200th post! Giant Recap!

I have been a faithful blogger since 2004 using Xanga.  Sadly, I no longer have that account on Xanga.  I was Random_Pepperhead and then the great mango (which is still there I think…)  Then I switched to Blogspot for a little while.

My first blog entry was this: My trip to Ireland

I blogged entries from my travel journal to start with.  Then I moved to WordPress and imported all the entries.   And was so much more happier with the design and ease of use of wordpress.

Over the course of the years, since 10/19/07 (start of blogspot), I traveled to California twice, Seattle, and Italy, prior to that it was Thailand and Ireland.  And my camera gear has changed as with my shooting habits and styles!  It is quite interesting to see how much I have changed.

I went to California with my brother, sister in law, and nephew to see Yosemite, Mojave desert, disney land and some other places in between.

My very first portrait session was … for lack of better terms a “failure.”  It was with this one guy I contacted on craigslist and it just didn’t go so well and the photos ended up … bleh.

But a little afterwards I was contacted with these two friends and I did much better with their portraits.  I am a quick learner so all the mistakes I did in my first session I fixed for this one.

Yeah.. I totally overdid it with watermarks….  don’t stone me!!

And right after that I photographed my first wedding!

The thing with that wedding was that the bride and groom are my parent’s friends and knowing that I wanted to get into weddings they told me to bring my camera gear!  So

But right afterwards, another family friend gotten married and wanted me to shoot the wedding.  My first two in one weekend wedding!

Because I had FF miles, I flew off to Seattle for a week.  And had a coffee and Thailand food delight!

Then a little bit later, I worked with a singer/actress from around work and tinkered with my portrait and lifestyle photographs.  I did tone down my watermarks!

Although it is fair to say that, I still need to work on controlling people’s expressions, at this point.   So it was fair to also say, that I was more of a candid photojournalistic style shooter.

By the time I finished working with her photographs, I was following Vincent Laforet’s blog and usage of the new Canon 5D mk II!  And was stunned with what he did with it!  Little before the camera came out, I purchased a 100 mm macro lens planning to get the 5D Mark II much later.  But I happened to have walked into a best buy, that had the body in stock.  At that time, hardly any retailer had one in stock!  And then and there I picked one up!  My most unplanned purchase!

Stoked with both the 100mm macro and the 5D2, I also signed up for bludomain for my own site.  www.tednghiem.com.

And then … I stumbled upon a wedding site and got some eSessions!  My first eSession was with Kara and Bryan

I did more eSessions afterwards, but in between those eSessions and my boudoir, I went to Italy!

I had the time of my life out there in Italy!  Two weeks of pure gelato and exploring bliss!

Then I did some boudoir!    I did two prior to this next show, but they did not want me to show their photos.

Boudoir

Right afterwards, I went to Florida to spend time with my brother, sister in law, and nephew in Disney World.

I came back refreshed after having a ton of fun with my nephew, brother and sister in law, to get right back into another boudoir.

Then a little later, I was in contact with Pat Furey to 2nd shoot for him!

So within 200 blog posts, I was able to accomplish this much!  I still have ways to go to be an awesome wedding and travel photographer, but i know I will only keep getting better!

Surely I should wait to make this post when the year ends, but 200 posts is a pretty big number!

My motivation for choosing countries to visit

I don’t usually decide on a country to visit with definite fervor.  After Thailand, and that debacle which I don’t want to get into, I was listening to U2’s Bad often at work.  And at the time I was a friend with this girl, who was Irish, and we were talking on and on about Ireland.  So after the nth time of listening to Bad (a phenomenally awesome song, by the way.) I decided to just go to Ireland for 2 weeks in the summer.  I didn’t want to be bogged down like I was in Thailand, I wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do.

This time around, same band, but different sound motivated me to choose to go to Italy.  Well… along with the art history, history of the modern world stemming from Italy, and Italian food.  When I said the same band, U2 played in Milan with their u218 album, and I have been listening to “I still haven’t found what I am looking for.” and Bono’s talk of the Duomo in Italy came on when I have started to reread my art history texts.  And… presto!  Italy.

Don’t get me wrong, I have every intention to go back to Ireland.  But I just need to visit some more countries before I do my elongated stays in Ireland.  Which should be in 2010! haha!  I might skip out my other country lists… who knows!

On my way to Seattle

While flying to Chicago, I decided to go back to Ireland in June.  My vacation days need to be used up by then, as ordered by my HR. haha!

Going to be in Western and Northwest Ireland for 2 weeks!  Or maybe a month if I have enough days for it!

Little wings that could fly

Vincent looking into my eyes, at Yosemite National Park.

Ever wonder where and when you started to find something you truly love doing?  People always say that when you travel you tend to discover more about yourself, if you go with other people, you learn more about them.  They go on to say that traveling is a sort of “spiritual journey.”  Seriously?

Those two photographs that I posted above, is a story of getting starting the enjoyment of photography.  My nephew, vincent, is really lucky.  He is starting out really early and that his parents are letting him spread his wings early.  He doesn’t get stuck in a position to please his parents, well at least not yet, with a position of status.  He is embracing his creative side and just is.

I think I have been shooting myself in the feet since I left Rutgers.  I was sincerely pursuing graduate school in Cultural Psychology, trying my damnest to get accepted.  I was negligent towards the other part of the life I should have been pursuing.  I come from a former middle class family, I say former as my father is now on disability and the sole income lie on my mother and myself, whose belief was that we should get high paying jobs after graduating.  My father’s ideal.  My mother’s was to find a steady job that was reliable and what we could survive off of.  Not bad.

But it amounted to the traditional occupational roles.  Before, when I told them I wanted to be a Cultural Psychologist.  They were shaky at best, as I wasn’t accepted into a graduate program.  Now if I told them I am going to pursue freelance travel photography, well… all hell’s would break lose.  I can understand, I am trying to get my photographs sold, so I can understand the despair!  Where would my income come from, those sorts of questions.

My first travel outing was to Thailand in November 2006.  It was for a spiritual retreat and that was when I started to really shoot a lot of photographs.  Granted I just got my 30D and the kit lens, I was shooting away getting a better grasp of the camera.  I had my first taste of international travel and it whet my lips.  Sure I didn’t get to travel a lot outside of the area where we stayed, I did enjoy the location, to a degree, where we stayed.  There were so many things that went wrong there, however, that left a foul taste in my mouth.  But I still appreciated the fact that I was able to go.

My trip to Ireland, back in August 2007, is where I should say it really started.  Oh god, I loved flying, hanging around Dublin, hiking thru Howth, taking a bus around the Ring of Kerry, getting stuck behind a bunch of sheep, going to different hostels, and absorbing the life in Ireland.  I didn’t think about school, I didn’t think about family, and I didn’t even think about girls…no wait I did think about girls on the trip!  I did what I loved the most, travel and photograph my journey.

I felt nothing but absolute bliss being in a foreign land with foreign people without an absolute care of where I was going to be next.  I didn’t worry as much about food, although living off of bread, cheese, pizza, and potatoes sure does put a crimp in the culinary and stomach, I survived.  And still loved it.  It was just great to be that free. Sure there was the money issue, flying and traveling in Ireland was pretty pricey, although I was able to budget my stay there.

After returning home, after work, I would go home and work on the library of photographs that I have taken from the trip.  Well I did eat dinner, clean, and shower, but those are regular day things that one has to do daily.  Well I guess if I said I just edited and overviewed my photograph and that’s it, than that might be hardcore and a very wow factor.  But I am still human.

Then came my brief trip to San Diego.  I originally went there to help out with something which wasn’t the real reason to go there, so I left heart broken to San Diego from Las Angeles.  I stayed at my parents’ place, who let me stay there and fed me understanding what I was going through, well I think so.  And from there I was able to go to La Jolla Cove, check out University of California San Diego, Wind and Sea Beach, and visit Linda for a few.  The entirely heart broken moments tamed by the photographic moments that I had.  So in a way I was glad I came out there.

Just like with Ireland and Thailand, preceding this trip, I would spend a lot of my time working on my photographs from the trip.  It just gave me a great sense of purpose.

Then the final push to my final career motivation was my most recent trip to California, where I traveled with my brother, sister in law, and nephew.  I had nothing but fun and enlightenment during this trip.  Enlightenment?  Maybe not, but I did learn much more about what I wanted to pursue.

Travel Photography.

Traveling a spiritual journey?  Seriously?  Yes it is.  You really can find out more about yourself.  Discovering that maybe things that you held onto so dearly really isn’t or wasn’t for you.   I still hold a love of Cultural Psychology, and that is how I will view my surroundings as I travel further around the world.  But my life will be dedicated towards preserving it’s vintage culture in a photograph so that we will never forget the beauty of seeing culture.

Video

I am bound to have to do a slideshow for my trip to California.  However, I didn’t listen to much music while out there, so I don’t have as much mental cues as I do visual.