Lee Starnes is a food and product photographer based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Recently, the fine folks over at TNT Barbecue tapped us to update their image library. Being from the southern part of the States, I jumped at this opportunity with a quickness. We decided to lean into the messy fun nature of barbecue and show off the saucy goodness. Below are some of my favorites from the shoot. We’re always looking for fun new projects and this ticked all of my nostalgic and homesick boxes.
Read MoreI just realized while we’ve been doing lots of food photography lately, there hasn’t been a post here about it. We’ll remedy that moving forward with some more interesting stories including some BTS shots and technical breakdowns for the photographers out there.
Read More
My wife and I headed to Europe in May to meet up with some of my old friends (congratulations on your engagement Matt and Liz!) as well as my parents whom we haven’t seen in a couple years. Before we met up with friends and family, we had a few days in Amsterdam to ourselves to decompress from jet lag. We chose the “wander around without too many expectations” method, and it was perfect way to get lost, explore the city and ease into an amazing trip.
Read More
hear it all the time, “I’m bored of shooting the same old stuff.” Most of the time its from my own mouth and I’ve said it more times than I’d like to admit.
As photographers, we want to see new things, shoot new locations, create new art. That’s all well and good, but there is so much beauty in the seemingly mundane that we could shoot the same location for weeks on end and still find something unique and interesting. We just need to shift our perspective. Coming up with something fresh and different is a challenge, but shooting repeatedly in the same location pushes us to dig deeper, look closer, to slow down. It allows us to become intimate with a place and its people. “Seeing old things with new eyes” can add layers into a story that perhaps a first look had missed.
Read More
We just wrapped our most recent central Vietnam photo workshop and tour for Pics of Asia and we couldn’t have been happier with the students, locations, and the endless supply of coffee we had this year. Starting off in Hoi An, we ventured a bit south to one my personal favorite fishing villages before heading back up north to Hue to explore the old capital and the surrounding countryside. Striving to keep things interesting, we discussed travel, portraiture, street and landscape photography. Whether we were photographing frenetic wet markets or peaceful sunset vistas, we always came back to the importance of slowing down, enjoying the moment, being prepared for when the shot presents itself, and forming relationships with the people we came across on our journey. What we lacked in sleep, we certainly made up in spades in the form of unforgettable experiences. In case you haven’t checked out my article on the importance of slowing down and breaking bread, click here!
Read More
Last week, I headed back out on the road with Pics of Asia for another workshop and tour in Central Vietnam. We expanded our tour this year from 3 days to 5 days and included stops in the former capital Hue, the ancient town of Hoi An, and their surrounding countrysides. One of my favorite tours of the year, we explore serene lagoons, energetic markets, dabble in street photography, witness incredible sunrises, and drink far too much coffee.
Read More
Recently, a friend and fellow French Bulldog owner, Matthew Holland of Holland Preconstruction, reached out to us as he was looking to give the launch of their new website a lifestyle look and feel. He wanted to show his company’s personality - to eliminate the corporate wall between the business and the people who make them. The brief was essentially this - Show process in how we do what we do, a fun headshot, be a bit cheeky, and of course, let’s have a picture of Dobby the Frenchie - after all he is the Head of Staff Well-being. Talk about a dream brief.
Read More
Over the past few weeks we’ve been raising funds for Saigon Children’s Charity as we prepared to climb northern Vietnam’s Mount Fansipan, Indochina’s tallest mountain at 3,143 meters. The time finally came to make good on our commitment and headed up to Sapa to start our journey this past week. We started the trek at Tram Ton, Vietnam’s highest pass at 2,100 meters, and arrived in high camp 12 kilometers and 6 hours later. A bit slower than the 1 hour 37 minute record some alien apparently conquered the journey, but we were proud and excited none the less.
Read More