Bangkok Photo Rambles : Your photography is largely done in your Bangkok studio (Swing Studio). How did you get started in studio photography?

Samuel Nai: In 2013 my good friend Giody and I were looking to open up a business of our own, so we had in mind a bunch of options such as a pizza place, coffee shop, and T-shirt fashion brand. We weren't sure about what we wanted. All we knew is that we wanted to create something and hopefully make some money out of it. So, we decided to get started on the T-shirt fashion brand project and we called it "Swing Fashion". Long story short, we eventually changed our minds and switched to a different project. We found a 4-floor townhouse building in Town in Town area and we opened up a casting studio/coffee shop and named it "Swing Studio & Cafe". During my stay in Bangkok, I had been attending a lot of castings for commercials and fashion jobs and I figured I could use those connections with producers and directors and other people in the industry to get a bit of initial momentum and get the business started without too much hassle. At this point, photography wasn't yet part of the business. However, it didn't take long before I thought to myself, “Well, I might as well take some photos. I have a studio with a bunch of lights right here.” So, I picked up a second-hand Canon DSLR camera, started playing around with it and taught myself (with the help of tutorials on YouTube as well, of course) how to use it in manual mode in my studio settings. Now, after 7 years of studio photography, I can say it has become second nature to me. I sometimes catch myself looking at the world with naked eyes, imagining my eyes are the lens and my heart is the camera capturing images. So poetic... LOL. The first 2 years involved a lot of practice (shooting and editing). I did a lot of test shoots with model friends and tried different lighting setups in the studio to sharpen up my skills, gain more reference experience, and build my photography portfolio. Once my online portfolio was presentable enough people gradually started hiring me professionally. And as the old saying "One thing led to another" goes... One shoot led to another. And that's how I started my photography career. Around 2015, I relocated Swing Studio to a new location in the same area. Now, year 2020, with its up and downs, Swing Studio is still happily and calmly running. Swing Studio is my 2nd home. I also use the space to do my jump rope workouts and fitness photoshoots. The new studio is a small space but it has everything I need in 1 room and I wouldn't trade it for anything else. I'm so grateful for my small studio. I will make the best use of it.

BPR: Who are your clients (what walks of life)?

SN: Mainly small local brand owners who need a small equipped studio to shoot their products at a reasonable price. Also, individuals who need professional-looking photos to start their Modeling career or artists (mainly DJs, because I also DJ and I know quite many local DJs in Bangkok who often need moody portraits or clear photos of themselves to use on flyers and other promotional content for their gigs and stuff like that). Let's not forget about the gorgeous girls who need their photos taken in order to attend beauty pageants. Some of the products I have shot (just the product or the product with a model) during the past years include: Supplements & vitamins, facial creams, soaps, lipsticks, coffee, eyelashes, home appliances, several fashion brands and many others. Swing Studio is the answer to whoever needs professional-looking images to promote themselves or advertise their product on social media. I've worked mainly with Thai clients but also with foreigners since Bangkok is quite an international city and I've had the pleasure to shoot a lot of cool and great people with the help of amazing makeup artists and stylists. I'd like to mention everyone I've worked with but there's not enough space here.

So my photography ranges from beauty (emphasizing healthy skin, wellbeing and the related products), portrait (focusing on portraying the person the way they are optimizing their look through posing and lighting), fashion (emphasizing optimal displaying of clothes and wearable items on professional models) and finally, product (focusing on displaying the product in a way that makes it stand out and makes the viewer want to buy it). That's my main focus. Do you want to look beautiful and glowing? Do you want to look naturally good? Do you want your product or your clothes to stand out? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you can be my client. Come to meeeeeeeee. I will be your loyal photographer..... Free pasta!

BPR: Studio photography involves a lot more than just taking shots over the course of an hour or two. How much time do you spend shooting your subjects, then selecting and editing the resulting images?

SN: When it comes to image quality in a portrait shoot there are several factors involved. First of all the lighting setup and the camera settings have to be on point so that you can start shooting right away without having to tweak the lights or the camera settings while the subject is awkwardly standing there waiting for you to be ready. Then, the shooting process itself (the interaction between the subject and the photographer) can start and it needs to deliver images that are almost finished. A shoot could last 30 mins or 8 hours lol. Now I'm kind of generalizing here but that depends on the client and what we are trying to achieve. But generally speaking, one of my regular quick portrait shoots in the studio lasts 1 or 2 hours. Within this time window, I usually end up with about 100 final images (chosen by me) to take into Lightroom for light/color adjustments. I know it sounds like it's a lot, but really it's not. The reason why I choose so many is, these are the photos that I find pleasant to my eyes and I'm confident that the client will surely love most of them. If not most of them, at least 50% of them. I usually spend 1 hour applying light adjustments on all the final images. Adjusting the contrast, clarity, sharpness, highlights, shadows, and finally cropping the images is very important to me because I am a perfectionist and this step is what turns good images to GREAT flawless images. It gives them that extra pro look. Don't get me wrong... The photos already look great but the editing is what makes them stand out more... However, we shouldn't rely on post-production to make the images look good. The images have to look good in camera. They then can be exported into the software for the editing process. I used to spend a lot of time in photoshop at the beginning of my career when I was practicing my editing skills. Little did I know, oh boy, was I overdoing it ?! Anyway, now I seem to have found the right balance in terms of shooting/editing ratio. The editing is just the cherry on top of the cake, unless we are talking about different kinds of images that require more photoshop work such as composite images (See reference image >>> Lunch Time). Other than that, I rarely open photoshop unless I'm asked to do some specific retouching. The general light/color adjustments are rapidly done in Lightroom.

Set up > 30 mins (Set up the lights before the shoot)

Shoot > 1-8 hours (According to the quantity of outfits or products)

Select > 30 mins (I sit and select the best 100 photos)

Edit > 1-2 hour (I quickly apply light/color adjustments)

BPR: You have created some beautiful sensual black and white images. What's the story behind the "Black and white passion" shot? What is your goal in shooting these images?

SN: Thank you! There is no particular goal when shooting these images other than capturing and displaying a moment of pure passion. The story behind the image is irrelevant. What happened before or after is not the point. The only thing that matters is the passion of the present moment being captured. Passion that was inevitably destined to fade away, but instead, ended up being immortalized right there in the photo, so that every single time visual contact with the image occurs, the burning passion of that moment gets reignited in the viewer's heart. The absence of color helps to immortalize the emotion even better. Actually, you know what? I'm changing the name of the image to "Eternal Passion" :D