Find Posts By Topic

Seattle City (spot)Light: Son M. Nguyen

This week in (spot)Light, get to know Son M. Nguyen in his own words.

Son Nguyen has worked for Seattle City Light for 14 years. He’s a technical lead for the web team and currently works with City of Seattle IT. His job includes maintaining internal and external web servers and systems/applications. Son enjoys helping people by making their jobs and customer experience easier.

As a 3-year-old child in 1975, Son immigrated to Washington with his family after the end of the war in Vietnam.  He earned an associate’s degree in computer science from Edmonds College and began working for the city soon after.

sonspotlight
Web Developer Son M. Nguyen

I have too many hobbies, but mostly I like golf and photography. Photography isn’t something I really intended to do, but when I had babies, my wife wanted to take pictures. That’s how it started.

I took pictures of my kids and from there I grew into it. I just bought a camera and played with it to try and understand how to make my photos better. One of my pictures recently won the employee photo contest. It’s a cityscape taken at night from a park on Beacon Hill. Taking pictures at night is more difficult because you need a lower shutter speed and have to understand the mechanics of the camera. The technical side is the best part. But I’m only just beginning to do landscapes.

I like taking portraits and pictures of people the most. It’s a timepiece. When I look at an old photo, I can see a moment or a trend captured in time. I remember a photo of me as a kid in front of a grocery chain that doesn’t exist anymore in the Rainier Valley. That’s where I grew up. And that’s what’s so interesting about photos. Pictures can bring back memories.