The years I spent on photography weren't wasted

Why exploring multiple interests with curiosity is worth it.

I used to overthink the branding question endlessly. Who am I as a photographer? As a designer? Do I need to label myself or announce it to anyone?

As a photographer, I was always drawn to finding beauty in things. How light reflects. How shadows fall. The way something ordinary becomes worth capturing when you notice it at the right moment.

Photography has always been my passion. I started taking photos at 17 years old in 2011, experiencing all phases from deviantART macro flower photos to urban exploration shoots on Instagram, where I connected with talented photographers worldwide. In 2012, Instagram still felt like a community. I then started gaining traction and reached out to various artists to photograph concerts. One of my early gigs was photographing The 1975 at a small cafe for about 100 people. I experimented with developing my own style by posting images on my vmhieu.tumblr.com to track my progress.

I began exploring analog photography in 2014 as part of a school project. Started shooting commercial influencer campaigns not long after that for Coca Cola. All of this was driven by passion and curiosity to explore.

But taking the photo was never hard. It was curating which one mattered.

I’d come back from a shoot with 1000 photos. The real work was sifting through all of them to find the one that actually told the story. Not the sharpest one. Not the most technically perfect. The one that felt good. It taught me taste. It taught me curation. It taught me selection. Knowing what is good in the thousands of images. I practiced pattern recognition by curating all the photos that I have taken. The principles of understanding what is good are essential. It’s where my taste was built.

Most importantly, photography introduced me to stories. Through the people I met, the perspectives I hadn’t considered, the moments I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t taught to slow down and look around me. Those moments expanded how I saw the world.

I traveled the world, not to tourist spots, but to explore how people live outside my usual routine. In Nepal, I tried to notice things, to connect with people and rituals. In Japan, I saw how people dedicate their entire lives to their craft. In Vietnam, I found my roots—it answered questions about where my parents came from, why they are the way they are.

I don’t think I would’ve built this empathy without photography. Without learning to notice the stories.

And the people were the exact intersection of why I fell in love with design too.

Design balances beauty with function. It’s not enough for something to look good. It has to work within the creative boundaries. Through design, I built empathy to understand problems. Through photography, I built empathy to work with people, to capture the exact moment I wanted.

Understanding both led me here:

Photography taught me how things look. Design taught me how things work.

But my approach changed when I received inquiries to shoot more diverse subjects outside my initial interests—like corporate events and kids’ product shots or fashion photography. Things I wouldn’t have chosen myself, but it broadened my understanding of how things work in different industries.

Out of curiosity, I looked for learnings in these experiences. I told myself it was good for earning money, and since I was young, I needed to try different things to see where they might lead. Maybe it would broaden my social circles or benefit me long-term. In short, I just experimented and went with my curiousity.

But it felt scattered.

I kept adding layers to an already complex skill set. Portraits, food, sports, weddings... the more versatile I became, the less defined I felt. It’s hard to brand yourself as a photographer when you do everything. Even harder when you can’t decide if you’re a photographer or a designer in the first place.

Branding creates the niche. It helps people remember you, categorize you, recommend you. But it never felt familiar to me. Your name doesn’t pop up when someone’s talking about “that talented wedding photographer” because you haven’t branded yourself that way. You’ve been too busy doing the work to define what the work is called.

I get why people do it. I just never figured out how to make it feel authentic.

I still love photography. But it feels different now. It’s more intimate. It’s for myself again.

I no longer rely on other people’s opinions on social media the way I used to. I’m not chasing engagement, validation, or trying to prove that I belong to a certain category. Social media has a way of shrinking attention spans and shortening the life of a photo. Everything moves too fast. Almost everyone is a photographer now, but that’s a different conversation.

When photography stopped being public and commissioned, it became my passion again.

That’s where I am now.

With multiple interests, I can carry what I learn from one area into another and build things in my own way. I love the permissionless nature of designing and building tools online, especially when they reach into real life and solve an actual problem for someone.

It can be something small. Like the boxing timer app I built for myself with no ads, no monetization, just a clean tool that does one thing well. Or how a friend vibecoded a Yoto printer sticker for their kid. These things overlap into real life. They solve basic problems with simple, personalized apps. The more interests you have acquired in the past, the more perspective and creativity you can leverage in building stuff nowadays. The work that feels unique usually comes from blending perspective and curiosity. Unique taste is what matters the most.

Those years exploring photography, experimenting with different styles, working with people I wouldn’t have met otherwise, none of that was wasted. It all became part of how I see problems now.

The eye I developed for finding the right moment translates into recognizing the right solution in a product flow. The connections between the skills weren’t obvious at first. But they were always there.

And now it feels like everything is starting to connect again.