Ao dai · portrait session
An ao dai session
Two hours, one city, and the clothes your family will recognise.
Two hours, one city, and the clothes your family will recognise.
Not every photograph worth taking in Vietnam is a wedding photograph. This is the short session we built for people who are home for two weeks and want one proper set of pictures in an ao dai before they fly back.
USD 380 for two working hours at one location in Hanoi or Saigon, directed in English, edited photographs within a week. Ao dai hire and makeup arranged on request and quoted separately. No wedding required.
Mostly people who grew up somewhere else. The pattern repeats so often that we stopped being surprised by it.
It is also, honestly, the easiest way to find out whether you want to be photographed by us at all before you commit to a wedding day.
We will suggest the place once we know which city you are in and what you want the pictures to feel like, but these are the ones we come back to.
In Hanoi: the Old Quarter in the first hour after sunrise, the colonial arcades near the Opera House, the citadel walls, and the lake paths before the city wakes up. Later in the day the Old Quarter is unusable, which is why we start early.
In Saigon: Cho Lon for colour and tile and old shopfronts, the tamarind avenues in District 1, the Post Office and the streets behind it, and the apartment blocks with the painted stairwells. Saigon photographs well in the late afternoon too, which Hanoi does not.
If you want the session outside the city, in the mountains or on the central coast, that becomes a destination session rather than this one, and the price list has those numbers.
An ao dai photographs better than almost anything else because it moves. Long panels catch wind and light, and that is most of the work done for you. Two pieces of advice we give everyone.
Colour matters more than cut. White and cream read beautifully against old walls and badly against a pale street. Red and deep green hold up anywhere. Pastels disappear in bright sun. We will tell you what works where before you choose.
If it belonged to someone, bring that one. An ao dai that was your mother's, or that your grandmother had made, is worth more in a photograph than a perfectly fitted new one, and we will photograph it differently. Our full note on what to wear covers the rest, including the heat.
| What | Included | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Ao dai portrait session | 2 working hours, one location in Hanoi or Saigon, direction in English, edited photographs in one week | $380 |
| Family portraits | 2 working hours, up to 6 people, planned around parents and grandparents | $480 |
| Pre-wedding, Hanoi | 6 hours, 2 locations, gowns and suit, makeup | $780 |
| Pre-wedding, Saigon | 6 hours, up to 2 city locations | $880 |
Tell us the dates you are in the country and which city. We reply within a day with the mornings that are free, a price, and a suggestion for where to shoot. Nothing is charged until you have that in writing.
We direct in English and talk to your family in Vietnamese. If your parents are coming along, that second part turns out to matter more than the first.
USD 380 for two working hours at one location, with the photographer, direction in English, and the edited photographs. Ao dai hire and makeup can be arranged and are quoted separately because they depend on what you choose. If you want a full pre-wedding day instead, that starts at USD 780 in Hanoi and USD 880 in Saigon.
Yes, and a good share of these sessions have nothing to do with a wedding. Couples home for a holiday, sisters who are rarely in the country at the same time, a mother and a daughter, someone marking a birthday in the city they were born in. An ao dai session does not require an occasion.
No. We can arrange the hire, and we will tell you plainly which colours photograph well in the place you have chosen. Bringing your own is welcome too, and if it belonged to your mother or your grandmother, say so, because that changes how we photograph it.
Two hours on the day. You receive the full set of edited photographs, usually several dozen, within one week. We do not sell a fixed quota, because a quiet morning in the Old Quarter and a busy street in Cho Lon do not produce the same number of good frames.
Early. The first two hours after sunrise are the only time the Old Quarter in Hanoi and the older districts of Saigon are empty enough to photograph properly, and the light is soft. It is an unpopular answer and it is the right one.
Yes, and we would encourage it. If that is really what the session is for, our family portrait page is the better fit, because it is planned around older relatives rather than around a couple.