Ep.3 Photography Adjacent Podcast - Analgoue Photography: Exploring Authenticity

I was lucky enough to interview Huan Liu, a portrait photographer based in Hong Kong. He predominantly uses medium and large format film cameras to capture the fantastic people of his city. I loved this conversation because we discussed what it means to photograph someone, the proximity to reality, and how you, as a photographer, add something—a little element of art

In his own words on his website, Huan embarked on his photographic journey from his living room during COVID, with the original purpose of offering headshot photos for social media profiles that transcend the ordinary. This challenge fueled his passion for photography and provided a unique avenue for connection, especially with those who appreciate the art of authenticity.

Huan appreciates the freedom to create what he loves without alienating anyone, a principle that guides his practice. For him, photography is not just a profession—it's a means to connect with others on a deeper level. He shares the importance of connecting with your subject, the beauty of analogue imperfections, and how photography can be a medium for capturing the authentic self.

Huan's unique combination of philosophical insight and photographic talent greatly informs his approach to studio portraits, creating deep, genuine connections.

I appreciate Huan's evolution from a career in finance to his passionate pursuit of photography, epitomizing the quest for self-discovery and authentic expression. I think many of us these days are contemplating transitioning our careers, but something is holding us back. For others, like myself, I see the value in reinvention and dedicating yourself to art and creativity.

I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

Tom Trevatt (00:02.008)

Huan Liu, very nice to meet you. Very nice to have you on the podcast. Thank you very much for joining us from Hong Kong. You're also known to me at least as Analogicalphotos because that's your Instagram name. So yeah, hi.

Huan (00:29.364)

Yeah, exactly.

Huan (00:47.586)

Hi, Tom, it's a big pleasure to be here. It's been a while since we last spoke, and your work has always been inspirational to me and a lot of other fellow photographers in our little community.

Tom Trevatt (01:04.68)

lovely, that's lovely. So we obviously know each other through Headshots Matter. And I think Headshots Matter is going to come up quite a lot in these kind of conversations. I'm going to give a little bit of a background on what Headshots Matter is, so that people who are listening to this for the first time get a sense of that. So they know what we're referring to. It's essentially a kind of group or directory of photographers specifically in kind of the headshot or portrait specialism. They're kind of a directory around the world. So Huan's actually in Hong Kong, I'm in London.

There's other photographers all around the world in big cities as well. So it's a really great way to kind of connect photographers together. It's run by Dwayne, who we've had on the podcast already. So check out the link to his podcast in the description below, we'll pop it in that little bit down there. But Huan, we've chatted a couple of times already, we stay in touch. The main focus of your work is film work, which I absolutely love. Honestly, it's been such a pleasure seeing your work.

Um, popping up on Instagram over the past couple of maybe sort of eight to 10 months. It might even be a year now that we've been in touch. Um, but why don't you give a little bit of background about you, how you got into photography and what you were doing before you got into photography.

Huan (02:19.242)

All right, well, my background is a little bit, well, not straightforward in some of the photography business. I was in finance before this. I worked in the office for like more than 10 years, but then I just got really bored of it. I always look out the window of my office seeing all the beautiful light. I just wanna go out to take photos.

And then, I got myself a little film camera, actually, because, for me, I always had a digital camera, but I didn't like what I was doing with it. And then I got myself a little film camera. I got into this deep hole of shooting film and develop. And then I got into the scanning, the whole thing. And...

Yeah, so from there, I was just absolutely in love with the analogue process against the general trend of digital photography, actually. So I was a little bit of odd at the beginning... but then actually over the years, you know, film actually started to come back and more and more photographers actually started to realize that actually film...

gives a special aesthetics that digital is very, well, it can be achieved digitally, of course, but then this is much more difficult. So yeah, so that's how I got into photography. And my portrait studio actually only started not too long ago, a little over a year now, one and a half year. It started off a project from my living room during COVID. I was bored and no one is seeing anyone. So I went, okay, I'll do something with my camera. Then I started actually doing here in my studio. I, it's actually part of my house. And I set up a backdrop and started asking people to come in and take photos. And then actually people started to pay, want to pay me for the job. And like, okay, why not?

Yeah, so I found something I can pay for all my equipment. So yeah, so that's how I started this whole portrait photography thing. And yeah, it's been quite an interesting ride.

Tom Trevatt (04:50.85)

Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, anybody who's not watching, who's maybe listening, Huan's actually sat and behind him, there's like a film scanner and a printer and the wall has been painted grey. Clearly this is, you've gone all in, you've taken this very seriously now. You've left the finance world behind and gone full bore into photography, haven't you?

Huan (05:17.919)

Yeah, it's actually a great feeling to be able to do what you really love, not for yourself, not for somebody else. So yeah, so actually, I think photography is essentially an entrepreneurship. You know, we're all entrepreneurs actually, you know, working for ourselves. But yeah, it's quite interesting.

Tom Trevatt (05:18.069)

Yeah, thanks.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I've been watching, you know, looking at your work for the last year, just under a year maybe, and we've often been having these kinds of conversations about the technical aspects of how you produce the kind of work that you produce or how other people are getting the results that they get. But one of the things I think is absolutely clear with you is that you've got an idea of who you are as a photographer. And frustratingly, you seem to have got that very, very early on, like...

You know, if you started a year and a half ago or whatever, it's like, damn, you've started knowing exactly who you are as a photographer. You're very good technically, that's a given, you know, obviously, and for someone who shoots almost predominantly film, almost 100% of it is film, you have to be good technically because there's a much, it's a different type of margin for error, but you've not got as much kind of increments of error, essentially, right? Especially with slightly older medium format cameras.

Um, so like a lot harder for photographers. Yeah, exactly. And slower and more methodical and more potential for fuckups. Yeah, that's for sure. Um, but you know, this for me is like, you know, an example of somebody who's decided this is what their brand is as a photographer I'm analogical Huan. You know, you've said that from the very beginning, I do this type of photography and I'm not going to do necessarily.

Huan (06:41.242)

Life used to be a lot harder for photographers than it is now.

Tom Trevatt (07:07.004)

another type of photography. Of course you do digital and you do color photography as well, but it's front and center of what you do is the analogue medium format, mostly black and white portraiture. And it's, it's outstanding. It's an outstanding kind of, both the work is good, but also the kind of decision to be that person from, from the beginning. It's almost like you had a marketing degree before you started.

Huan (07:35.388)

No, no, Tom, you're too kind. But I left out a little bit of my background actually to prepare for a...

Huan (07:46.066)

in photography actually after finance I decided to take a degree in philosophy. So actually I did a lot of self-discovery process during this. Actually I did for almost six years the degree to prepare for photography. Why I did this because

Tom Trevatt (07:54.584)

Okay. Ah, yes, of course.

Huan (08:14.002)

In 2018, I actually went to London to study with Magnum Photos, part of their documentary program. And then I realized as a finance business professional, I have no idea about the question of aesthetics. Right. What is beauty? What is... Right. So photography as an art, you and I both agree.

Tom Trevatt (08:19.939)

Amazing

Tom Trevatt (08:33.983)

Mm.

Huan (08:42.534)

what we're doing is art. It's not just randomly, you know, doing something randomly to appease the public. Actually, as you said, we have to know who we are as a photographer. And that's actually who we are as in art actually is outside of art. So who we are in photography is not about who we are in photography. It's about who we are.

Tom Trevatt (08:48.165)

Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (08:56.192)

Hmm.

Tom Trevatt (09:04.268)

Mm-hmm.

Huan (09:12.586)

period, right? So I think a lot of choices we both make in terms of which photos to keep, how we light up our subject, what kind of feelings do we want to convey in our photos, are large part an extension of who we are as a person, right? What we think are.

Tom Trevatt (09:12.593)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Huan (09:41.646)

the good things in life. This essentially is the moral question. So I think we, you know, I see a lot of, I don't wanna get into political thing, but a lot of our views align in that aspect as well, because everything is holistic, everything's connected. Our self-expression happens in...

Tom Trevatt (09:44.831)

Absolutely.

Huan (10:11.558)

all areas of our life, our art, our ideals, right? The way we handle our relationships, our political views, right? All those are connected, right? So, what I, so come back to photography, what I think, who I am in photography, in the art is, I try to find the anchor for beauty, for what's good. Because we all know this problem that seems that what's beautiful is actually relative. It's relative to what's the current Instagram trend. It seems that way. But then the problem is the trend always changes. How do you...

Huan (11:12.027)

How do you decide what's good? Maybe the trend this year is like this, and next year is something else. This year's analogue. Everybody is trying to lift their blacks. And then next year is full-blown, high-saturated images. How do you decide? So that's why I give this question a lot of thoughts.

Huan (11:39.914)

what is the anchor we can rely on as artists? So then I realized actually the only anchor we can rely on is the connection to reality, right? We have to somehow preserve this authenticity, the connection with reality so that we don't fly away in the abstract world of art, right?

And that makes me probably a very mediocre artist because I'm totally unimaginative. But then actually I feel kind of, I feel content because I'm anchored to reality. And for me that's okay because I, there's a, you know, this.

Okay, maybe I'm going, I'm rambling. I start rambling, but yeah. So basically I decided to anchor myself in authenticity and reality. And the direction my photos take is actually a realist approach that I try to capture what I see. Not too much as how I imagine, but what I see in the person, in the image.

Tom Trevatt (12:40.34)

No, no.

Mm-hmm. That's good. Yeah.

Huan (13:06.732)

And yeah.

Tom Trevatt (13:07.764)

Of course. Well, then it makes even more sense. The name, because the essential claim here is that you're, that the photograph is an analogue to reality. You know, you're not, you're, you're not use, you know, it's not just that it's an analogue format that you're using. It's that it's analogous to reality as much as it possibly can be. Yeah. So it does make a lot of sense. Even, even, you know, this is something I hadn't even thought of before, but you know, even, even in your kind of branding.

Huan (13:27.262)

Yes, exactly, exactly. Yes, yes.

Tom Trevatt (13:37.792)

business, these kinds of feelings come through, there is that sense that there's a kind of documentary aspect to what you do. And so, yeah. And what I think is really important with film photography, or what I guess is the limitations, but also the kind of the thing that actually powers film photography to become so beautiful, is its limitation of quantity.

Huan (13:45.098)

Yes, exactly. You're absolutely right.

Tom Trevatt (14:05.568)

the scarcity of the amount of frames that you have, you know, in a, in a sort of three or four hour session, I might shoot five to 800 frames on a digital camera, but I can only shoot 10 on film. I have a very, very limited amount of film that I can shoot. And so you, you put that limitation on, on the, on the, on the shoot. It's it, that limitation actually drives you, right? It actually motivates you to be a particular type of photographer. So I'd love to hear about like.

What does a session look like? You've got someone in for like an hour and a half or two hours or however long you shoot with somebody, you've only got like 10 or maybe 20 frames that you're going to be shooting if you're shooting maybe two rolls of one 20, what's the process?

Huan (14:48.73)

I'm actually a starter shoot up more large format. Reasonably, I find that's even more extreme. Yeah, I'm making more difficult. But the thing is, it's like jumping a parachute from the plane. It's like you just have to trust the process, no matter how scary it is.

Tom Trevatt (14:52.231)

Okay

Tom Trevatt (14:56.)

making it even more difficult for yourself. Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (15:10.124)

Mm-hmm.

Of course.

Huan (15:21.143)

When I have a client request to shoot the film, every session I tell myself, trust the process, trust the process. And then I will try to warm up with a digital camera first to shoot a film, but then once I see what I like in some lighting, then I will just...

put away the digital camera and start shooting film. And at the beginning it's actually quite scary because you don't know what you get. But then I realized, especially after using large format, is that actually every frame is a good frame. Every frame is good frame. It's actually quite amazing how it is because that's all you have.

Tom Trevatt (15:58.07)

Yeah.

Every frame's a good frame.

Huan (16:18.066)

And because that's all you have, it necessitates is beauty, right? It's a necessary truth. That is, it's a good frame because that's all you have. It's like, uh, like, uh, you look back, uh, 20 years, your photo from 20 years ago. Uh, maybe the photo itself technically looks, you know, just airy, but that's the only photo you have and that's the best photo you have.

Tom Trevatt (16:42.956)

course. Absolutely. I love it. Oh, it's fantastic. No, it's really lovely. I mean, so you say you warm up with a digital camera to begin with, which means presumably you're warming up, but also your client or your subject is warming up too, because it takes a little while to get into the feeling of it, doesn't it?

Huan (16:57.646)

Correct.

Yes, yes, I think it's very important to develop this kind of rapport with a client and to develop this relationship, right? I think all my clients tell me this, that they are not good with cameras, right? So I serve actually a different clientele as you do.

My clients are actually, I rarely shoot the actors. Most of them are people who are not, who are underserved by this photographic community. But, so they trust me and I really appreciate this trust. And, but I think it's very important to, to basically know them, at least.

to make them feel that they're talking to a friend. And only when that happens, I think you can have a photo where the subject is relaxed that the subject brings out their true self, present their true self and the vulnerable self sometimes to you.

Tom Trevatt (18:04.673)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Trevatt (18:26.498)

Mm-hmm.

Huan (18:27.242)

as a photographer and that's when you click the shutter and all that. Yeah. And it was just, just my little process.

Tom Trevatt (18:32.872)

Mm hmm. Yeah, no, absolutely. Do you think it's interesting? There's this debate around representation, right? So, you know, as an artist, you understand this kind of process of representation that the work itself is a piece of work that is somewhat different from reality. It has an analogy, as we talked about, to reality, but in itself, it's a representation of reality. What you're trying to do with your kind of

Huan (18:50.335)

Right.

Tom Trevatt (19:04.217)

that analogue be as proximate to reality as possible. Right, really, you know, that's fantastic. That's obviously what everyone kind of strives for is that kind of approach like authenticity and truth and the kind of the inner world that you maybe get when someone kind of relaxes into the process. And I feel this with my clients. I had a shoot yesterday where the first, let's say,

half an hour of the shoot, there's one person, one type of person that you're seeing. And then after that half an hour, after that 45 minutes, there's that point where it's like, it tips into someone else. Somebody else comes out in that moment and you're like, ah, there's that person. Maybe they've put on a different outfit. Maybe the previous outfit wasn't actually who they felt themselves to be, and they've put on a different outfit and like, oh, I can relax into this. And I've had a moment to get into this feeling. With a film camera,

It strikes me that actually you're, you're putting the stakes very, very high. Like, you know, maybe the nerves are going to be even higher. Everyone's going to be a little bit more on edge because you've got that kind of, uh, lack of do overs in a way, but you're saying the opposite almost that it's like, actually all of that doesn't matter. What, what really matters is that in that moment, you capture that one frame and it's just a bam, that's the one, because there's no other choice.

Huan (20:28.47)

Yeah, exactly.

Tom Trevatt (20:29.6)

And that's something really beautiful, right? Because actually what happens is in a way, what you're saying in that moment is that actually, because it's the one, the only one that's available, whatever happens in that frame is the truth. Rather than saying, oh, you know, I can do this 300 times to get the one that I like, you know, like the way that we might take 300 selfies to get the one that we want to post on Instagram. Actually, you've got one opportunity to get the right photograph. And you know,

What's the difference between 300 times versus one time? Well, you know, it's actually, they're all stories. They're all true stories. They're all just as true stories as each other. You know, so it's a very interesting kind of proposition that when you, when you start thinking, breaking it down, you know, we do this thing where it's like, I'm trying to serve my client in a certain way and get to something that's proximate, both to truth, but also to kind of the idea of themselves that they have.

Whether that's an idea of themselves as an actor or the idea of themselves as a professional business owner or something like that about their brand or whatever it is, you're trying, you know, you're not actually trying to get authenticity. You're getting, you're trying to get to an idea they have of themselves—that is their brand. That's not necessarily the same thing as authenticity. That is an idea of yourself. That's what you, what you say to yourself, the story you tell about yourself. Um, but you're saying no.

Boom, you've got one opportunity and that's the one and that's the only one there is. I think it's really beautiful. That scarcity aspect of it's fantastic.

Huan (22:04.05)

And also I think there's this two kind of philosophy that how we produce our work, right? One is focused on the result. The other one is the focus on the process. You know, you can think, oh, I have a control over the result, I take 300 photos. Or you can think,

The only thing I can control is my process. I don't know what's gonna happen to the result. And this is actually a difference between a documentary photographer and a commercial, or any other photographers actually, because I shadowed some Magnum photo photographers and they can never know what's gonna happen during the event. They're just there to...

Tom Trevatt (22:35.144)

Yeah, exactly.

Hmm?

Huan (23:02.134)

But they process, they have the process. And then whatever happens during the thing, they don't care because they trust their process. And then everything will just fall into place. You have to just believe in that. But yeah, so you have to understand that what you're offering the client is not the result. What you're offering the client is the process.

Tom Trevatt (23:10.336)

Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (23:16.649)

Absolutely.

Huan (23:30.814)

and the result comes because of the process.

Tom Trevatt (23:34.664)

Mm-hmm. It's valuable. It's incredibly valuable. And I think that people recognize that. And I certainly recognize that when I see it on your, in your work. I think that it's, I think that people will understand that what they're buying is not, is not the result, but it is your artistry and the process that you're going through. And the, actually in a way, an experience. Like, you know, who, who gets to have a photograph with on film, actually these days, who gets to have a photograph?

Huan (23:56.747)

Yes.

Tom Trevatt (24:03.416)

on large format film, you know, people, if people are lucky, they might get shot on film, but it won't be, it'll probably be 35 mil. It won't be medium format. And it certainly won't be large format. So, you know, in a way that's incredibly valuable, like having an opportunity to work with you on, on that kind of stuff. Let's pivot the conversation a little bit, because I think this, this feeds into what I want to ask you next, which is about your business practice. Like, how do you run your business and how do you understand yourself?

Huan (24:14.995)

Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (24:32.576)

How do you understand your positioning within the market that you're in?

Huan (24:37.862)

That's actually I'm gonna I try to answer the second question first. I think that's a very interesting question. I want to say something about before I forget. I did a lot of soul searching before I got into this. At the beginning I thought okay maybe I will just because I was in finance maybe it's easy for me to go into all the banks or

or the hedge funds and shoot their bosses. And then I realized, yes, that pays a lot, but then I realized that's not what I want to do because if I want to make money, I will be working in the bank instead of being their photographer. So my positioning, I'm actually not a...

Tom Trevatt (25:26.974)

Exactly, yes.

Huan (25:36.846)

a traditional headshot photographer. Most of my clients come to me because they want a record of themselves at a certain stage. Maybe they're going through some changes or maybe they just had a baby they want to have a record of themselves. And then I realized

When somebody like that wants to take just a record of themselves, they don't want to know any practical purpose other than documenting themselves, they have nowhere to go. Because in Hong Kong, they're either family photographers or wedding photographers.

Tom Trevatt (26:14.753)

Hmm.

Tom Trevatt (26:24.108)

You know?

Huan (26:29.782)

Their job or they think what they're doing is trying to beautify or trying to create this ideal and then deliver the ideal picture to their clients. But no one actually is crazy enough to present a reality in the... well it's difficult to say objective way but in the more...

Tom Trevatt (26:35.564)

course.

Huan (27:00.114)

more truthful, more authentic manner. And so then I think, okay, maybe I can be the guy. So a lot of clients actually come to me, they have no need whatsoever other than just keeping a record for themselves. So that's what I do actually.

Tom Trevatt (27:11.891)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Huan (27:26.478)

That's the market I serve. I serve the market that no one else is interested in serving. So yeah, and I run my business as a one man team. I handle, I use this service called a Pixieset. I know I always try to sell you guys, but it's actually quite an amazing system for photographers. It handles all the bookings and...

Tom Trevatt (27:28.745)

Absolutely.

Huan (27:53.95)

scheduling the billings and everything, accounting. Actually, I can't operate without it. I do everything, I do shooting, I do editing myself. Not a very good editor, you know? But yeah, I'm still learning. I'm still learning.

Tom Trevatt (28:02.133)

Ha ha.

Mm-hmm. No, that's fantastic, thank you. It's really nice to get a kind of sense of other cities, other countries markets for these things. So that's a really good kind of insight into the Hong Kong market. And in a way, I think that we should be always striving to be something different, right? We should always be striving to be the kind of photographer that there's one of you in that particular field. Like if someone wants

this type of photograph, the only person to go to is you. That's the aim. And then obviously all of your efforts then after that with your brand awareness and so forth is essentially to try and let people know that that's what you do so that they know to come to you. So you produce that kind of, you know, you're positioning yourself in the market in that particular way. So I think it's fantastic. Let's talk about the last year and a half.

I mean, it must have been quite a roller coaster of a year for you. Um, I mean, I know, I know obviously, yes, you, you took a, you took quite a, um, a measured and considered approach to entering into starting your business, going, you know, shadowing, Magnum photographers, doing your, um, your, your degree in, in philosophy and, you know, the visiting, visiting London and so forth, but this last year and a half. Like tell me.

What's been happening? Like how, what does it feel like to get that first paying client in? What was, what was the kind of that lovely kind of emotion? What, tell me more about that.

Huan (29:48.266)

Okay, my first client was a Tai Chi master. And he found me through some friends. And then, so he insisted he wanted a black and white film because his grandpa was a photographer and left a lot of really amazing negatives in the, they have exhibitions and stuff. But yeah, so that's my first client. And I didn't know what I was doing.

Tom Trevatt (29:51.32)

amazing.

Okay, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Huan (30:19.511)

And, and, and so, so I'm like, okay, fine. I'm going to just try it. Okay. If it doesn't turn out, I'm not going to charge you and all that. So it's actually quite scary, but, but then, uh, yeah. So, but then the photos turns out to actually one of my best work is I, I still cannot achieve that, uh, kind of, uh, I, yeah, the photo is really amazing. It turned out really, I don't know how I did it.

Tom Trevatt (30:27.092)

Yeah.

Huan (30:47.314)

I forgot what my process was, but I just hope I can replicate that. Yeah. So, so that's my first client. And then I started to try to get more clients, a little bit struggle as you know, because, you know, digital marketing is not my thing. I don't know where to start. I know I paid a lot of money to the wrong, wrong people, I guess. And

Tom Trevatt (31:14.24)

We all have, we all have, yep.

Huan (31:17.183)

Yeah, but then, yeah, so in the first few months, it's quite a struggle. You don't know you're paying the rent. I rent a studio and you're paying the rent, but you don't have a client, you don't have bookings. What do you do? So then, yeah, so I actually at the beginning, I shoot a lot of freebies to people and just took to build my portfolio.

Yeah, but then I think a few months, half a year, like after I hit the half year mark, things started to pick up, I get more and more clients and people start to notice me on Instagram, I grow my followers, now I have like close to 5,000, which is unbelievable for what I never thought I could actually have anybody interested in my work. But...

Tom Trevatt (32:05.568)

Amazing, yeah.

Huan (32:14.494)

Yeah, I'm just happy that now I'm paying the rent. No problem. Ha ha ha.

Tom Trevatt (32:15.458)

NOTHING.

Now, yeah, exactly. Yeah. The business is sustaining itself. That's good. You don't have to, you don't have to kind of dip into the savings anymore.

Huan (32:22.235)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Tom Trevatt (32:28.052)

I'm talking of money, if it's okay to ask, how much does a session cost with you?

Huan (32:34.91)

My standard session cost 3,500 Hong Kong dollars. So that's about, I think about £350. So one to 10, yeah, it's easy to convert. Yeah, so about £350, you get five photos, digital photos. For my film session, you know, it's £500, 5,000 Hong Kong dollars. So...

So I try to price myself at the point where I would pay for it. I think for the people who are interested in my work, this is the kind of price that people will not think is too much. So then, yeah, so that's how I price it. I don't want to charge people £2,000

for a glamour shot and ended up under delivered. I wanted it to be something like, you know, people will actually try to pay some money and just find out what it is, you know? And obviously if you want more photos, they're available for purchase. I have a client that actually bought like 30 photos on me too and then yeah, so that session actually turned out really well.

Tom Trevatt (34:00.596)

Yeah, that's amazing. One of the things that strikes me about your work is that there is a, there is a sense of connection that you're creating between you and the other person. And it seems that there's a kind of, it's quite stripped back. You know, it's, it's very simple. You have one light, I think the majority of the time it's one light and it's a massive, great, big soft box or umbrella or something I've seen the back, the behind the scenes photos, um, and, and in a way you're, you're not

Huan (34:19.678)

Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (34:29.168)

Even though you're very technically minded, you're not letting the technicalities get in the way of the conversation or the connection that you're creating with the photographs. So what I see in your work is that sense that you're sat there having a conversation with somebody and you're engaging with that person and letting them kind of shine through the photographs. And I think that that's done in a number of ways. And I think this is something that actually a lot of photographers maybe miss. And, you know, I...

I'm guilty of it as well because I kind of put maybe too much of myself into my work sometimes. But I think that the, this idea of proximity to truth is, is a kind of lovely hook to get you into those kinds of conversations. You must have like amazing stories about, you know, you just, you just literally told me the amazing story about your very first client being the Tai Chi master and his grandfather being a photographer and so forth. You must have these kinds of good conversations.

Huan (35:23.466)

Actually, it's interesting you think about this. Actually, I give this very question a lot of thought. I think I hinted a little bit in the chat, but our chat group is constantly 100 messages. I can't follow, I can't catch up with that. So my theory is that there has to be a balance between how much photo

Tom Trevatt (35:31.208)

Mm-hmm.

Huan (35:54.002)

and how much personality. The photo has to match with the personality. If you are photographing, say a star, like a celebrity, I think the photo has to be a lot more interesting because otherwise people think, oh, you're just taking a photo of a celebrity, has nothing to do with you.

Tom Trevatt (35:56.23)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Hehehe

Huan (36:21.298)

A good celebrity photo is a photo that's really creative, that's really interesting. And you're making the celebrity doing some crazy things and crazy lighting, crazy outfits, because there's such a strong personality in that photo that you have to balance out with the technicality of aspects or other stuff has to come together. But for my clients, like I said at the beginning, they are people who are not served by this photographic community. They're underserved by the photographic community. There are people who are not comfortable in front of camera. They really, they get nervous because they think they're not good looking. They're, you know. So in that sense that if there's too much photo, in a sense, they put too much of yourself into the photo., you abstract the person. The person just declined to become a element of composition.

And then you lose that connection because the personality is not strong enough to sustain the photograph. So, Tom, I think your work is really because your clients have very strong personality. They are all professional. Most of them are professional actors. They have that personality. They have this. They're good with camera. They're ease. And then, yes, you need to put into yourself, into make it an art, right? Create art. But for my clients, if I do that, they will be overwhelmed, they will be covered, they will be invisible. They become a beautiful photo, but that person is gone. So I actually, you know, apart from, I don't know how to work with more than one light.

Huan (38:29.358)

I actually, this actually become kind of works best for my kind of clients because I need to make things as simple as possible so that the person is the number one, is the main actor, not the light, not the camera, is the person I have to be able to see the person in my photograph. And that's...

Tom Trevatt (38:48.009)

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Huan (38:56.778)

That's how I choose my photographs. Can I see this person?

Tom Trevatt (39:01.332)

Yeah, that's lovely. That's really nice. What's next? What do you, what's the one year, three year, five year projection for you? How do you feel like this is gonna go? Cause you've just started really, aren't you? Beginning of the journey.

Huan (39:16.53)

Next is a set of a brown color stroke. Yeah. I think if I can get there, that's already, I'm quite happy. Actually, my plan, I don't have a grand plan. I'm happy to continue to have people, to serve people who like my work.

Tom Trevatt (39:21.603)

Okay, well not what else are you gonna buy, but like...can all list the things we want to buy.

Huan (39:42.87)

and who can help me pay my rent, my crazy wish list of equipment. And then I'm content, actually. I'm very happy. This is my dream job.

Tom Trevatt (39:47.508)

Yeah.

Lovely. That's, that's really nice. I mean, it's really interesting because I think that there's this real tendency, maybe over the last, clearly over the last four years because of COVID, but even prior to that, for people to move out of a nine to five, an office job, very often in a finance position to move into some kind of what might be considered unalienated labour or unalienating labour, right. Which is to say a role where they love what they're doing. You know,

Huan (40:23.002)

Yeah. Yeah, Marx says sometime that he is on the mark.

Tom Trevatt (40:28.62)

Exactly, exactly. So there is that sense right is that, you know, you you've done this move, you know, I never I have never done this move because I've never worked in like, in an office job. I think I've never been really alienated in my life. No. So there is this move where it's like you go from, you know, you see people like, okay, want to start to like a craft beer brand, or like a coffee brand or something like this. And photography is actually one of those classic careers where people go.

Huan (40:38.746)

alienated labour.

Tom Trevatt (40:58.24)

from their office job into it or from their kind of like, you know, we've got Mike in the, in the chat group who was or is still a nurse and he's kind of transitioning into, into photography. People who kind of go from a very, very kind of high, high pressure job, long hours into something where it's like, I'm going to set my own hours. I'm going to create something that I think is beautiful to serve the communities that I'm part of. And actually this is, this is such a lovely, you know, lovely transition. I think that we all, we were all kind of.

going through, you know, it's great. We're all a little bit older, right? You know, rather than being like 22, 23 years old, it's been like, oh, photography, you know, we're all kind of like, oh, we're in our late 30s, early 40s, starting this process from a later point in our lives. That's quite nice. Apart from some like Jordan.

Huan (41:43.85)

Yeah, but actually photography is a hyper competitive industry. But again, you're doing something you love. So that I think people can actually carry through.

Tom Trevatt (41:50.176)

Of course. Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (42:03.584)

Yeah, exactly. There's, there's that phrase, which obviously no one agrees with or really, uh, or there's the sort of second part of the phrase. The phrase is like, if you do something you love, you'll never work a day in your life. The second part of the, of the, although kind of rejoinder to that phrase is no, you do something you love and you never stop working. You'll work harder than you've worked on anything. Essentially that's true, right? Isn't it? It's like, Oh, I love this. I'm going to spend every hour of the day working on it. I'm going to be learning. I'm going to be honing my craft. I'm going to be getting better at my.

Huan (42:22.578)

Yeah, yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (42:33.021)

marketing and so forth.

Huan (42:36.286)

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Before our conversation, I was actually scanning film. It's just like, I can't stop. Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (42:40.76)

You just can't stop it. No, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. And it's a, it's, it must be kind of approaching kind of like midnight or half, half 11 or something like that. But yeah, it's quite late as well, isn't it?

Huan (42:50.622)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's 11 o'clock in Hong Kong now. Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (42:56.68)

Yeah, lovely. Um, Huan, we're coming to the end of our conversation. So thank you so much, but is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we haven't had a chance to chat about yet?

Huan (43:08.255)

Um, actually, I think we cover most of the stuff. I, the last part actually is, you know, I want to talk about the, the balance between the personality and the photograph. You bring it out nicely. And I think this is a convert. This is the topic I've been thinking a lot lately. And I'm happy that you brought it up. Um.

Tom Trevatt (43:19.554)

Hmm.

Yeah, it's vital to our craft, right? It's that kind of constant question that's in the back of your mind, like how much do I put myself into this? How much do I kind of let somebody else, you know, that kind of little tug of war? And it's the kind of, you know, for me, it's, there's multiple processes, multiple kind of techniques or multiple kind of elements to add something to the photograph that might be considered me, you know, like the process.

Huan (43:37.783)

Yes.

Huan (43:41.282)

Yeah.

Tom Trevatt (43:57.448)

And I can see, I can see what you're doing is like, in a way it's like on the one hand, you're adding something to the, to the, to the process, which is the, the cameras that you're using, the kind of the fact that you'll go, okay, right. I'm going to go back in time a little bit to, to use these kinds of cameras and so forth, but then at the same time, you're kind of trying to strip back. So there's that sort of play between the two there's, and in a way film is actually the perfect medium for this because it does both of those things.

Huan (44:23.842)

I actually did a European tour last month. I was in Europe. Yeah, but in September, I was, don't worry. But so I went to Florence and I went to Milan. I see a lot of exhibitions of the old masters. I realized that, you know, for an artist, how to do it is not important. When you're at the level of art, the question is why you're doing it.

Tom Trevatt (44:27.2)

Yes, you didn't come and see me.

Okay, good.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Huan (44:53.39)

And I think that's the question that we will be thinking about as artists forever.

Tom Trevatt (45:01.528)

and that is the perfect place to end the conversation. One, where can people find you online?

Huan (45:03.85)

Yeah.

You can find me on my Instagram, analogical photos, or on my website, analogical photos.com.

Tom Trevatt (45:16.044)

Fantastic. Lovely. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. It's been a great conversation. Lovely.

Huan (45:20.054)

Thank you, Tom. Been a pleasure. Yes.

All right.