Today we’d like to introduce you to Vincent Mai.
Hi Vincent, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I never understood how valuable a photograph can be. My dad tried getting me into photography back in my junior year of high school. I tried it very briefly and then quit. A year later in my senior year, my friend Tommy did a photoshoot for me at the National Harbor and that was when I started falling in love with portrait photography. I wanted to make others feel good about themselves as much as I did when I looked at the final photos Tommy produced.
This was the start of the journey. In the beginning, I grabbed my dad’s old Nikon D80 with the kit lens and started attempting to photograph prom and graduation for friends or friends-of-friends. My childhood friends, Matthew and Bryant were getting into photography about the same time, so we’d spend a lot of time with each other experimenting and doing creative shoots with each other. I shot so much that I eventually emptied my piggy bank savings when I turned 18 and bought my first camera, the Nikon D800.
I went to Virginia Tech for college and studied Computer Engineering so “going pro” in photography was never really considered for me. This was defining time of self-discovery for me as I didn’t enjoy shooting graduation portraits, but continued to as a side-hustle to cover a portion of my bills. Additionally, I was also so focused on reaching a certain amount of bookings that I not only burned my passion out for photography but also my self-confidence since I was so desperate at that time.
Just as soon as I was about to give up, I met a friend, Angelica, who was and still is a professional photographer, and she basically help me understand two things: the psychology of clients and quality over quantity. She helped me set up and critiqued my first webpage and restored my confidence. I still continued to shoot graduation portraits in order to make some side money, but I took my mental health into consideration before putting my bookings out on the market.
Eventually, I established a healthy balance between my personal time and doing graduation portraits that I found time to pursue creative projects with friends. This was when my passion for photography was lit again. I was now able to feel proud of myself again. Oftentimes, I was also challenged through the feelings of creative blocks, redundancy, and unsatisfaction; however, in the long run, I appreciated and tried to learn as much from them.
After graduating, I recently went through a tub of my dad’s photos from the early 90s from his travels around the world for his job back then and was inspired to explore life beyond Virginia. Because of this, I’ve also started dabbling into more street and landscape photography as well as film photography by capturing anything that stands out to me, whether it be a moment, scenery, or life.
Currently, photography is still my passion hobby – I only shoot for myself now and only take on gigs once a while when I feel like it. A majority of my work is passion projects because they’re the only thing that allows me to continue to love photography at the moment.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Definitely not.
I remember briefly back then, when I first started, I struggled with being grateful for what I had (I had a Nikon D80 with the kit lens back then; and for those who don’t know, it was a 10MP camera with only a native ISO range up to 1600 – meaning it was pretty awful compared to today’s standard camera). I was so focused on gear back then that I only saw it as the method to take good photos and constantly made excuses about the equipment I had. At a bare minimum, it only takes one with a good eye or vision to produce an amazing photo; gear is just a bonus.
In the past few years until now, most of my struggles are self-inflicted. I often try to gain inspiration but am often time constantly comparing myself to others while asking myself why I am not as good as them. Because of this, I heavily relied on validation and praise to keep myself going. Sometimes it gets to the point where a burnout occurs in which I don’t stop doing anything photography-related for about a couple of months.
To address this, I constantly remind myself to enjoy the process and the moment. Everyone is on their own journey, so look ahead, continue to focus on your own path, and make the most out of it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a photographer who mainly specializes in shooting street portraits and am captivated by the fashion and editorial scene. I normally shoot with mellow vibes to try and evoke emotions through color tones and composition.
I also love incorporating an editorial touch to my photos by adding graphical and textual elements and then creating a panoramic composition so that my audience can feel like they’re scrolling through a magazine. Overall, I wanted to create something unique with the photos I’ve taken from my portrait shoots to keep my presentation of the photos more interesting and fun!
Other than my portrait work, I found it relaxing to spend some time walking around by myself and dabble in street photography, but just taking photos of what I personally think is interesting. I’ve recently created another account as a random mood-board collection of these random photos that I’ve been taking.
Any big plans?
At the moment, no big changes.
I still want to shoot more, continually challenge myself creatively, and execute larger-scale passion projects. I want to meet more creatives around the DMV, so I will be trying to participate in more community events such as StreetMeetDC/PortraitMeetDC as well as networking with more cool creative people that inspire me!
I have also been getting into NFTs, so one day I’d want to work on releasing my own NFT collection.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://vcentography.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/vcentography
- Other: Print Store https://vcentography.pixieset.com/
