Meet Mong Bui of iMONGination Creative Agency in Midtown

Mong, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am a woman with many hats (literally and metaphorically). I am a digital marketer who specializes in SEO and Google Ads campaigns. I am also a model, photo retoucher, and product photographer. I also take portraits sometimes when I feel inspired. I’m here today to mainly talk about iMONGination Creative Agency which comprises of my modeling, retouching, and natural light product photography.

I started modeling when I was living in Houston, TX back in July 2017. I did a decent amount of one-on-one shoots with local photographers in Houston and Austin, TX. I started going to creative meet-ups just a few months before I moved.

For those who don’t know what creative meet-ups are, they are events hosted by one or a few creative individuals (photographer, videographer, or model) that all creatives can meet, network, and create new content at the pre-determined location, date, and time. I got into retouching and renewed my interest in product photography after I started modeling. I used to be a marketing and operations manager for a shoe company, and one of my responsibilities was to create flat-lay content for its digital marketing.

I moved to Atlanta in April 2018 for new job opportunities, a change of scenery, and most importantly to be with my boyfriend who has been living and working here a couple of months before me. I became very active in going to meet-ups in Atlanta because I was new to the city and this was the quickest way to meet like-minded individuals! Within a few months, I became one of the moderators for a very active creative community called Collab ATL. I am also a member of Atlanta Creatives. Everyone in these creative groups is so kind and helpful. They really help me feel at home in Atlanta.

The more shoots I do, the better I am at posing and controlling my expressions. I practice retouching whenever I can with photos that I take or with photos other photographers gave me permission to edit. If there’s one thing I learned about myself during this process, it’s that I like retouching more than taking photos. I feel more overwhelmed holding my tiny Fujifilm X100F than I do when I’m editing in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, which have 30 times more settings than a camera does. I’m weird.

Everyone I’ve met along my journey has somehow helped me to be where I am today as a creative and I am very grateful.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No road is ever smooth. I’m going to break my response down into three parts to touch on each of my creative endeavors.

In regards to modeling:
I always felt awkward in front of the camera especially when I first started modeling. For photos with friends and family, I usually stand there and smile or make silly faces. That’s not what a model does. To me, a model expresses emotions and represent the clothing and props in an artistic manner.

Studying my own photos made me REALLY aware of my insecurities, and we all have those. I eventually remembered that God made everything in His beautiful divine image. Having insecurities is a natural human thing to have but also irrational if you think about it. I’m a big advocate for self-love. If you don’t love and respect yourself for all that you are, then you can’t expect others to love and respect you.  Everything and everyone are beautiful in their own way. We just have to learn to accept ourselves and what God gave us. I embraced this, and it helped me grow so much as a person and as a model.

In regards to retouching:
My biggest struggle is envisioning how I want to the final photo to look like. You can transform a photo in so many ways. I used to like cool tones a lot, but now I find myself editing more warm tones.

It’s also very easy to over-edit a photo. So many photographers and bloggers are abusing apps like FaceTune to the point where the subject doesn’t look human anymore and more like a mannequin or even alien. Going back to my point of appreciating the beauty in everything and everyone, it’s okay to have flaws and PORES. We are HUMANS.

To this day, I am still working on my retouching aesthetics, but I make sure that I don’t go overboard with edits.

In regards to photography:
I used to think my struggle is not have a big fancy camera and all the different lenses, but now, I am pretty good at making the best out of my current resource. I mentioned previously that I have a Fujifilm X100F. It’s a very compact mirrorless camera but very powerful. I’ve only used the lens that it came with and it served me just fine.

I think my struggle now is to find inspirations to do more portraits. Photography is a very saturated market now, and I have trouble finding something that is uniquely mine to shoot. Maybe I should just get over myself and start taking more photos of people haha.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about iMONGination Creative Agency – what should we know?
iMONGination Creative Agency provides services in modeling, photo retouching, and product photography. If I have to choose, I would say I specialize in product photography, but in actuality, I do it all. I want to create in as many forms as possible.

I pride myself in being a well-rounded individual. What sets me apart is that I’m a model who understands lighting and tones through doing my own photography and editing in addition to just knowing how to style, pose, and express.

 You can view samples of my work and learn about my processes on imongination.com

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Oh gosh, a collective effort and support of so many people has helped me! I don’t even know where to start!

My friend Josh Atkins was the photographer who helped kickstart my modeling endeavor and also showed me the basics of editing in Lightroom.

Gaby Yu, one of my closest friends, is a model and also one of my source of inspirations. She’s so beautiful and talented. She’s one of my biggest cheerleaders on social media AND in real life.

The one person who may beat Gaby at being my biggest supporter is my loving boyfriend, Joey Schwartz. I am so blessed to have such an open-minded significant other. I do nude/implied shoots sometimes. I always let him know, and he’s always okay with it and very supportive of me. That’s true love and trust right there, folks.

Caelyn Pho, another one of my close friends, helped me get a feature in VoyageHouston a while back. We haven’t known each other for too long (a little over a year) but we get along so well and so naturally, it feels like we’ve known each other for years!