burma | Without an H

Posts from the ‘burma’ category

Lugubrious gentleman (and other pictures)

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Yangonites are a fairly cheerful bunch as a rule; this rather solemn looking gent is one of the exceptions.

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Chewing betel leaf is still a very common habit in Myanmar; these pavement stalls can be found on almost every street corner.

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Note to self: eat more bananas.

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Know your onions.

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Individually wrapped apples; only in south-east Asia?

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Good vibes; a Buddhist band prepares to take to the streets.

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Something magical about the early afternoon light in Yangon, even if it’s just falling on an apartment block.

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Sule pagoda; this leafy view is a little misleading as the pagoda is always surrounded by traffic, due to its location in the middle of a downtown roundabout.

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Coconuts & samosas

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Portraits and details, two of my favourite things.

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Red and blue (YSP #3)

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I wrote in my last post that Yangon lends itself to colour photography. I think the portraits in this series would work in black and white, but I like the deep reds and blues.

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This is the second installment of my hopefully continuing Yangon street portraits series. When I used to take this kind of close-up portrait in Hanoi, with my 85mm lens, I always shot in black and white, but there’s something about Yangon that seems to demand to be photographed in colour. So, for now at least, colour it is.

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Happy graffiti (and other pictures)

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A few more pictures from my early days in Yangon; like in Hanoi, so much of life here happens out on the street.

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yangon-fruit-betel

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Yangon tough guys (YSP #1)

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I came across these two tough guys outside one of Yangon’s many construction sites one October morning. Often the most unwelcoming looking people end up being the best subjects for photographs. People are nice, as it turns out.

Early days in Yangon

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Hard to believe, but I’ve been living in Yangon for just over three months now. I’ve not been posting much in that time, but I’ve been out shooting a lot, building up a sizeable, but just about manageable, backlog of pictures. So, not before time, here are some pictures from my first couple of weeks in the city, taken at the end of September last year (as usual, this blog is lagging some way behind real life, and is showing no real inclination to catch up).

It was a strange, busy, exciting time for me. Staying in a hotel and with my new job yet to start in earnest, I was in a kind of limbo for two or three weeks. There was the feeling of freedom and eagerness to explore that comes with being on holiday, mixed with the slight feeling of trepidation and the nagging need to sort out practical things that come with moving to a new country. So while I spent a lot of time taking pictures and reacquainting myself with Yangon, I also had to find myself somewhere to live and start laying the foundations of a long term stay.

These pictures were all taken in Downtown Yangon, the area that I think of as the heart of the city (and where I now live). It feels a little strange, as a Brit, to use the very American-sounding term Downtown, but that’s what the district’s called, so I’ll just have to get used to it (I’ll be calling people ‘dude’ before you know it). Downtown is the ideal area to dive into Yangon life, and an endlessly rewarding location for photography, its grid of numbered streets making it easy to navigate while always holding out the possibility of streets yet to be explored. There’ll be more – probably quite a lot more – pictures from this part of my new home over the next few weeks and months.

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And finally…

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Yangon nightfall

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I tend to put my camera away once the sun has gone down. But one of the things that I’ve been trying to do more of since moving to Yangon is shooting after dark. These pictures were both taken as the sun went down on my second day in Yangon, back in September. Lots more pictures from Yangon coming soon.

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Hanoi / Yangon

Earlier this year, I had my first photography exhibition at the Vietnam in Focus cafe / gallery in Hanoi. Mirror Cities: Hanoi / Yangon was a collection of street portraits from the two cities. The pictures were shown in pairs, Hanoi in black and white, Yangon in colour, with each pair having something in common in terms of subject, style or theme.

The exhibition got a little attention in the Vietnamese media – I had my fifteen minutes of fame (or five and a half minutes of indifference) on VTV4 – but the main benefit for me personally was seeing a collection of my photographs as large prints. I don’t print my pictures nearly enough, and this is something that I’ve resolved to do more in the future.

Mingalar market

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On my last but one day in Yangon, back in November, I found my way to Mingalar market, a huge multi-storey wholesale and retail market a little way north-east of the city centre. (A couple of days earlier while I was out taking pictures, I’d got chatting to a kind man who suggested it as a good location for people photography. This kind of simple helpfulness is typical of Myanmar.) Less obviously attractive, but far more interesting than the central Bogyoke market, Mingalar mainly stocked clothes and fabric, as well as pharmaceuticals and toiletries (as above). It’s a challenging place for a photographer. It’s cramped and crowded, and the people, though friendly, are understandably more interested in the business of buying and selling stuff than in accommodating clumsy photographers. And the light changes as you move around; at the edges, there’s warm natural sunlight from the open windows, while in the centre, there’s near darkness in some places, and harsh bare bulbs in others. But I always enjoy visiting and photographing markets in south-east Asia, and the morning I spent at Mingalar Zay was one of the most memorable of my four-week trip.

Since these pictures were taken, however, the market was gutted by a fire that broke out one night in January of this year. No-one was killed, fortunately, but there was a huge amount of damage. Many, if not all, of the stall-holders have had to be relocated. I wish them well. I understand that this isn’t the first time that the market has been hit by fire, so I’m sure that it will be up and running again soon.

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