Without an H

Photography from south-east Asia by Jon Sanwell

Red II


I paid a couple of visits to Ta Phin village while I was staying in Sapa. There’s something very compelling about the Red Dao women and their red head scarves.


Market days

Saturday morning in Can Cau market. Mud underfoot, mist above. Women buy and sell, men smoke and drink rice wine.


Sunday morning in Bac Ha market.  Hoped to capture a sense of place, but ended up concentrating mostly on patterns and portraits.


Red (potw #40)

One of the reasons why I went back to colour for my trip north was because of all the greens, yellows and reds I knew I’d come across. If yesterday’s post was all about the green and yellow, today’s is all about the red.  I met this Red Dao (“zow”) mother and daughter in Ta Phin village, north of Sapa.  The family was entertaining a local policeman with rice wine, and they invited me in to join them. The policeman didn’t want his picture taken, and I wasn’t going to argue with him, but the women of the house were happy to humour me.  This shot was taken just inside the side entrance to the house, where they were nicely lit by the sunlight from outside.

Harvest (potw #39)

I’ve just got back from two weeks in northern Vietnam, mostly spent in the hills in and around Sapa and Bac Ha in Lao Cai province, near the Chinese border.  I have a stack of pictures to sort through and I haven’t worked out how I want to present them yet, but I thought I’d start by posting a couple of single pictures of the week.  There’ll be a longer series or two of pictures in the near-ish future.

This shot was taken on a misty, murky afternoon in Cat Cat village, a short walk from Sapa.  The rice harvest was pretty much over by the time I made it up into the hills, but these farmers, for whatever reason, were a little behind everyone else.

Under grey Saigon skies

I’ve been shooting just in black and white for a couple of months now.  I wanted to do something different for my trip to Dalat, so a couple of weeks before leaving, I began my self-imposed black and white challenge, and have continued with it on the few occasions I’ve been out with my camera since coming back to Saigon.  I’m naturally drawn to colour when I’m out with my camera, so shooting with the intention of creating black and white images has made me more selective about who and what I take pictures of.

Much as I’ve enjoyed this black and white phase, I’m also looking forward to going back to colour for a while.  At the weekend, I’m heading north for a couple of weeks.  I’ll be spending most of that time in the hills in Lao Cai province, so you can expect to see lots of green on this blog before too long, though I also have an idea for a black and white series of Hanoi pictures.

Mountain people

“So far away from those tree-lined streets,
Look so neat,
Not for us,
No, fat chance,
We’re the mountain people.”
(Mountain People, Super Furry Animals)

This is my final set of pictures from my July trip to Dalat and the central highlands.



Centurian (potw #37)

This sharply-dressed gent was watching the world go by outside his family’s home furnishings store.  He is, according to his neighbour, one hundred years old.  Anyone who reaches that age is going to have seen a lot in their life, but I think that’s especially true of someone who reaches that age in Vietnam.