Our Team
Every person on our team brings something essential — deep expertise, local knowledge or a teaching philosophy that pushes participants to see and photograph more intentionally.
Joe Newman
Joe is a DC-based photographer, writer, cultural producer, and media strategist who founded f8 Photographic in 2022 to bring his visual storytelling passions under one roof. Over the past decade, he has shot assignments for nonprofit and corporate clients, organized more than a dozen photography workshops to Cuba and Vietnam, edited three Kickstarter-funded photo books, curated numerous exhibitions, and founded the Focus on the Story International Photo Festival (2017–2021).
Founder
Ibarionex Perello
Ibarionex is a photographer, educator, and host of The Candid Frame — one of the most respected photography podcasts in the world, with more than 650 episodes. He has written six photography books, taught workshops across the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Japan, and served as an adjunct professor at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His teaching centers on a simple but demanding idea: that the strongest photographs come from observation, connection, and intention — not from gear or location.
Workshop Leader
Hanoi Field ProducerThu Lê Hoài
Thu is a professional photo and video producer and lifelong Hanoi resident who serves as the local backbone of every X-Pedition Hanoi workshop. As a seasoned fixer and someone who knows northern Vietnam intimately, she brings the kind of on-the-ground access and problem-solving that no amount of advance planning can replicate — if she can't find it or arrange it, she knows someone who can.