No Cuts No Glory with Dang Nguyen

I took a spontaneously trip to Chicago to see what's good out there and it's definitely one of my favorite cities in the US. It's one of those cities where you say that you'd go back even when you're still there. 

I got there at 6AM on a red eye flight and took a short cat nap and ate some pizza right after. A few days before my arrival, I hit up a local barber, Dang, on the gram to see if he could give me a cut. I knew it was last minute and it was never really going to happen because I didn't want him to mess up his schedule. When I arrived to Chicago, he made it happen and hooked it up.

How did we even connect in the first place? We were following each other on the gram and even played a couple rounds of Battlefield 1 on the Playstation Network before meeting each other. And with the gram, it so much easier to connect with like-minded and passionate people worldwide.

Dang has always been cutting people’s hair and he’s dam good at it. And while he gave me a cut, he shared me his story. It’s one of those stories where someone got a degree in something, tried career surfing and they just didn’t feel fulfilled. While he did all those, he always fell back into what he loved doing which is barbering. And this is where he’s at now.

Do what makes you happy right?

@dangcutshair
No Cuts No Glory

At The New Parish with Masego

I had the opportunity to shoot Masego last year at The New Parish in Oakland. I remember discovering Masego through Spotify two months before. Thanks to Spotify Discovery! This dude is mad talented.

I shot mostly with the XF 56mm (85mm FF equivalent). No flash. Just using the light in the venue. For my first event shoot, this turned out well and I hope I get to cover more events in the future.

Here's the set that I kept in my hard drive for too long. And I also want to thank my homie Dale for this opportunity.

Masego
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Dale
Vimeo
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Davenport Shoot with Mio

Last Saturday, I was invited to shoot with @pjcanaveral at Davenport. I was told we were suppose to shoot a total of four models, instead, we worked with two.

Not knowing how we'd coordinate, it quickly became a 1 on 1 shoot. I initiated with Mio since the other two were shooting together. As always, it is important for me connect with the person that I am shooting with and I'm very happy that I got to know her while we explore and shoot at the coast of Davenport. 

To give you guys a quick summary, Mio is an international student from Tokyo and is currently studying nutrition. She's been here for a year and from what I learned, she loves California and wants to stay. I, on the other hand, would love to stay in Tokyo. At the end of the day, we met up with her friends who are also international students from Japan and ate at a Thai restaurant. It always amazes me to be surrounded by people of different backgrounds and just hearing them speak Japanese makes me want to continue learning the language.

I love how most of my photos turned out and it's one of my favorite shoots to date.