Recent Work: Shang Palace

June 25, 2024 in food

A few weeks ago, Shang Palace reached out wanting to create some new images for their upcoming menu change and to elevate the visuals. With classic Cantonese cuisine, we wanted to be mindful of tradition while giving a modern take on the visuals. Dim Sum especially brought back memories of countless Sunday mornings heading out with friends and having mornings turn into afternoons - often needing my stretchy pants after eating way too much. So we pitched the idea of creating that sense of morning light coming through the window and a communal atmosphere. We opted to shoot from overhead to lean into the graphic nature of all the individual dishes and condiments that make dim sum so much fun. Not to forget the back of house, we had to show some behind the scenes action with the process of creating all these tasty treats. Shooting in kitchens is one of my favourite things ever - fire, steam, the craft of making things… I love it. All the hard work that it takes to create something beautiful on the plate isn’t celebrated enough in visuals and I’m so happy the team at Shang Palace agreed. They’re some of my favourite frames from the project.

Travel Diary: Osaka Part 2

June 24, 2024 in travel, street

Maybe I’ve not been selective enough with my cull of images, but I couldn’t get enough of shooting the streets of Osaka. And this is a blog, not my portfolio, so I’m a bit looser in my picks for better or for worse. Not every image needs to be the show stopper…..Which kind of leads me to a point on how I shoot these days. Often times in travel photography, it’s waiting for that ONE moment. And don’t get me wrong, I do that quite a bit, but the little times in between are just as meaningful in my travel experiences. Showing ONLY the iconic shots is kind of doing the whole experience a disservice. I’ve talked about finding beauty in the mundane and slowing down and how I’ve kind starting shooting differently now with this smaller set up in the Fuji system, so I wanted the images to reflect a more documentary feel. This is personal work and I want to show my experiences for what they were, not just the best shots from the most well known locations… It’s more than that. In any event, here’s part 2 of the Osaka series.

Travel Diary: Osaka Part 1

June 17, 2024 in travel

On a whim, I found a cheap ticket to Osaka for a sneaky weekend and hopped on the redeye from Saigon and woke up at 8:30 am in Osaka. Gotta love time travel. I’m absolutely smitten with Japan and the opportunity to spend a few days in Osaka was too good to resist. With the yen at a 35 year low, there’s no better time to take advantage. With no real agenda aside from going to Universal Studios for some rollercoasters and Mario goodness (stay tuned for those images) I just wandered, rode trains, ate all the food, and took pictures of every nook and cranny of this incredible city. I only took my Fuji x100v and the ease of shooting definitely reflected in the mountain of images I had to sift through when I got home. Maybe I need to temper that itchy trigger finger so I can limit these posts to just one part? Maybe not. This will be part one of three so stay tuned for more later in the week!

Recent Work: Editorial Furniture Photography for Spazio Bressan

June 04, 2024 in Product

Something must be in the water. In the last few shoots, we’ve been given a metric ton of creative control and while that’s incredible, to whom much is given, much is expected. We were tapped to create some editorial style images for furniture designers Spazio Bressan and after just a short chat, it was pretty clear we were going to have some fun with this one. Hard light, shadows as compositional elements, graphic…all the good stuff. Immediately excited, I ran off to start creating mood boards. With the new AI tools at our disposal, we are no longer limited by searching for reference images. We just create them ourselves. Midjourney is an absolute game changer when it comes to this process. Even if we aren’t explicitly copying others work, “inspiration” can often influence work a bit more than photographers like to admit, so being able to type in the chaos that’s in my brain and have something distill it into something in the ball park of what I had in mind is incredible. In any event, I absolutely love creating images like these and cannot wait to shoot the next campaign for them.

Recent Work: Kashew Cheese

May 24, 2024 in food

A few weeks ago we got a call from the folks over at Kashew Cheese requesting a meeting to discuss shooting their new dishes and specifically their new pizzas. For those of you in Saigon, Kashew Cheese makes plant based alternatives to lots of your favourite dairy products and oh man I wish they were around when I was Vegan in the early 00’s. Atlanta was super vegan friendly, but even as a pretty adventurous omnivore, I happily eat Kashew Cheese’s offerings on a regular basis. The little kid in me destroys their chocolate cashew milk. Anyway, the conversation about the project quickly evolved into a chat about art, life and design. My type of meeting and I knew this was going to be a fun one.

a collage of reflections for the week in photos for may 20, 2024 by Vietnam Photographer Lee Starnes

The Week in Photos: Vol.3 - Rainy Season's Arrival

May 21, 2024 in week in photos

It looks like rainy season has decided to make an entrance. Cue thunderstorms, unexpected downpours, and slight inconveniences in travel - read ridiculous traffic. While most lament the rain, photographically I’m digging it. The light right after a storm, drama in the skies, reflections… its a new season and it’s nice to have something different to photograph. While I don’t have the seasonal changes like I did in my upbringing, I love having the demarkation of time through different weather. I’ll take what I can get. No waxing on poetically this week, just the images of the week. Complete with the obligatory reflection shots, and they ain’t stopping any time soon…so get used to it until the rains cease in around 6 months. There are some randoms from the day to day sprinkled in as well for good measure.

The Week in Photos: Vol. 2

May 14, 2024 in street

Busy with commercial work this week, I’ve not had too much time to come up for air. That said, in the downtimes, I’ve made an effort to find some time for myself at least once a day to disengage and walk around so I can keep a clear headspace. Even if I’m not managing to make it far, I’m trying to see things I’ve seen a countless times with new eyes. Shoot places multiple times in different light, different parts of the day, different angles… dig a little deeper and slow down a little more to really look at things rather than merely strolling by. Finding beauty in the mundane.

The week in Photos by Vietnam Photographer Lee Starnes. Volume 1

The Week in Photos: Vol. 1

May 07, 2024 in street

Now that I’ve got a camera on me all the time, I’m faced with the fact that I have all these images I’ve taken mostly just for the sheer enjoyment of walking around and shooting. I mentioned before how the final image is probably secondary at this point to the process and being present when I’m shooting. I guess it’s a sort of mindfulness… just mine is with a camera instead of a mantra or a pair of yoga pants. That being said, I want to be able to archive these too, but they’re not from some epic trip or incredible assignment. It’s just my life. I suppose I could put these on a hard drive and just come back to them, but I’ve got this platform, so why not share? So here’s the birth of “The Week in Photos.” This is Volume 1.