We've Moved!!

This is the last post on hai-lights.blogger.com. You can now find future updates at simply hai-lights.com/blog! The website itself is still under construction, but most of it is already done.

From the Pompidou series in Paris, France 2010

You might remember this couple from a series I did in Paris. What you might not have seen is the picture below. Apparently they were sitting right in front of me (while I was shooting with my 70-300mm lens) before they got up and contributed to my series!

Paris, France 2010

Update Suspention

Hello Readers!

I'm slowly in the process moving to hai-lights.com. It's not even close to ready yet -- a lot of dead links and whatnot. I'll let you know when the blog is back up though! I suspect within a few days :)

Hai Ngo

DeKalb, Illinois

Paris, France 2010 

Wilmington, North Carolina 2010

Sprinted to the Megabus, yelling out for them to hold the bus yesterday as I frantically scrambled around downtown Minneapolis trying to figure out where the Megabus stops. This morning I'm in DeKalb, Illinois going through old photos (again) trying to pick out which ones I like and want to present as my body of work. Right now I'm not sure whether I want to show personal work on my website or to mix commercial work and fine art. All decisions that will have to be made in the next couple days. These two pictures are ones that I think would go in personal work. Film: Ilford HP400+

-Hai Ngo

Solder

 Saigon, Vietnam 2011

Saigon, Vietnam 2011 

Saigon, Vietnam 2011

Pictures:
First one is a hand-crank-powered bike. Its usually used be people who have some sort of disability. The girl on the back is selling lottery tickets. People who carry around lottery tickets and sell them on the streets typically are not in financially stable homes.
Second picture is one of my many cousins. He's adjusting the seat height before biking -- he shares the bike with his older sister.
Third picture is two men waiting for business. One transports goods, the other transports people.

Soldered some wires together at my internship yesterday to get some photography equipment to work. Burnt myself (a little) in the process cause I forgot the soldering pen was hot... But the burn is almost already healed!

Hai Ngo

Hans Breder

 Saigon, Vietnam 2011

Qui Nhon, Vietnam 2011 

Qui Nhon, Vietnam 2011 

Went to the Walker Art Center for the first time in a while yesterday. Check out Hans Breder's work! (The link is just to a Google search).

-Hai Ngo

Dreamer

Northfield, Minnesota 2010

After a week of informational interviews with alumni and working professionals, the whole art thing (including commercial photography) is starting to seem pretty scary. Even becoming a successful freelance photographer doesn't seem nearly as appealing anymore. I suppose we all knew the fiscal risks of the field, but its the added marketing and business part of it that really does not seem fulfilling. I just want to be a dreamer, but I'm becoming awfully scared to dream.

I was putting together pictures of Carleton at someone's request, and found the above photograph. I had cropped it really wide originally, but now looking back at it there was no need for the crop. So here it is, uncropped.

Also, I realized I should probably try to optimize search results for "Hai Ngo" a little more, so I'm going to start signing off of every post :)
-Hai Ngo

More Coffee

Qui Nhon, Vietnam 2011

In the past few days I've probably averaged 2 coffee shops a day with alumni and working professionals for informational interviews. So far my favorite coffee place (for their coffee) is Tarracino in Minneapolis. The atmosphere there is a mix between edgy art hipster and subtle classiness. I'm not really sure how well those mix, but its a nice enough place.