SCAD student finds ‘Key’ to success

Photo by Dennis Burnett
The publisher of Key West Magazine contacted photography student Tuan Nguyen about doing a photo shoot after seeing his portfolio on SCAD’s Job Magnet.

By: E. Christina Spitz

Published: Friday, April 13, 2007

When Tuan Nguyen was a student at James Bowie High School in Arlington, Texas, he had every major fashion magazine lying around his room, with clips pinned to the walls.

Now, thanks to the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Job Magnet, he can add his own professional tear sheets to his collection.

Nguyen, a junior majoring in photography, spent his winter break as a photographer on a fashion shoot for Key West Magazine, a nationally distributed, general-interest magazine with a regional focus on the Florida Keys.

Nguyen received an e-mail from the magazine’s publisher, Bill Semich, who was interested in his work and offered to fly him down to Key West to work for the magazine during his winter break. “I was curious and asked how he had heard of me,” Nguyen said, “and he mentioned that it was through SCAD’s Job Magnet. That’s how it started.”

The Job Magnet, according to the SCAD Web site, offers fast résumé approval, the ability for all students to post portfolios and an alumni mentoring network. Employers have access to candidates’ résumés and portfolios, while students can track how many employers have viewed their materials and how many candidates have applied for each position. The career services office maintains contacts with employers all over the world who are interested in hiring SCAD students and alumni to fill positions in art and design fields. Employers can contact students directly.

“We liked [Nguyen’s] style of lighting and his sense of fashion,” said Thomas Miller, art director for the magazine.

The spread was shot in Key West at West Martello Tower, an old military fort that is now home to botanical gardens. Nguyen shot two models, a man and a woman, in 13 locations around the gardens, wearing 13 different outfits ranging from beachwear to evening clothes.

“Some were as simple as a T-shirt and swimming trunks,” Miller said. “Some consisted of more formal evening wear and thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry and that kind of thing.”

Dolce and Gabbana, Prada, Chanel, Pianegonda, H. Stern, American Apparel and other designers were featured in the spread.

Nguyen wore many hats as a paid intern. At first he presented concepts to his employers. He then became a casting agent looking for “two beautiful models,” he said. After that he served as location scout, finding the perfect spots in the area for the shoot. He researched equipment and learned how to use a Hasselblad camera, a film camera with a high-resolution digital back. Finally, he worked as a fashion photographer.

“He’s very easy to work with,” Miller said. “He has a quiet manner about him, but he’s very creative, very thorough. He did a lot of research and brought a lot of great concepts to the work … He [also] has a really good technical expertise that a lot of people don’t have.”

According to Nguyen, the positive feeling is mutual.

“Working with world-renowned graphic designer Roger Black, the publisher Bill Semich and art director Thomas Miller was quite an experience,” he said. “These people trusted me as the photographer. For a second-year photography student to handle something this big was an honor.”

Nguyen is relatively new to the field. He studied painting before switching his major to photography in Fall 2005.

“I was not in love with painting,” he said. Though he believes that photography and painting are similar — “paint with light, anyone?” he quipped — he said he enjoys the fact that photography “allows me to work with different people on many different, exciting projects.”

In Savannah, Nguyan works as a photographer on the D’Antoni Project, a large-scale multimedia initiative developed by SCAD students. He also serves as a freelance photographer for The South magazine and helps his fellow students break into the modeling industry through photo shoot sessions that enhance their portfolios.

Schoolwork comes first, however. “The classes I’ve taken with amazing professors … have best prepared me for what is to come,” he said.



Spitz is senior publications editor at SCAD.