Without an H

Streets of Yangon III

150215-064-edited

In a few weeks, I’m heading back to Myanmar, this time for just over a month. I’m looking forward to seeing parts of the country that I didn’t have time to explore earlier in the year, but I’m also really excited about spending time in Yangon again. Although I spent a fair amount of time there on my first trip, I feel that there’s a lot more still to see and experience.

Thinking about my return trip has made me look again through the pictures from my first visit, and I found quite a few that I liked, but which I hadn’t posted before – so I thought it was time for a third and final installment in my Streets of Yangon series. These pictures were all taken in Yangon in February and March of this year.

150215-093-edited

150215-136-edited

150215-091-edited

150215-061-edited

150215-279-edited

150215-420-edited

150217-109-edited-2

yangon-portraits

150217-215-edited

150217-250-edited-2

150305-060-edited

150217-286-edited

150218-005-edited

150304-011-edited

150304-015-edited

150304-044-edited

150304-067-edited

150305-069-edited

Shwedagon Paya

150215-472-edited

Some images of Yangon’s beautiful Shwedagon Paya at nightfall. These were taken back in February during a three week trip to Myanmar. I was so taken in by Yangon’s people and streetlife that in my earlier posts I neglected to include any pictures of the city’s most iconic sight.

150215-453-edited
150215-478-edited
150215-525-edited
150215-533-edited
150215-545-edited

The thieves’ market

150818-027-edited

The thieves’ market in Hanoi is nowhere near as sinister or unwelcoming as the name suggests. It’s a network of narrow lanes and alleys in Hai Ba Trung district, packed with open-fronted shops and ramshackle market stalls, offering machine parts, car parts, bike parts, wires, cables, chains, locks, springs, pipes, lights, screws, rivets and countless other mysterious (to me, at least) pieces of metal and plastic. It has a reputation for being the place where stolen vehicle parts and electronics turn up – hence the name – but I didn’t experience any aggression or suspicion as I wandered around with my camera, just a bunch of busy people going about their day-to-day business of buying and selling stuff made of metal. As is so often the case in markets in south-east Asia, very similar stalls are tightly clustered together – a row of electricity meter merchants here, a stretch of hub cap vendors there – apparently unconcerned by the close proximity of direct competition. Some of the shops are little more than booths, just a few feet wide, where shopkeepers sit in tiny, cramped, cluttered spaces, surrounded by their wares. Take a wrong turn (or a right turn, or maybe a left) and you end up in the nearby fish and poultry market. If you need new sprockets for your motorbike and a freshly slaughtered chicken for your dinner, this is the neighbourhood to come to.

I hadn’t originally intended to present these pictures in black and white, but I like the contrast between the dark, dirty shadows of the shops and the soft afternoon sunlight filtering through from outside, and I think the black and white treatment brings this out better than colour would.

150826-092-edited

150818-122-edited

150826-142-edited

Untitled-3

150818-068-edited

150826-036-edited

150818-148-edited

Untitled-1

150826-085-edited

Untitled-4

150818-019-edited

150818-327-edited

150818-344-edited

Untitled-2

150826-132-edited

150818-044-edited

Hanoi misc.

150823-076-edited-2

A slightly random selection of pictures from the last few weeks. No particular story or theme here – just some images of Hanoi that I like.

150823-069-edited-3

150823-014-edited-2

150823-058-edited-2

150811-131-edited-3

150805-128-edited

150805-209-edited-2

150823-088-edited

150805-277-edited

150811-262-edited

150805-287-edited

Chat

150809-132-edited-2

I don’t normally take pictures of people from the other side of the street, as I don’t like feeling like a sniper. But I’ll make exceptions now and then; in this case, I wanted to catch the stillness of the chatting women and the movement of the passing traffic.

Spice up your life

150809-010-edited-2

For the last couple of weeks – and my last couple of blog posts – I’ve been concentrating on shooting details, photographing the colours, textures and patterns that have caught my eye around the city. As well as looking for different subject matter, I’ve also been wandering in areas that I haven’t been to much lately, and using a lens, my 50mm, that I haven’t used for ages. It’s good sometimes to make yourself shoot in a different way, to break out of your usual habits. Having said that, I still couldn’t resist making a few portraits, which is what this post is all about. The last picture in this set is, I suppose, a portrait, but one that I probably wouldn’t have taken if I hadn’t been thinking about details.

150811-180-edited-2

150805-146-edited-2

150809-062-edited-2

150811-065-edited

150811-243-edited-2

150811-192-edited

Hats, locks, ducks and other things

Untitled-1

Some more details from the streets and markets of Hanoi.

150809-003-edited 150809-006-edited 150809-047-edited 150809-044-edited 150809-048-edited 150811-004-edited 150811-026-edited-2 150811-043-edited-2 150811-164-edited 150811-167-edited 150811-226-edited 150811-232-edited

A birdcage, a kettle and some other things

Untitled-8

You know that you’ve been living in Hanoi for a long time when you don’t notice that there’s a severed pig’s head in a bowl of water by your feet. Wherever you live, it’s easy to take the details for granted, which is partly why I set myself the task this week of photographing some of the colours, shapes, patterns and objects I see all the time in Hanoi. I didn’t get a picture of the pig’s head – it was moving too fast – but the city had plenty of other things to offer.

Untitled-7
Untitled-4
Untitled-12
Untitled-2
Untitled-6
Untitled-11
Untitled-13
Untitled-14
Untitled10
Untitled-16

In the eyes

Untitled-1

I was making a concerted effort today to not shoot any portraits. I just about managed it.

Every day is market day

150621-242-edited These pictures were all taken about a month ago, on one of those days when everything just worked and pictures seemed to flow into my camera of their own accord. I love it when that happens, and I wish there was a switch I could click to make it happen at my command.