On July 22nd, 2026 in Madison, Wisconsin, Corey Ruiz was shot and killed by a Madison Police officer. Photographer Laduma Nguyuza, of sugarfreephotography, has been documenting the activity around the community response to Ruiz’s death.

Nguyuza has been a professional photographer for over 20 years. Shooting portraits, weddings, and tons of other occasions. A long-time Madison resident, I met up with him on August 12, 2026 to talk about his process, his experience photographing the protests and movement around Corey Ruiz, and asked what advice he has for people wanting to improve their craft around photography. Nguyuza also offers his three bits of advice for getting a great picture.

Below is our conversation. The text version below has been edited for clarity and brevity. If you’d like to hear our conversation, you can listen below on the player. You can see more of his photos HERE. 

Tucker Legerski. Do you mind saying your name and your in a title that any title you want to use? 

Laduma Nguyuz I hadn’t thought about having a title. My name is Laduma Nguyuza and I’m a photographer. An all around creative. Photography is one of the things I love to create with.

Tucker Legerski I noticed your Instagram, and also your website, sugar free photography. Lots of great stuff there. Do you know, like the moment you decide you want to get into photography or do you remember how you got into it? Have you been into it a long time or?

Laduma Nguyuz I’ve been into it for a while. My dad always had a camera in his hand growing up. So we’ve always had cameras around. Okay, so I got really used to seeing a camera. He’s a very good photographer. And so when I turned, I think in my mid twenties, I bought my first film camera, a Pentax, and taught myself how to shoot. I fell in love with it right away. 

Tucker Legerski Wow.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. Moved to digital thereafter. And I, I think I’ve been doing this, I would say professionally, if I can use that word for probably twenty years, I’ve been yeah. It’s been a good run actually.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. What do you like. What what made you kind of fall in love with it when you were starting out? Um, if you remember.

Laduma Nguyuz I think it was, it was, it might have been when I was in high school, I took a photography class and we learned how to do double exposure. And I remember taking a picture of my buddy Kevin’s face and a picture of him sitting on a bench, you know, putting him on one photo. And I mean, I’m, I’m of a certain generation. I mean, that was like, was thirty some odd years ago, And, you know, in the in the nineties, we didn’t have what we have today. So being able to create something like that at school was like, whoa, what else can this thing do?

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Yeah. Uh, gosh. And with like, taking, seeing that changes. And I feel like analog and like all that kind of stuff has sort of made a comeback in some ways, maybe not quite in photography, like versus something like in vinyl record or something like that. But has your approach changed a lot over those? Maybe it hasn’t. It hasn’t since you started out that way. Yeah.

Laduma Nguyuz It’s changed a lot since I grew up on film. You really had the one shot and that was it. So I got very comfortable with the settings on a camera. And today I shoot all manual, you know, so I need to be able to control everything. But when I got my first digital camera and the reason why I decided to call it sugar free is because I didn’t love all of the layers and masks and in Photoshop. You know, that was going on on photographs.

I wanted mine to be just what you saw. But I got my hands on a good post-processing software and I started messing around and I thought, wow, it might be fun to go this way. I don’t I still don’t do layers of Photoshop. It’s all it’s all still single photo. I’ll go into Lightroom and change colors, contrast, whatever. Um, but yeah, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t do any, any layered photo editing like that. I wanted, I want you to be the observer when you look at the, what I do.

Tucker Legerski What do you think the value is learning manual versus learning these, these layers on it?

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. You have to anticipate it a little bit more. You know, if you’re learning manual and you walk into a place, you have to think about how it’s lit. And then if you’re getting a group of people that are standing right next to each other, you got to think about your the f stop. So you get everybody clear.

But if it’s a group of folks who are standing like a traditional wedding stance and there’s five or six people deep, you have to change that. And, you know, do you, do you are you shooting inside and then running outside and then going back inside and going back outside and all that stuff has to change. So it keeps me locked into my device.

It keeps me locked into thinking about photography the whole time. That’s why I shoot manual. That’s why I only ever shoot prime lenses. So a straight thirty five, a fifty and an eighty five. I don’t shoot telephoto. Yeah. It makes me have to anticipate and it makes me have to engage with whatever’s in front of me.

Tucker Legerski So when you’re, when you’re doing photography, I know you’ve done like portraits and stuff like that, but you’re also doing, I don’t know if you would call it like photojournalism, but you’re definitely like capturing moments as they’re happening, right? They’re not like poses.

What’s your approach to that? Especially if, and  we can get into this a little bit later,  but how do you capture like a protest or capture, I guess live action stuff that’s happening where it’s not obviously a portrait, which is a different approach, I guess.

Laduma Nguyuz Sure. I think the involvement and the engagement is still the still the answer, even when I shoot portraits. Many people who I shoot with, I don’t like to pose and then shoot, you know, ask anybody who I’ve shot in the last couple of years, they’ll tell you that I like to. I like to meet people at the shot.

So I’ll tell you what the pose is supposed to look like. And then I’ll tell you just to stand like a stick. And then when you get into the pose, the minute you’re there, I’m there. So it doesn’t look like someone standing there posing. You know, it looks like you got them in the moment. So I, yeah, I, I approach wedding photography the same way.

You know, you have to understand the program and what’s going on and when the kiss is happening and when the, you know, all the traditional stuff is happening, but also who are the friends? Who are the two or three troublemakers that, you know, later on are going to be cutting up in the corner? Keep an eye on them.

You know, you’re going to get some good photography from them because they’ll be laughing and smiling. You know who’s the jokester? Follow him because he’ll probably have people laughing. And that makes for good photography. And so as it translates into protests, you know, it’s not as gleeful as a wedding, but it’s still a lot of action, a lot of anticipation. People are doing things and my senses are so much more heightened at were heightened at this, at this protest, this last set that I did. You know, it was a lot to take in, you know, and I certainly missed a lot of shots for sure. Missed a lot of shots.

Tucker Legerski Oh yeah?

Laduma Nguyuz Because something’s happening all the time.

Tucker Legerski I think that’s another thing. I think people worry, or at least from what I’ve talked to photographers like it’s always a worry: Am I getting the right shot? What am I missing? I have to dedicate to something. How do you make those choices?

Laduma Nguyuz Well, if I’m if I’m looking for something specific, like let’s take a wedding, for example. I’m looking to show, you know, joy and love and connection and all this other stuff. I’m looking for those moments, looking for those, for those shots and trying to catch those at the protest. Wow, man, there was so much going on.

It was really it was really where I was standing, you know, in the place that I’m standing. And again, I only shoot Prime, so I don’t have a lot of time to be fumbling through lenses. I’m standing here. I’ve got a thirty five in my hand. What am I, what am I going to get? What’s going to make sense for right, exactly where I am?

Or I’m across the street and I got my eighty five in my hand. What am I going to get, you know, across the way? So trying to I think putting constraints on myself. Sometimes allows the creativity to flow because I know I can only play in these rules, but I’ve got all this stuff that I can shoot, but I can only use this, you know, this fifty millimeter lens to get it. So it makes me have to see it differently.

Tucker Legerski And you were talking about meeting folks, whether the wedding or like a protest or anything else in between, I guess. Do you feel like that’s part of your role as to kind of meet those folks before you’re actually shooting, or if it allows? I guess it depends on the situation.

Laduma Nguyuz If it allows, but then I’m also paying attention. Um, what I, what I don’t, what I love to do is catch people when they don’t even know that I shot the photo like at all, and they’re in the background or I’m in, I’m in the background. But while I’m doing that, my ears are perked up and I’m listening to, you know, who’s talking about what is this organizer? Is this a leader? Is this person going to grab a microphone in a minute?

Is this person, you know, if we’re taking it back to the wedding, is this, like I said before, is this the comedian? Is this the funny person? You know, who where do I have to be to sit and get that information or get that capture?

Tucker Legerski Have  you’ve encountered issues like situations where folks didn’t want the photo or if they’ve noticed, uh, how do you navigate that space if people are like, don’t take my photo. And obviously there’s, especially in public spaces, you’re allowed to, there’s laws, right? That you can take certain photos. Like they don’t really maybe have a say, but sometimes, sometimes you want to honor their permission, I imagine.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah, at the protest, I did a lot of that because it’s a very intimate, tight space. And so I would ask people: do you mind if I, if I get photos so I can tell the story of what’s happening? And people would be fine, but if I pull my camera up and I’m getting ready to shoot and people are, you know, covering their faces, I’m going to walk away. That doesn’t make for a good photography. You know? Yeah. People, people need to be comfortable.

Tucker Legerski Absolutely.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah.

Tucker Legerski If someone was getting new into photography and going into that kind of experience or something similar, I don’t know if you have advice for folks to how to get, because I think that’s hard for a lot of people to like, just ask strangers, can I take your photo? Or like, at least I have found when I’ve talked to students, even just doing journalism work, like asking, like when you’re out on the street, you want to ask someone just, to get information. I don’t know if you have advice for overcoming that or if you I don’t know if you ever get worried when you ask people permission

Laduma Nguyuz It’s always I mean, it depends on the situation. It really does depend on the situation. Some people are really hesitant to be to be shot on camera and people say, oh, I look terrible. And then I’m like, look, this is the photo I shot of you. It’s beautiful. You know, you look great. What are you talking about? And that’s my tagline for Sugar Free. Everyone’s beautiful. Everyone. You can, I mean, and every single person I’ve shot for a lot of those portraits that are on the website, none of them are models. They’re all just people.

Tucker Legerski Yeah.

Laduma Nguyuz You know, people I’ve met people I worked with, uh, people who hired me, you know, but no one no one was taught how to do anything professional. It’s just a matter of, having that conversation with the subject. Whether it’s me and you doing a portrait or I’m having a conversation with a heated protest, and I’m trying to talk to this, to the community in a way, through my lens, because I know at the end, when I’m done, I have to go in and report, I have to, I have to post it.

And so bravery is really what you need to be able to just ask, ask them, you know, if it’s an important thing, like a protest, I’m just going to do it. Most of the time. I need to get in there and see what’s happening. But you know, I’ve seen those guys on TikTok who will stop and say, hey, I’m a portrait photographer and I want to take a picture. I’ve never done that before. That sounds brave as hell. You know, and I’ve thought about it. I’ve got a portfolio I could show you that I do, you know, do some work. But I don’t know. I think there needs to be more of a relationship. If I’m shooting you with portraits, who knows? Maybe that’s something I could explore.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Uh, yeah. I can’t remember what photographer does, but there’s like a, there’s a pretty popular YouTube video of someone doing that and explaining how maybe the person who does Humans of New York or whatever. Yeah.

Laduma Nguyuz That too.

Tucker Legerski That is beautiful. Yeah, it’s great stuff. Yeah. But I think he does have, I don’t know, Brandon Sanders, I can’t remember his name, but he I think there’s an explanation video. And it’s because yeah, just having the amount of courage to do that, it would take a lot for me at least. Just randomly on the street.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. Yeah.

Tucker Legerski I’m thinking of this specific, Instagram photo of this photo that you posted of these two folks that were like sitting in long chairs. I think the caption was something like you wrote, that you learned more about this, your old neighborhood where, the Corey Ruiz’s Memorial was that you learned more in two hours than you had in a long time. Do you mind talking a little bit about that experience?

Laduma Nguyuz Absolutely. That was such a man, such an enriching experience. I used to live in that area. Um, I lived on Jennifer Street. I lived on State Street. Okay. In my formative years, when I got to Madison. And what happened this time is on Wednesday, Corey was was killed.

On Thursday, I had a planned vacation. And so Wednesday I was down there taking my the first set of the initial protest, blood still on the ground and then had to go on vacation, you know, and like vacation with my family who, who I enjoy and I love. We’ve been looking forward to this for months.

And I’m also now living this thing through my mobile phone. You know, it was I hate to make it boo hoo me, but it was a bit of a torture, I wanted to be able to talk to somebody, a madisonian who’s also fucking pissed off and, you know, yell with each other. I wanted to yell at, yell at the police. And so there was all this stuff inside. And then when I got back, the first thing I did was I went right, right down to Willy Street and with camera in hand.

And I just started talking to folks. I told him exactly what I told you. I was here Wednesday. I saw what happened. I want to tell a story because all the stories that I was seeing when we were on vacation, it just didn’t sound like my town, the mainstream media. I was like, come on, man, this is not Madison.

Like people are just really painting this to be something that is not. And that’s why I need to go down there and see it. But when I finally got down there, I just started talking to folks and, um, they just told me what happened, told me what was going on.

We cried together and, you know, got mad together. And I felt like it was the anointment for me to be able to say, okay, now that I’ve really sat and talked to folks and learned about what happened, not only with Corey, but just sort of how the neighborhood has been running for a while, it felt a little it felt a little bit more comfortable, and then, you know, the folks who I spoke with, I would take photos of them. But two, uh, the two people in the lawn chair.

Oh my goodness. That was such a hilarious photo with their dog. The lady I was, I said, can I take a picture of you? And she of the two of you. And she was like, yeah. And then she cracks this terribly inappropriate joke that I’m not going to repeat. And everybody blew up laughing. So I just started snapping my fingers off, to try to capture that. But after that, I would see the same, the same folks every time I’d go down. So then people would recognize me.

Um, and, um, I just, I guess I didn’t realize how deep the relationship with the businesses that the community has. I talked to a lady speaking of stuff I didn’t learn. I talked to a lady who told me about Rick from Rick’s old Gold and how she, I think she’s known him for dozens of years or something like this. You know, stories of people who went to school in the area. And I guess I didn’t… it didn’t calculate to me that people have lived here all their lives. Because I was at this event. It was very shocking. And once I, once I kind of realized that I was like, damn, this is my hood, you know? And these folks, these folks are going through it.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Well that’s incredible. Thanks for sharing all that.

Laduma Nguyuz It was so, so enriching. I just yeah.

Tucker Legerski It’s amazing how — maybe this happens with any very dramatic and intense events, whether they’re small or big meaning like they get lots of attention or they’re just like something in your small in your family. — these events seem to  create lots of story or people just are willing to share more. Maybe it felt this way of like opening up to folks like, or people were opening up to you. Yeah. Just sharing histories and stories. Which is incredible.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. It’s kind of like, you know, people get together in a mass and in the same place and with the same specifically strong idea. It creates something in that space that allows you to move through conversation and connection differently than if you talk to the very same person at a bus stop, right? You know, there’s, I mean, there’s just something there. We all feel it, you know? You know how it feels to be in a room full of people. Even if you close your eyes, you know, you’re in a room full of people, you know. Yeah. It feels away. You know, you add some. You add energy and tragedy and anger and protest and community. You add that together. It creates a thing.

Tucker Legerski Absolutely. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. And so one of my one of my kind of last questions, going back to kind of like the skill of photography: I don’t know if you have like general ideas of like how, what makes a great shot?

Laduma Nguyuz I’ll get a little technical. The the thing to know is aperture, which controls how much of what you’re looking at is in focus from a depth perception. So not like left to right, but like in and out, So the layers of people going behind you, the higher your f stop, the more they’re going to be in focus.

And there’s ways to use that in photography and there’s ways to do what, you know, the what’s called bokeh when you have a very low aperture. And the just the thing in front of you is in focus and everything else is blurred out. It makes for great drama and everything else in between. Know how to manipulate that.

The second one is the shutter speed. Know how to manipulate that. That really just tells the machine how quickly to take the picture. If it takes it slowly and there’s motion, you get a trail. If it takes you, quickly, and you don’t have, and you know, it’s not enough light, it’ll be dark. So know that one too.

And then the last one is the ISO and that tells us how much information am I getting from this photo? And the higher the ISO, the more information. Keep in mind that there’s speckles of dust that you and I can’t see. Graininess and I can’t see. So if I’m cranking that thing all the way up, that’s where I’m going to get my. That’s too much information. You know, if I. And if ISO needs is looking at the light source, if I’m outside and it’s bright and sunny, the sun is giving me all the info I need. And so my ISO and my camera’s going to be low.

And so anytime I get into a space, I think of a range, where am I probably going to be in a range for my aperture, for my ISO, for my shutter speed. Now, having said that, that’s a lot to try to remember, right? So when I started, I started with just aperture. You can set your camera to aperture priority and get, just get really good at knowing, telling yourself, I want it to look like this and then trying to get it there using just the aperture priority. Once you get that, switch it over to shutter speed.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Yeah.

Laduma Nguyuz And then the whole time you’re your, your camera, the computer will tell you what shutter speed matches what aperture and vice versa. So you you practice with one, you get good practice with the other get good. Then just go manual.

Tucker Legerski Yeah, I, I love it.

Laduma Nguyuz For anybody reading or listening, you know, the one auto automatic thing I would keep on for, you know, for a long while is auto ISO because that’s just going to tell me how much information, as I said before, and auto ISO and all I have to do is think of the shutter speed and aperture that gives me a little, it gives me the control, but I don’t have to think about it as much. And that’s the only one that I would just let choose by itself.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Awesome.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah.

Tucker Legerski Uh, one more on that technical question. Like with so there’s so many cameras out there and you probably get this all the time. So I’m sorry if it’s over shopworn kind of question, but like, what kind of camera? Because I think a lot of people also think I have a great phone, and certainly you could get a good photo with a phone, but what’s the argument for going to a camera I guess over a phone? Like what kind of camera should someone be looking for if they want to get into photography?

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah, that’s tough because we’re in a transition period from single lens reflex, which is what I shoot to mirrorless. And really the single lens reflex is a machine that goes kachunk. It literally opens something and closes it. It opens it to a mirror and then closes it. And that mirror writes the information to the to the sensor. And then the sensor gives you the image. And all the numbers I just talked about decide how clear or faded or grainy that photo is, With a mirrorless, it’s different technology, it just takes it and it’s digital. I’m an old I’m an old soul. And so I haven’t embraced the mirrorless yet.

Tucker Legerski Got it.

Laduma Nguyuz You know, and I’m plus I’m just a curmudgeon when it comes to technology. Sometimes it took me forever to get to digital. It’s like I will never shoot digital. That’s for you lazy photographers. You need to go. You know, as soon as I got a D50 in hand, it was like, oh man, you know. So I’ll get there.

I have a pretty yeah, I have a pretty high end SLR now, but I’ll get I’ll get there. But choose. Choose what based on what you’re going to shoot. Yeah. There’s always this conversation of canon versus Sony versus Nikon versus this and that. I’m a Nikon guy through and through simply because I bought a Nikon D50 twenty years ago. Had I bought a canon twenty years ago, I’d have been a canon guy all the way through. Yeah. It’s about the, you know, the user interface, right? 

You could put any Nikon in my hand, even the ones my mother in law, my late mother in law gave me a Nikon film camera and I know it. It’s from the seventies, man. You know what I mean? Like, I’ll pick it up. Yeah, I’ll pick it up. I’m like, yeah, this is familiar. Yeah. And you know, I’ve picked up Nikon mirrorless ones and they feel it feels familiar. So people who, you know, they both shoot great.

Tucker Legerski Right. You know, I don’t think you can go wrong when it comes to the brand.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah, canon makes great cameras. Sony makes great cameras. So does Nikon. Yeah, I’m just a Nikon guy.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Fair enough. Awesome.

Laduma Nguyuz Let me, let me, let me double back. I’ll answer the question with with your phone. It’s interestingly enough, when we were on vacation, I was looking for an attachment to my phone that made it feel like, like a shutter because we went to a beach and we were taking pictures of sunsets and things like that. And the phone, at least the iPhone, does a really good job of making a ton of calculations for you.

And then it gives you an image that is most likely really, really good based on its computer. Sometimes it turns out fantastic, but there’s a lack of control. So if you got a really great phone and you’re taking really great pictures, your composition is probably good and the phone’s giving you a combination of your ISO, shutter speed, clarity, saturation, tint, sharpness, shadows, highlights the whole thing in this like optimal situation.

And ninety percent of the time it looks good. So if you can compose, your phone will be great. But if you want more control to deal with light and shadow and make things look darker or lighter, or really just kind of play a little bit more with what you’re looking at. That’s what I’m moving to a camera.

Tucker Legerski Okay, gotcha. That’s great advice too. And you know, I’ve seen like sometimes there’s these apps that try to like that you can change, like you can try to create more control. I forget there’s something with an H and I can’t remember the name of it now. But I don’t know if those, I haven’t played with them at all, so I don’t know how much. You’re probably still better just sticking with a camera if you really want to move into that control versus like going through an app of some kind. But that’s yeah, that’s a good note though.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. I mean, you know, like for an example, I would, I would not take my iPhone into a low light situation. It will give me a bright picture and that’s what it’s supposed to do. But it’s going to take a longer exposure. It’s just not going to be as as nimble, even though it’s going to give me a good exposure if I just sit there. If I have my camera in the same scenario, I can quickly change the settings and then boom, boom, boom, get what I need. So I have been trying to embrace it’s a damn good camera on the iPhone. It’s phenomenal. I got some crazy beach pictures like, Holy crap, this is a phone. Yeah. Like what?

Tucker Legerski Yeah yeah yeah. No, they they’re good.

Laduma Nguyuz If you want to call yourself a photographer, get your ass a camera

Tucker Legerski there’s nothing that beats actually like going out and doing the photography yourself and like, getting out and doing it. But do you have any photographers that you would suggest besides yourself of like following or checking out to learn from or kind of like, or any other resources?

Laduma Nguyuz I, I don’t have anybody specific, but I always, no matter who I’m shooting, especially with portraits. I always Google, you know, uh, positioning a, you know, very tall man in a suit for photos. And there’s always some ideas. I’m like, oh, that’s good, that’s good.

Or I’ll look up images, you know, I’m shooting, I’m shooting some buddies of mine. They’re in a band. There’s three of them. So I just looked up showing me three, three dudes and photos. And what I’m paying attention to is like, not necessarily. What are they wearing? Where are they sitting? You know, what shapes are being made? What’s the composition? How does it look?

And then when I get to my three guys, I’m going to have some of that information and whatever else is inspiring in the in the area to then be able to do something with it. So I always suggest go and Google, shooting three, five year olds and their mom and making it look good and kind of get some information about what you can do to compose and then go, go from there.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Awesome. I love that. Cool. Those are all the questions I had. Is there anything that I didn’t ask that you wish I would have asked or about photography or anything else that we’ve talked about, today.

Laduma Nguyuz One thing I will say about photography is there’s the one part of it is taking the photo and then the post-production is the next part of it. Okay. And that potentially could be a whole separate conversation. But one of my guiding principles is when I’m what we call culling, you know, so I’ll go to a photo, go to a wedding, and I’ll throw off fifteen hundred shots. Easy.

And I go back and I have to get them down to something a little bit easier to look at. You know, for a lot of those shots, I have four or five or six of the same because I’m trying to catch the right. I’ve got the composition, but I’m trying to catch the right moment. And so only one of them is going to make it. Nobody wants to see six pictures of the same thing in slow motion. So I encourage myself, encourage people to be brutal when you’re culling.

Tucker Legerski Yeah.

Laduma Nguyuz Just keep looking through it. And if it’s if it’s not good, my culling mechanism is rating. I’ll rate everything first and then I’ll flag everything. That’s really good. Then I’ll edit it all and then I’ll go back and reflag the best, and then I’ll pick from those two. So from from that. So it goes very, very deep. But that very first layer be brutal. If the thumbnail, if the photo doesn’t grab you, just looking at it, get rid of it. Yeah. You’re not going to go into your color settings and contrast settings and make it more appealing or make it look better. Get rid of it.

Tucker Legerski Yeah, no, that’s good advice. Just the editing process of like being able to say no to something

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah, yeah, get rid of it. Just get rid of it. Spend your time looking at the four or five that are in a burst and get the best of the four or five. But if the if the frame isn’t talking, move on.

Tucker Legerski Okay. Yeah. Awesome. One thing I’m thinking that with editing: Is there a way to, like, sharpen that skill? Or maybe it’s just like sort of intuition of like, knowing, does this photograph speaks to me or this one is going to speak.

Laduma Nguyuz It, feel it. I think it’s a feeling one one um, what a photographer that I respect. I forget his name. I used to we used to have conversations about this. He looks at his photos via thumbnail. This dude is crazy.

Tucker Legerski And he makes the decisions.

Laduma Nguyuz The thumbnail man. He’s like, if the thumbnail isn’t popping, it’s not a great photo. I’m like. My situation is brutal because when I’m calling in front of people, they’re like, oh, come on, man. I’m like, nah, that’s not it. That’s not top tier. That’s a good photo. But I’m, I want to give you the best of the best. Just because I shot fifteen hundred doesn’t mean you know that they’re all good. It means, you know, out of a out of a fifteen hundred, maybe one hundred and twenty. I’ll give you maybe one hundred and twenty.

Tucker Legerski Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s, I mean, I think that’s one of the hardest.

Laduma Nguyuz Skills.

Tucker Legerski Right? Like, especially if you have a wedding or even like any, probably any situation like a protest or something too, is like you probably taking dozens and dozens just to because you’re unsure and you’re making all these choices, right? But that’s so that maybe. I think it’s probably just practicing. Right? Yeah. Seeing it and that develops that muscle of choice.

Laduma Nguyuz Right. And after a while, you’re just, you know, don’t be thumbnail brutal to start out. Not like my homie, which I wish I could give him a credit. I forget his name. Uh, yeah. Don’t be thumbnail brutal, but be be stern. Don’t. Don’t linger.

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Awesome. Well, where can people find you if they need, if you want to check out your Instagram or your sugar free photography.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. Sugar free sugar free photography dot com is where you can find my stuff. I can, you can have conversations with me on Instagram, sugar free photography, All one word not spelled in a fun way. Sugar free photography.

Tucker Legerski I’m glad you got that handle. That’s good.

Laduma Nguyuz Man, I gotta tell you funny story. A year or two after I got that handle, people were knocking at my door to get it. My wife and I were sitting. Can I tell this quick story?

Tucker Legerski Yeah. Of course.

Laduma Nguyuz Wife and I then girlfriend. My wife Katie and I were sitting after having a hard night of New Year’s Eve party. Okay. Hung over. Just crazy. Hung over. And so I wrote something up, and I’m sitting on the couch. You know what? I need a website. And at that moment, it seemed like a great idea. And so I went to GoDaddy, and I went to SmugMug first and bought a subscription. And I’m going to give it a trial. And my wife was like, what the hell are you doing? I’m like, I’m going to start a website. And I was like, I need a name for it. And I was like, you know what? Sugar free photography. And she said, what? I said, yeah, sugar free photography. It sounds good, man. And I just ran with it. And anytime I tell anybody the name of the, the company or my moniker. Yeah, it always brings a bit of a delight. It’s fun to say.

Tucker Legerski what year was that or roughly or how long ago?

Laduma Nguyuz Oh man.

Tucker Legerski I’m just wondering when that domain was available just because you have the domain, right? Oh yeah. Photography dot com.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. And people, you know, people have sugar dash free, like sugar free photo. And I’m like, huh, bitches, man. We were, we weren’t married, we weren’t married. So at least more than seventeen years ago. Okay. So like maybe twenty years or so ago. When I got.

Tucker Legerski That’s amazing. I mean, I think it’s a great name for and hearing the story behind it too, of like, it’s without the filters, without the, all the other kind of bells and whistles.

Laduma Nguyuz Yeah. It’s just like you get what you get.

Tucker Legerski Yeah, I love that. Well, thanks so much for chatting with me and taking the time to share all this stuff. So it means a lot.

Laduma Nguyuz Thank you. Yeah. You’re easy to talk to, man.

Tucker Legerski Well.

Laduma Nguyuz You’re super easy to talk with.

Tucker Legerski Oh, cool. Well, that’s good to hear.