vietnam | Without an H

Posts from the ‘vietnam’ category

Winter

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Winter in Hanoi has been mild so far, though the pessimist in me is wary about what February and March have in store. Up until now, despite the cold of the early morning and night time, the days have been mostly bright and sunny. These pictures were taken last week, in a Hanoi neighbourhood not far from where I live.

I’ve been trying for something a bit different with my pictures since coming back from my Mekong trip, shooting only in black and white and only with a 35mm lens, and with minimal post-processing. I think this approach is quite well suited to Hanoi in the autumn and winter. But I’ve not been shooting as much as I would like. While I was travelling in the summer, I was very focused on photography, shooting nearly every day, and planning my time and my travels around my pictures. Now that I’m settled back in Hanoi, photography has taken a bit of a back seat again, something to be fitted in around my job and my everyday life. This isn’t altogether a bad thing. I’m very happy to be living in Hanoi again, and am (mostly) enjoying teaching again, but I hope to be shooting and posting more often over the coming months.

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Lucky numbers and other pictures

A few more from the streets of Hanoi.

Pyjama man and other pictures

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Autumn in Hanoi, 2013

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Squeeze

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Hanoi, October 2013

Barbershop quartet

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Hanoi, October 2013

Fish

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West Lake, Hanoi, September 2013

Streets of Chau Doc (part 3)

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My five day stay in Chau Doc in early August was one of the most rewarding periods I’ve had with my camera – everywhere I looked there seemed to be a picture waiting to be taken. Everything seemed so easy – the weather was perfect, the people were friendly and my mood was good. Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t stay there longer.

This is my final set of pictures from my summer Mekong trip: three and a half months of travelling from Yunnan province in China, through Laos, a tiny bit of Thailand, and eastern Cambodia, and then into the Mekong delta in Vietnam. I came back from the trip with some great memories, ruined sandals, the nearest thing I’ll ever get to a tan, and – I think – some of the best pictures I’ve taken. Just as I enjoyed the journey, which came to an end at the beginning of September, I’ve also enjoyed the process of going back through my photo catalog over the last few weeks and posting the pictures that didn’t make it onto the blog while I was travelling. At the same time, I’m glad that process is now finished, so that I can give more time and energy to taking pictures in Hanoi, where I’m living now. So this post is my way of drawing a line under the Mekong trip – for now at least – and moving on.

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Streets of Chau Doc (August 2013)
Streets of Chau Doc (part 2) (August 2013)
Water’s edge (August 2013)

Pink portraits II

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Chau Doc, Mekong delta, Vietnam, August 2013

Pink portraits (August 2013)

Net

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I wrote before about how Chau Doc has an interesting mixture of Vietnamese, Khmer and Cham Muslim people. These pictures were taken in a Cham fishing village on the Bassac river, just outside of Chau Doc in the Mekong delta in southern Vietnam, in August this year. There are many villages like this one in the delta, as well as in the Kompong Cham area of Cambodia, and it’s one of my few regrets from my summer travels that I didn’t spend more time in these communities.

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Mekong views

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Looking through the pictures I’ve posted from my Mekong trip, I noticed something missing: there are hardly any pictures of the river itself. There are a few reasons for this, I think. I naturally incline towards pictures of people – they’re the pictures that I’m best at, and that I most enjoy taking, but I do sometimes feel the need to broaden my repertoire a little. I don’t have many regrets about this trip, but one of the few I do have is not getting more good landscape and river shots. I remember being on a long bus journey in Laos, between Savannakhet and Pakse, speeding past rice paddies in the rain. As the rain stopped and the late afternoon sun emerged, the fields were lit up in the most beautiful, soft, warm light. You’ll have to take my word for it, because I didn’t get a picture. As I said, I was on a bus at the time, and that bus wasn’t stopping for anyone. I spent a few days in Pakse after that bus journey, but never saw that beautiful light again, so that rice paddy image only exists in my memory. This is just one example of a great picture that I didn’t take, along with the countless early morning street scenes that I was too lazy to get up in time for. So I’m a little disappointed with the landscape pictures that I actually did take – they’re just not as good as the ones in my head, or perhaps it’s just that they don’t grab me as immediately as my best people shots. Whatever the reason, I neglected to post many Mekong landscapes (riverscapes?) while I was travelling, so I’ve collected a few together to post now. These pictures were all taken between May and August this year.

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