picture of the week | Without an H

Posts tagged ‘picture of the week’

Parklife (POTW #13)

Exercising in the early morning sun.

This is one of a number of shots from a few recent early morning park visits. I’ll be posting a longer series of shots soon.

In the meantime, I’m away for a couple of weeks over the Tet holiday, traveling through the Mekong Delta and into Cambodia. I’m currently in Vinh Long. I have my camera with me, of course, but not my laptop, so no more pictures of the week until I get back, when I hope I’ll have plenty of Mekong shots to share.

Chuc mung nam moi!

Dumb redheads (POTW #12)

I could post a whole series of shots of shop window dummies from Vietnam. They’re always willing subjects for a portrait, though it’s hard to get a smile out of them. Perhaps my Vietnamese isn’t good enough. These two redheads were just standing around doing nothing outside their friend’s clothes shop in District 3 last weekend.

Life in the slow lane (POTW #11)

I spent a lot of the New Year weekend wandering around in District 3 in Saigon. In between the busy main roads that stretch across the centre of the city, joining one district to another, there’s a network of increasingly narrow sidestreets, backstreets, alleys, lanes and… what’s narrower than a lane? I promised myself I wasn’t going to use the word “labyrinth” in this post, but it’s a real labyrinth. Houses and shops open directly onto the street, and food markets squeeze themselves into any available space.

Away from the chaotic main roads, people were busy with their shopping and cooking, but no one was rushing. It was starting to get dark and I was thinking of going home when I took a right down this alley and saw the lady in brown leaning on her fence and chatting to her friends across the way (just out of shot). Two curious boys stopped playing football for a moment to watch the tall, clumsy foreigner take pictures of their slightly bemused neighbour.

Saigon street pyjamas (POTW #10)

This lady runs a street-side noodle stall near the river in District 1 of Saigon. One of the things I love about Vietnam is that it’s prefectly acceptable to wear your pyjamas to work.

Iconical hat (POTW #9)

Here’s a more traditional take on the iconic conical (iconical?) hat shot. Next week, I’ll try to make it ironic and comical as well.

Round and round (POTW #8)

Does it count as a portrait if you can’t see her face? I don’t know, and I don’t suppose it really matters. I don’t normally like to loom over people when I take their picture, but I liked the pattern created by the hat and the tray, and the shapes made by her hand sweeping through the rice.

This was taken this weekend in Cholon, which is fast becoming my favourite area of the city to take pictures in. The area is known as Saigon’s Chinatown and has markets, pagodas and streetlife aplenty.

Saigon alleyway (POTW #7)

This narrow alleyway in central Saigon is flanked on both sides by tall apartment buildings, creating a kind of urban canyon. I took a few shots from crazy angles, with the walls slicing diagonally through the frame, but in the end I prefer this much more straightforward shot.

Four friends (POTW #6)

I spent much of last Sunday wandering the backstreets of District 1, between Tran Hung Dao and the river. The backpacker area around Pham Ngu Lao was only a couple of blocks away, but could have been in a different city altogether. The tall, clumsy Westerner with the camera got surprisingly little attention.

These two ladies were sitting together outside a kindergarten, checking each other’s hair for lice, a common sight in Vietnam, where people live much of their lives out of doors. Everyday intimacies like this are a feature of life on the streets here.

In the pink in Saigon (POTW #5)

There are lots of interesting details in the Thien Hau pagoda – coils of incense hanging from the ceiling, intricate carvings overlooking the open courtyard – but it was these pink prayer flags that caught my eye most of all.

Cao Dai Portraits (POTW #4)

This ‘Picture of the Week’ post actually features two pictures, but it’s my blog, and I make the rules, so I’ll do what I want.

These pictures were taken in the Cao Dai temple on Tran Hung Dao, District 5, Saigon. The Cao Dai Holy See in Tay Ninh, a couple of hours drive from the city, is a popular tourist destination, but this temple, despite being situated on a busy main road in central Saigon, seems to be less well known; I certainly wasn’t aware of it until I went past on a bus on the way to Cholon. It’s built on a smaller scale than the Tay Ninh temple, sandwiched between apartment blocks and shops, and with far fewer worshippers (and far fewer photographers) attending the services, but the atmosphere is very calm and welcoming.

The smiley gentleman above is Ong Tam Thoi, the temple’s senior priest and owner of a fine pair of eyebrows, pictured before and after officiating at a twelve noon service.