Back by popular demand: Vietnam Vacation

[BrianA61]

Mid January of this year, my wife and I made a 3 week trip to Vietnam to visit family. These are from one of our excursions. This is in Hoi An, which is the old town of Da Nang. It was extremely crowded since we were there for the Tet new year celebration. I LOVE photography and I felt like I had died and gone to heaven with all of the sights, sounds and smells. I can't wait to go back to this absolutely beautiful country.

I saw this woman walking down the street and immediately got my camera up and took this shot. She was a great sport about it. She saw me take her photo, stopped, put down her fruit, took her hat off and put it on me. Then, gave me the balance bar and put it on my shoulder and then put the fruit baskets on each end. Of course, then, my wife's family all had to get their own photos of me posing as a street vendor selling fresh fruit. Guess it's all part of just going with the flow and enjoying part of the culture.



This is one of the many fruit stands with a huge variety of locally grown fruits.


And visiting Vietnam wouldn't be the same without the infamous Durian fruit being offered up. I tried a lot of things while there, but, this is one fruit I will NOT even get close to. The smell alone will knock you over. Vietnamese people love this fruit but is very expensive, even by American standards.


Another tradition of Vietnam is the very colorful tabletop and hanging lamps for sale.


I couldn't help but get a shot of these. The brilliant color against the darkness of night time screamed "take my photo". So, I did!

[pschlute]

Great stuff....especially the last.

[Wavelength]

A beautiful, colourful world....really enjoyable

[rpcrowe]

I did more traveling in the Mekong Delta area than I did around Danang or further North. If I ever return to Vietnam I would definitely want to visit Hoi An...

One of the problems I had when photographing Vietnamese was that I was six feet two inches tall which placed my eye level way over most people's heads. I had to consciously squat down a bit to avoid distortion - especially if using a wide angle lens. I'd look around and see kids mimicking my squat as I shot my film.

If I returned to Vietnam, I would definitely use fill flash when shooting stills of many people - this would open the shadows beneath the conical hats that are so prevalent. It would also generally reduce the shadows generally caused by the harsh sun in Vietnam.