust your skills as a photojournalist to capture a wedding or did you try to into the quote unquote traditional wedding style in the beginning? In the beginning,

Huy Nguyen:

you know, I did a lot of, candid photos, a lot of photojournalism in, in my weddings because I, that was my skill set, right? so there's two things, there's, candids and posing and wedding photography. So let's talk about candids, documentary wedding photography. You know, I think that I thought, yeah, I had skills, my newspaper, I can use my newspaper skills, go to a wedding and photograph the wedding like a newspaper story. And if there are important things that happen, I'll shoot it. You know, if I'm, I'm pretty sure I know what important moments are during a wedding. I, I am pretty sure, I can kind of sense, what I should shoot, you know, and I would shoot it the way I want to shoot it. And I don't think the way I shot it was that weird. I don't think I'm, super artistic, crazy that I can shoot things and they would understand that's what it is. I think I can pretty much show people all the things that they do in a way that I think will be interesting to them. I'm pretty confident about that. And when it comes to posing, I just did the minimum and I think that from, from the beginning, I communicated with my clients from way in the beginning. So this is back in 2001, 2002, you 18, 20 years ago, I communicated, we communicated that, hey, it's, uh, your coverage, it's going to be like 90 percent candid. And there are a few posing shirt photos, but that's not my strong suit, But they'll be in focus. You know, they'll have good light, I hope. And they'll be normal. They're not going to be the greatest poses ever. They're going to be normal and they're going to be pretty good. We spent a lot of time on them and that's, I made it very clear to my clients that's what we're doing and we did it on film and went on from there.

Raymond Hatfield:

Where do you think in, as far as photojournalism goes, where do you think the, the strongest skill set from photojournalism transferred over into wedding photography?

Huy Nguyen:

The strongest is, feeling it, is being empathetic, is feeling, feeling along with what's going on in the scene and being close and being physically close and emotionally close to photograph this family. That's what we do as photojournalists. We go through that fire, right? And we, we can. If we are allowed to, we go in closer, we're going really close. We go into the fire if we can, if we can, um, but if we, you know, we can't, and then we, we'll shoot wherever we are. But if we can, we need to, we'll be really close. We talk to people who are affected by that. we photograph them. And their sadness, which is sad, but we have to show, right? We have to show the world what's going on. So we have to photograph them really closely. And, those are the things that we should do at weddings. That if you were not a photojournalist, maybe you wouldn't know that. You would just think, I can just stand here with my medium lens, and that looks really pretty, and I'm happy with that. So that's what, I'm just saying, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you were not a photojournalist, you wouldn't instinctively Most people wouldn't, most people would instinctively get in closer, photograph with their emotions. They just, that's not something you do natural, people naturally do, most people. That's something that I think that photojournalists learn and photojournalism students learn, within school. With the communities. But now it's been 20 years. So I think wedding photographers now have picked up on that knowledge. And I think that is part of the of the wedding photography now, which is great, which is kind of normal now for them to understand that. The heart matters, not just beauty.

Raymond Hatfield:

The heart matters, not just beauty. Oh, I love that. That's good. So, when, at what point, I guess, did Fearless Photography start? Because that has become pretty prolific in the world of weddings. as far as, being named a fearless photographer. That's like a prestigious thing to put on your website. So, tell me how all this came about.

Huy Nguyen:

Yeah, I feel it started about 10, 10, 11 years ago when, I would say I was at the peak of my career and it was just, things was just happening. I was working a lot, ditching a lot of workshops, organizing workshops. And I had a lot of friends in the industry, many, many wedding photographer friends. And I. I really wanted to show off their work, you know, I really wanted because I knew they were making pictures, awesome pictures all the time. We had forums. And at that time, Facebook was, becoming known, becoming used, being used more and more. but we had forums and we were displaying photos, But, you know, when we display the photos on the forums, only we could see them, you know, we're like, Oh, that's awesome, man. That's awesome. But it's only us. And so I just want to say, like, the public should see this, we should organize them in a way that shows off these galleries. And I was, very disappointed at the big, wedding industry, websites, that, showcase photographers at that time. I didn't think that they were doing a good job. So I wanted to do, I thought I could do a good job, so I want to do it my way. So I want to put these galleries together and show the kind of photos that we think, that the clients would love or would be surprised to see or would grow to love or would like to discover. yeah, not the namey names, but I didn't think that those gigantic big national international websites at that time were really showing these photos. We're doing, they were showing, they were loving like a lot of details, like a lot of things that I, I didn't think were that important. So I want to want to craft fearless into something that shows off photography. To the clients and maybe they'll fall in love with the photography and they want to get a photographer for the for the wedding. anyway, so that's the goal. That was the goal. We started out with and we want to continue that goal. One thing about fearless is, honestly, it's, uh, that honors the photographers who, the photographers who do well, I mean, it's kind of competitive. It's kind of competitive, you know, it's, I think it's, it's kind of easy to join Fearless, honestly, but once you get in, you have to show, you have to earn your awards and then you can rise to the top. So it's a sort of a, it has its own ranking system that it's going to be tough, you know, it's tough to get your photo selected for awards because your, your photos are evaluated, in a gigantic pool against world class photographers. So it's just, it's a kind of tough to be recognized as a top field photographer, you know, that's what we've been doing for, for 10 years.

Raymond Hatfield:

So if, the types of photos that you, didn't see as important, things like details and stuff like that, what was it that you did, what sorts of images did you want to showcase that you thought like, this is the real meat of a wedding?

Huy Nguyen:

Yeah. We wanted to show. Well, okay. One, one, one thing that Phyllis did was, you know, we don't have advertising, so we don't have, an obligation to show a lot of details photos. We can just show photos that people, I think, love. In a document, and it leans, into document, it leans towards documentary. And so that's sort of been the kind of photos that most of our judges have been selecting as awards over the years. We have a fair amount of very artistic, artistic, portrait photography, portrait wedding photography too. But most of the photos that I think our members excel in are, uh, emotional, real moments, photography that happens with, without staging, without scripting, without arrangement, and those are the real moments of life at weddings.

Raymond Hatfield:

Wow, yeah, I agree. If somebody has been to a few weddings, that, that tends to be those moments, like those photos, those real moments. And emotional moments are the ones that, typically get the, the biggest response out of the client and people who are viewing, the images, but I'm interested to hear from your standpoint, if there was some sort of like, I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head. If there was some sort of like three step process for capturing real and emotional moments at a wedding that beginners could follow, like, what would that look like?

Huy Nguyen:

Okay. Okay, hang on to that question. You can ask me in a minute, but I just want to clear, I just want to clarify one, one thing, you know, it's not, uh, it's not that, uh, I think the moments are better or, they are more love than the portraits. It's just that I think that, there are clients who love both, right? So we want to give clients some choices. So if a client, you know, mathematically, if a client loves 75 percent portraits, And 25 percent candidates, they can choose photographer, realistically, they can, evaluate and choose photographers who have those sort of the same approach. Or if they like 90 percent photojournalistic and 10 percent portraits, hopefully, I don't know, through Fearless or some other websites, they can correctly evaluate their photographer to give them that mix or to give them that, that approach so they can, have the right photographer for their needs. So if they love portraits, they should, they should hire a photographer who's really good at portraits or a really good photographer. Yeah. so we want to make that clear, like, through our galleries, through our profiles, that this photographer is really good at this or, or that too. Okay, so ask me your question again. Sorry.

Raymond Hatfield:

You said that some of your favorite photos were those real and emotion driven type moments. So, if there were some sort of, like, three step process for capturing those moments, more real and emotion driven moments that like a beginner could follow. What would those three steps be?

Huy Nguyen:

Well, one is you, you have to recognize you have to follow along with your heart. So you have to feel along with what the scene, what the clients are feeling. So you have to be cognizant of the emotions that are happening. So that you, you feel like they're really happy, or this is really fun, or they're really nervous, or, this is really hot. This wedding is really hot. That happened a lot in Texas. Right, right. Yeah, this is really hot, this is really, you know. Or, you just have to feel like, Mom is loving this. Dad is loving this. And, and, and, and, and, you know, so you, your emotion is in tune and then you want to photo, you want to get away, you want to find a way to transfer this. So you want to transfer this feeling to your photos. So that's one, two. So you want to transfer it, right? So at the same time, you have to sort of be confident. That even though you are a wedding photographer, this may not be a time for beauty photos. This is an emotional photo. So you have to put all the beauty, all your beauty requirements, all your train beauty thought. That's not make sense. What is it? All your pre program notions about wedding photography, all your beauty nagging at you, Wedding photography should be beautiful. Wedding photography should be beautiful. Well, that's not, this is not the time to make that beauty photo. There's going to be plenty of time later in the sunset. Save those beauty photos for the sunset. This is the time we make the emotional photo. And so you got to go all in with, with tuning in to, to make that photo. And I think that's, you know, so you have to recognize what's going on. And then you have to physically be in there. And that's not an easy thing for a lot of people physically be in there and be committed to photographing this thing. This moment with good light, good composition with all the photographic skills to, you know, so don't those skills are important always, but yeah, that's kind of

Raymond Hatfield:

perfect.

Huy Nguyen:

Yeah,

Raymond Hatfield:

no, absolutely. It does. Now you said that obviously getting in there and getting close to the emotion is a hard thing for a lot of photographers. And I've heard that from a lot of them. In what ways can we train ourselves to better? adapt to, I guess, just train ourselves to get better and get closer to those emotional moments.

Huy Nguyen:

You have to practice, right? You have to practice the, doing it and get better. And I think that one thing that prompts us to, to do something is that we, we see the value in the results, right? If we think, if as photographer, if we agree that being closer. It's worth the effort, worth the training, worth the emotional disturbance of being close. If the pictures are worth it to us and to the clients, then it's worth trying and doing and working on it. so, what was the question? So, yeah.

Raymond Hatfield:

Right? I guess I'm actually getting closer,

Huy Nguyen:

yeah. Yeah. So you have to, go through the discomfort of your own discomfort of, uh, I don't like being here, or this is weird, or this is strange, but you know what? It's going to be worth it, but it's going to be worth it, right? And then you have to rely on your people skills to make people comfortable with you and your skill, your people skills are different from mine, everyone's people skills are different. So you have to learn how to use your own people skills like I can't tell you what to say because that doesn't come, that's not natural coming out of you. You know, I might use my own kind of humor because you know, my dynamics of being in a crowd, being an intimate situation is different from yours. Thank you. But you have to be trusted, right? You have to be allowed to be there. So my way of earning that trust is different from yours. The only thing we have in common is like we're both males, right? So everyone brings a different dynamics to the scene, right? So photographers have to learn how to impractice, how to get trusted, and how to deal with things. For them to be allowed to be accepted to be trusted into this intimate, wedding, this intimate family situation, the same as photojournalism, that we trusted to be in this intimate scene so that they can make pictures, effectively work. So that takes skills that takes practice that takes guidance. It's not easy for many people. It's not easy. But I've seen, in photojournalism, I've seen people, I've seen great photographers of all demographics of all shapes and sizes of all kinds who are able to earn trust because they have to because that's part of the job reporters to and they have to earn trust and they do it very well because they've been doing it a lot. They've been practicing it a lot. They've been working at it a lot. And sometimes they fail. Sometimes they say the wrong thing. Sometimes they don't get accepted. But we find ways to make it su to be successful most of the time. And wedding photography is a little bit easier because you are already kind of, you are already hired, so there's ways for you to, it's easier. Yeah. So get trusted, put your discomfort, work with your own discomfort, and I guess for some people it may not be worth it. And they're like, you know what? The pictures I'm making, I don't really need to, this is too hard for me. After 10 years, I still can't get it. And maybe that's just the way it is. And they, they can do another kind of photography their own way. But as far as beginners, people starting out, we say, give it a try, right? Give it a good try. Let's work at it. And, people have done it before. You can't do it, then you can't do it. But. you don't know until you try.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, it's funny. I've seen, I'm sure you've seen them too on, on Facebook. There's a little videos that go around of maybe a wedding photographer doing like some crazy jumps and like twists and like pulling out the camera and take a few shots at a wedding. And I think to myself, like, that is not me. Like, I'm not going to do that at all. I'm not going to be doing somersaults and then trying to, surprise the couple by taking photos of them. But for them or for that photographer like that works, you know, and that's I suppose his way or their way building trust and getting the types of photos that they need but obviously the way that they do it does not mean that it's going to work for, for everybody else. So I appreciate you sharing that. Like, I can't tell you what to say, cause it's going to be different for me than it is for you. So that that's wonderful. Thank you.

Huy Nguyen:

Yeah, you know, Let's think about it. another thing that maybe relate to this is like, sometimes we think that's not us. And well, sometimes we have a choice. We don't need to do it. Right? Like, I'm fine here. I don't need to do that. Like that's not me. That's not me. I don't have to do it. You do it. That's not me, right?

Raymond Hatfield:

Mm

Huy Nguyen:

hmm, because I don't want I don't want that way. But if it you if you had to if you had to Raymond and it's not you you can work towards it It doesn't mean that you cut it off, right? So for example, I was never a runner I was never a runner Right. I suck. I couldn't even run, let's say one, one loop around the track. Right. One fourth of a mile without stopping. Right. Cause I was never a runner. That's not me. That's not me. Right. So what would make me run? say I'm proud of myself. I can do 2. 5 miles of my best highest. I normally do one mile. I'm pretty happy with that. Right. But I try, right. I try. what would get me to change my mindset from, that's not me, to doing something. It's the benefits. The benefits. Yes. The results. So it's for my health, right? So for my health, I'm getting old, right? So, so I need exercise to stay alive longer. I don't know. I need to, I don't want heart problems or whatever. So I, I have to get out there, you know, and do this. So, yeah. So it's not me, but if I find good, if I find that it's, it's something that has good results, benefits that I want to, it's possible that I can, ease myself into it. So,

Raymond Hatfield:

I appreciate you clarifying that because yeah, I could see how, how, what I said there could be easily misconstrued as like, if at first you don't think it's the right decision, then just don't do it. And so, you know, when I think of, fearless photography, I often think of, you know, as you said earlier, those, those moment driven moments, I think very creative photos and, you know, anybody who hasn't been to the website already definitely needs to, to just see the collection of work from all sorts of photographers, but, I think of, heavy use of foreground, maybe color manipulation with flash, just like really creative things and it gets me like really excited before I go shoot a wedding because it just pumps me up full of beautiful, creative ideas, but then oftentimes I'll get to a wedding. And part of it just feels like a normal day, maybe somebody's in a bad mood. the best man forgot the rings at home. They got to go back. There's like just some confusion going on. And then it just feels like there's like a small opportunity to really be able to try and capture something creative. So, I guess my question here for you is, for you, what's the balance between creating art and, simply documenting what's happening during the day? Does that question make sense?

Huy Nguyen:

Yeah, right. Ultimately, you know, a wedding is, is one, I'm using an analogy. The wedding is one game. It's one basketball game. It's one football game, right? Right. So ultimately, yeah, if you just have a bad game, if that's not your day and things are overwhelming you, and I'm going to say you, I mean, you, you in general, me, if you have a bad day and things are overwhelming you, you can't solve it and you just do the minimum. And you're like, I'm glad that's done with. That's fine. I mean, that can happen, right? So how many times a year do you think that you want to let that happen? if you have 26 weddings a year, how many times would you let yourself have a bad game? Oh, with all the excuses possible. Yeah. Like two, one. Sure. Yeah. One. Right. Of course you don't tell your clients that they'll never know, but, but that's the one that you, you like, okay, that's my bad game of the year. If you have five, if you have ten bad weddings, bad games, then you got a problem that you need to solve, right? Yeah, yes. Then you need to work, right? You need to get back on track, yeah? See what I mean? So, while it's okay to, to understand that things may happen beyond your control, you are under obligation to solve those problems. To solve all kinds of problems so that you don't have a bad game. You need to overcome the best you can, okay? Okay. So, your question is, when do you do, when are you creative and when do you say not creative, right?

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, simply just documenting the day.

Huy Nguyen:

Yeah, simply documenting the day does not mean that you're not being creative. Mm

Raymond Hatfield:

hmm.

Huy Nguyen:

You are documenting the day, but you are, you are doing it in the most effective way possible. So maybe simply document the day, again, an analogy is just maybe scoring a layup, right? Yeah. It's a very simple play, right? And then maybe sometimes when things are right, you can do the alley oop. You can do the dunk. Yeah. It can be showy. You're like, Hey, this is the time, right? So it just depends on if you want to just quietly score or if you want to be a showboat and, uh, get some, have some fun, do some highlights, whatever. Or maybe you think about what your client's needs are. So you have this, consideration, you're like, Hey, you know what? I, uh, so you, you decide, you decide when, when to do what, right? Yeah. Yeah. so when you're documenting a wedding, when you're photographing a wedding, it's one of the goal is to be effective, to have the photographs be strong and communicate clearly what's going on. Like what I'm trying to do now with you, I'm trying to communicate clearly. Like I'm not trying to be fancy and sing and rap and rhyme, speak French. Dan, I'm not trying to be creative. I'm not entertaining. I'm just trying to get the ideas across. And sometimes, and most of the weddings, that's what you're doing. You're getting the ideas across and you're doing a good job. Doesn't mean you're doing badly. Doesn't mean your picture out of focus. Doesn't mean you use bad lighting. Doesn't mean you get caught in the wrong position. It means you're doing a lot of things right. But it also means that it's, uh, the photographs are not appreciated because somebody looks at it and goes, wow, what crazy colors. They look at it and they go, wow, what a moment. You know, like, I really get that. See, there's two effects that a photo can have. So, at some point, yeah, you want to throw some colors at them and you want to do some crazy lighting and you want to wow people and at some point you just want to let the emotion hit them, you know.

Raymond Hatfield:

So when it comes to Okay, so I understand that like as a photographer we have, this is pretty subjective. A lot of it is, our own decision. but when it comes to things like, what am I trying to ask here? There's the ceremony. We know what's going to happen at every ceremony. And I've heard, from some photographers, they're like, I don't do anything special there in the ceremony. Like that's the bread and butter. I'm just going to go in there. I'm going to get the photo, that we need, and then we're going to get out. But then when we do portraits, that's when it's time to get, I guess, more creative, you know, spend more time on composition and whatnot. Do you have any tricks or tips for when there is a, a quote unquote, I don't want to say boring moment because, you know, a ceremony is not a boring thing, but when there's a traditional thing going on to put a special spin on it.

Huy Nguyen:

It's when you ask yourself, it's when I ask myself, is this the best I can do? Is this, is this really the best I can do? is this it? is there a better angle here? Can I be someplace else to shoot this thing? If I move, what would happen? What would it take for me to get there? Like, to ask permission or to be there. What would it take? Do I want to go through the trouble? Is it worth it? So I do all these calculations, right? Do I have enough time to do that? And then, then come back and get the, the recession also? Mm hmm. If I have a second photographer, then I can, it makes it easier, right? Then I can do the math for two people. I let my photographer stay here, I can go over there, you know, so, so it helps, it helps to have more photographers working, so that I can be more, I can do more things. So, when I was working as a foreign journalist, I would go to a news event, right? I'm not the only photographer there. My competition is there, right? Two or three photographers from different newspapers. It may be the Pope visiting St. Louis, and then there'd be photographers all over the world, right? So, if I'm shooting something, and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna get it, and I know it's boring, but you know what, I, you know, it's Sure enough, somebody, when I come back to the office, somebody's gonna have a taste killer awesome photo. That's gonna kick my ass. Right? And then my boss is gonna look at me and go What were you I'm like, I don't know I was doing this shot because I always thought it was shot was they're like You know, right my bosses were tough and I guess they pushed me that way. They're like and they got it. Oh Well your excuse, you know, maybe I had excuse me like if I got my ladder in the car I didn't have a ladder Why didn't you have a ladder? I don't know. So after a while, I brought a ladder to everywhere, right? So, you learn, you learn. So, yeah, I always ask myself, if I go to a wedding, I know I'm the only photographer there. But I'm always asking myself, is this, they pay me a lot of money or they chose me, I have responsibility. Am I doing something worthy of them? Worthy of their trust, worthy of their investment in me. I'm always pushing myself like that. That's just me because for what I went through, you know, I'm always thinking, is this the best, Am I tired? Am I late? Why am I, you know, am I tired? Why am I not thinking fresh here? Why am I not? No, you know, and maybe sometimes you do the normal things and maybe sometimes you strive a little bit harder and you have to decide when those things are.

Raymond Hatfield:

I'm sorry. I, I'm just trying to think of, I feel like my head is going in a million different places. I'm thinking about the weddings that I've been to and the situations that I've been in. And this is, a really interesting concept because I guess it's not, obviously you want to always try to do better. That's always going to be the goal. But, because I know that you've hosted, many workshops with other photographers, often new photographers, photographers who want to capture those more emotion driven moments, where do you think their struggles are like when you look at their images and try to help them get to where you are. What do you think that they're missing in their photography?

Huy Nguyen:

In general, I think many photographers who photograph weddings are still, very much, uh, with the mindset that, weddings are about beautiful people in beautiful places.

Raymond Hatfield:

Mm hmm.

Huy Nguyen:

And somehow that sort of colors everything they do. So I just, they just need to put that aside. So they need to, I guess, so that's the whole thing about fearless right? Fearless is about putting things aside and committing yourself to doing something. And not worry about not getting enough beauty photos because that time will come and you will please your clients. Thanks. Bye. You know, if your clients are in tune with what you do, if your clients want to So, the hardest thing is not committing to it. I think it's not committing to it, and it letting them let sort of holding themselves back. People are holding themselves back they make up reasons. I don't want to say everyone does this, but I think that's why I see is like when we don't want to do something again, we say the client doesn't want that, you know, the client doesn't want that photo. I don't want it, or I can't do it, or I don't have to whatever we, we rationalize what we don't want to do. So when people are not committed a hundred percent, then they're very good at rationalizing and coming up with reasons why they don't Why they can't commit to it.

Raymond Hatfield:

you think that a lot of it is, is perhaps mental block rather than education or inspiration? Does that make sense? A lot of it. There's, there's equal parts on

Huy Nguyen:

everything. Mm hmm. that's why photography is so interesting, right? It's not just learning how to use the camera. I'm just now, now we are, talking about sort of more advanced, right? Yeah. Yeah. At first, let's, you know, at first, and I want to use another analogy on you, right? So I have a lot of these, when you play tennis, when you learn how to play tennis at first, all you're learning is just to hit the ball across the net without going out of bounds, right? You just want to run to the and hit the forehand or backhand. Put the ball back in play. That's all you're doing. So that's the in the beginning. You want to get good at that. So meaning that in photography in the beginning, you just want to make good photos. You just want to make good photos of things you want to shoot. You want to make clear, sharp, good light photos, photos that shows what you want to show. And then once you get good at this, you begin to play competitively and now you begin to spin the ball, you're beginning to place the ball, you're beginning to understand your opponent's weaknesses and strengths, and you're beginning to play the game. So now you start to think more about what you want to do with all your skills that you have. So at the beginning, you just don't know. you're just making good pictures, right? So for this, if I have a crew of photographers, right? If I have crew photographers and we covered a wedding and I have one photographer dedicated to, photographing the ceremony. And I, I keep that photographer focused and their job is to photograph the ceremony with me. And they don't have to worry about beauty photos. They don't have to worry about the, dancing photos. They don't have to worry about details. Their job is to focus on this thing. I think that if you have that mindset, if that, that photographer would probably do a pretty good job. Because they don't have to worry about all these things, right? They're fearless. They're like, hey, that's not my problem. My job right now, we told me, is to photograph this ceremony, right? And they don't have any fears about anything else happening in the wedding. So we all have that mindset. If we can, I don't know, go to a wedding and focus on what we're doing at one time, and not worry or not be concerned about what we're doing at other times. Not I'm not saying be oblivious, but I'm saying focus on what we're doing here.

Raymond Hatfield:

Mm hmm. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting This is a fun conversation. I'll tell you what very rarely I guess I had to say very rarely in my challenge because that sounds ridiculous, but I guess very rarely are my Is my take on wedding photography put into like, and now I'm questioning a lot of the decisions that I make at weddings. Cause I know that there's, you know, unfortunately, like I'll admit. So there have been weddings where I've just had to phone it in, where it just seemed like nothing was working, and I just, again, I could come up with a million excuses, but talking with you, I love this, like, nope, that's my fault. This is 100 percent my fault, and that I need to do better, and just like your website, you know, just seeing all of the other photographers there inspires me to take better photos. This conversation has inspired me to take more ownership over the bad photos that I take. So I appreciate that. Have you ever had a situation where you've been too fearless in a photo that you took where it just totally fell flat on its face? You tried something big and it did not work.

Huy Nguyen:

I

Raymond Hatfield:

think we do.

Huy Nguyen:

Yes, I mean, definitely things don't work all the time. Right? And that's the thing about, making mistakes. We, can't guarantee our successes sometimes, you know, you just, uh, right. Things don't, you have to try it. Right. So, yeah. So I, I say that's the many shots that didn't come out as well as I wanted to many. Many times when I misread situations, maybe, you know, I've been too close, something, or maybe I didn't understand something, or maybe I didn't have the trust that I needed with everyone. So sometimes I'm not as effective as I wanted to be. Yeah. So, um, what do we do? You know, when, when something like that happens, we have to be, what do you do again? Athletes, what do they do when they don't succeed? It's a, to make a bad play or something. Try again. I think, they learned to put it aside, right? They've learned to, uh, to make a blunder or something. They're like, even the toughest, you know, like, the kicker who missed that kick, right? And then the game goes overtime and he's got to make that kick again, right? So it's like, how much is that weighing on him, right? So hopefully, professional athletes are trained to, treat everything as a, new, new beginning or whatever I put, you know, you know, put aside. Right. So, yeah. but yeah, I have to try and you have to try and if it doesn't work. Maybe there's a time you can evaluate later, like maybe after the wedding, you start thinking back about, okay, you know what, when I think back, maybe this is a good time to learn, good time to assess how I'm doing things. Okay. Okay. You know, yeah, maybe I can reassess, but you got to go into a wedding and you have to know that at least five things are going to go wrong. And when they go wrong. Yeah, you just check out the list. You're like, Hey, that's number one. That's number two. That's number three. So you're not surprised. You're not like, Oh my God. Oh no. I thought I have a perfect wedding today. You don't, you never do. So you're like, Hey, so five people was going to yell at you, right? Five people, five people are going to say, get out of here. I don't want you here. Okay. Fine. Fine. But if you get 10, then maybe, maybe that's a problem. Maybe you should, you should wear a better deodorant. You know, okay. You know, but, but you got to know that a certain number of things going to happen. So a number of mistakes can be made. So a number of successes can be made. So a number of mistakes can be made. You're going to win a lot. You're going to lose a lot. In the end, your clients will always be happy because you can always deliver, right? Because our clients are pretty easy to please. Our clients are, you know, even on our lowest day, I want to say, even on a toughest day, things are going wrong. We can still make pictures that are pretty good, that are good, that are good professional wedding photography that our clients will be happy with. So hopefully, we're not going to ever dip below that. You know, we're always going to have a, like you and all your interviews, you know, even on your worst days, you're going to have a pretty decent interview. He's me. Okay. Not gonna have the gradients of you sometimes, but your minimum is pretty good. And, uh, yeah, so,

Raymond Hatfield:

well, I'm happy to say that this is not gonna be one of those interviews, . It is definitely gonna be one of the, uh, most memorable ones. This is gonna be one where I know I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to go back and listen to this before every wedding, just as a, as an audio, uh, kick in the butt that I need to own up to everything that I'm gonna do on a website. Exactly. That's, remember.

Huy Nguyen:

The kick in the butt is, the challenge is where the fun is, right? If you go to a wedding and you're not being challenged, that's no fun. That, I mean, make money, great. But it's not that fun, you know, it's fun. It's fun when, things are thrown at you. It may not seem like fun, but that's, that's when, and that's why we make the big bucks, right? That's why wedding photographers are paid so much. It's when these things are thrown at us and we can handle them and we can overcome them. Let's say that Uncle Bob can't. Right. But we can't because we have tools. We have flashes. We have assistance. We have skills. We have experience that we can draw on to overcome situations. And, uh, that's why we're the pros and that's why we get paid a lot is for our ability to deal with these things when they happen. Hopefully it don't happen a lot, but when it comes with the pros and that makes each day, each wedding very tiring, but also very satisfying, very fun. Not a boring job at all. Right.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll know that at least five things will go wrong at a wedding the other day. gonna start writing like a tally on my hand just as, so that I can remind myself. Like, hey, only three things went bad today. This was a fantastic wedding day. I like that. But you can even reward yourself.

Huy Nguyen:

You can even say, everything that goes wrong, you get a reward. You reward yourself, like, right now, now you welcome it. You're like, Hey, it's wrong. Cool. I got an extra, I don't know. Whatever you want to get, uh, treat, you get extra treat, right? You give yourself a treat, right? So now when things go wrong, you're like, that's my treat right there. Boom.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's awesome. That is such a great outlook, on a wedding day, because as you know, I And, and sometimes you feel like, sometimes I don't want to say that you feel responsible, but you feel responsible to be comforting or reassuring or try to fix the situation because at many weddings, especially for new photographers, like you're the only professional who's been to other weddings, you know? So you're kind of looked at as, as the professional there. So yeah, treat yourself. If something goes wrong, treat yourself. I love that. That's going to be great. Well, We, I know that we are at the end of our time here. I want to thank you for coming on the podcast and again, just sharing your wealth of information and knowledge. Can you let the listeners know where they can find out more about you, and what you offer online?

Huy Nguyen:

Yes. The website is, uh, fearlessphotographers. com. That's why I am these days. So I hope, you guys will come and see the work of many photographers around the world. And enjoy wedding photography. We, you know, featured outstanding wedding photography awards. And what else can I say? Whenever we have, uh, permission to do in person workshops again, we will, I will love, you know, I love doing workshops. I love teaching, but we also, feature workshops for many of our members too. So you can find workshops offerings by our members plus, online courses, things like that. So the community celebrates amazing wedding photography and, hopefully of all kinds, but not of all, all, all kinds, but, as many as we can. And mostly focus on documentary. And there's a lot of, uh, also a lot of creative, portrait wedding photography on there too. So

Raymond Hatfield:

what did I tell you? I knew that you would enjoy this episode, with we win, I would love to hear your biggest takeaway. Maybe you had a light bulb moment or I mean, there was a lot of practical information here. So maybe you gained something that you are going to start implementing into your photography as well. Now, whatever that is, I want you to share it with me by reaching out directly via the contact page at beginner photography podcast. com where you can leave me a voicemail. because voicemails allow me to hear your thoughts in your own words and Possibly even share them in an upcoming episode of the podcast now to leave me a voicemail again There's nothing to download and of course you can preview what you say before you head sin So head over to beginner photography podcast comm click the contact button up at the top and send in your voicemail now That is it until next week. Remember the more that you shoot today the better of a photographer you will be Tomorrow. Talk soon.

Outro:

If you enjoyed today's podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes or your favorite podcast player. And continue the conversation with Raymond and other listeners of the podcast by joining the Beginner Photography Podcast Facebook group today. Thank you. We'll see you again next week.