Bi + Ygal | Hue Portrait Session

Bi and Ygal are manga comic librarians in Belgium. But when night falls, they fight crime on the mean streets of Brussles…. OK, that second part isn’t true, but the first is. I didn’t know such a cool job existed – and Bi and Ygal are definitely cool. They wanted something a little different for their engagement shoot, and we went back and forth on a list of locations until we agreed on Hue. This was great for us, since we’d never shot an engagement session there before, and it’s always exciting to head to a new town, scout locations, and make some magic.

I’d been to Hue several times before. It’s a really wonderful, mystical place. It makes you feel nostalgic for the pace of life that used to be more common in Vietnam’s cities. It is changing, much like the rest of the country, but at a slower pace. People there seem don’t seem to be in as much of a rush to trade in bicycles for motorbikes, motorbikes for cars, telephones for iPhones, or even ao dai for jeans.  Hue is aso home to the old Imperial City, and the tombs of emperors who used to rule these parts. There’s an endless supply of traditional design and architecture to frame images, and we would absolutely love to come back again to shoot. I feel Aidan and I could easily have done a two or three-day shoot there with Bi and Ygal, and never run out of fresh ideas. That had something to do with the amazing location, but more to do with them. They have so much fun together, and it shows.