Calm after the storm
Every year at the end of January or beginning of February, Vietnam is in a chaotic flurry of buying, preparing and tidying up in anticipation of Tet. I hate this time of year and so do most other Expats as the traffic and general feeling of the city is all too stressful.
Yes more than normal.
What I do like is the calm and tranquility that replaces the chaos that was just one week before. This is the first morning of Tet. If you are ever lucky enough to experience it, it would be to experience Hanoi, Vietnam in its true Zen like or Valium induced state. The streets are empty except for the odd straggler here and there. You can hear birds clearly while walking down some of the larger streets in the city like Dai Co Viet. People are in a joyous and festive mood and will let you take photos of them with no problem (big deal for me as the ratio of asking is usually 1/3). All in all, it is really amazing and a joy to experience.
Since most photographers love to take photos or get assignments of the leading up of Tet, I thought why not show the actual first day of Tet and how calm it is and what remained after the chaos has subsided. So I set out at 6 AM and anyone I saw on the street I took a portrait of them. Got to say after 3 hours there were not so many portraits as it was really that quiet.
My first intention was to do this purely with images, but as my time on the street progressed I wanted to capture the sounds I experienced in the hope of helping place you, the audience, next to me in my morning journey. Sorry the sound is not better all I had was my iPhone, but I think it can still put you in the setting
I hope everyone has a great new year. May the year of the dragon bring you luck.
2011 EAW Thoughts and Assignment
It has been just over a week since I got back from the 2011 Eddie Adams Workshop. I must say I had a great time there and made some really good friends. Recently I was contacted by Wonderful Machine owner Bill Cramer, who was a real pleasure to meet at the workshop. He asked me to write a little bit about my time at EAW and it got me thinking once again about exactly all that I experienced there and what I took away from all the sleepless nights.
I know it might sound cheesy but, an EAW acceptance was something I had strived for ever since I first heard of the workshop. Since I didn’t go to photography school, being accepted was for me, a total a validation of my work from the industries best people. It felt really great when I found out the news. During my time there I made some great new friends I hope meet again in future, listened to amazing speakers and began the foundation for lasting relationships with some of the editorial industries best editors.
One of the most memorable moments of the workshop for me happened after it all ended. I was sitting drinking a coffee the day after and thinking about everything when I realized that EAW was like a team building and bonding experience between photographers, editors and the suppliers that work in our industry. For me, this is a very rare experience and I would imagine it is rare in our industry as a whole to connect to people like you do at EAW. I now can see why many of the editors and organizers of EAW use words like “Family” and “Love” to describe how they feel about the participants and the experience in attending EAW.
I thought to myself at that moment, how often do photographers get to just talk to editors you don’t know, one on one, like a normal person where your not selling yourself? Most of the time when I talk to a editor I know they are very busy and are tired of being bombarded with emails and promos of photographers selling themselves. So to be able to have a normal conversation that wasn’t 5 min long and then later show my work for another 30 min was just amazing.
It was also a great opportunity to meet a lot of the industries suppliers like Anthony Pak from Manfrotto who hooked me up with a bunch of missing parts (I know I owe you a photo. I promise it is coming) and hanging out with J.C. from B&H during my whole assignment day talking about life and of course photography. These are good people who work in the industry and want to help photographers do their jobs. Now that we know each other, I’m sure i will be a loyal customer to them and they will be happy to help me out in the future.
EAW gave me the opportunity to meet all these great people from all over the industry and connect with them on a personal level and hopefully make new friends in the business.
It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and I will never forget it. Thanks to all the sponsors, editors, producers, black team and the Adams family for continuing this tradition in pushing and inspiring new generations of photographers.
For me this made my trip from Vietnam very worth while and something I will remember forever.
The photos above and below were from my assignment, which was to shoot downhill mountain biking. On my assignment, I meet 15 year old Taylor who is a fearless pro downhill biker. Needless to say I love what I do and had a great time shooting the sport even if I’m not a “sports” guy. Thanks again EAW. Love you all.
2011 Eddie Adams Workshop + New York
I a couple of months back I was selected to attend the 2011 Eddie Adams workshop which is a pretty big deal for photographers. If you haven’t heard about it here is a little background about what it is all about.
The Eddie Adams Workshop is an intense four-day gathering of the top photography professionals, along with 50 carefully selected students and 50 selected professionals. The photography workshop is tuition-free, and the 100 students are chosen based only on the merit of their portfolios.
It was an amazing experience where new relationships with photographers, editors and suppliers are made and good times are had by all. I will post some more later about my experience there in another blog post.
For right now here are some snap shots I took while I was running around the city meeting up with friends and family as well as going to the epic B&H.
Stolen Moments – Nam Hai Resort Da Nang, Hoi An
Last week I had a photography assignment shooting a corporate event at the Nam Hai which is between Da Nang and Hoi An, Vietnam. I have to say the Nam Hai is pretty amazing and I have had the privilege of staying there so I know it rocks. My assignment was pretty straight forward and my clients and subjects were really great to work with. As with all assignments you get a couple of hours of down time so I went around taking some images of this beautiful place. There are a some amazing resorts in Hoi An and Da Nang but for me I am hooked on the Nam Hai, but have heard the Fusion is pretty good. Later this year I have another 2 photography assignments down in Da Nang and Hoi An and hopefully with a little downtime I will be able to take some more images of these other resorts. As always thanks for looking.
The Process: Setting Out
So from my previous blog post so keenly entitled “The Process” I went out do some more research around Hanoi on my idea as well as contacted some people who could help facilitate in my getting access to the topic I am working.
I went to the Red River to talk to some people there and ran into a really nice boat captain. Even though he didn’t really know where I could find stuff related to my topic he did his best in explaining some places he thought I might be interested in going.
I first came across him as he was sitting on his barge checking himself out in the mirror. I proceeded to go over to him and after a chat he allowed me to take his portrait. One of the great things working on a new project is all the people you meet on the way. Some good, some bad but the adventure and experiences in the process are one of the many gifts a new project brings.
Yangon Photography Festival
Last March my agents at Noi Pictures told me that my photos of a recent story I did about a woman living with HIV had been selected to be shown at the Yangon Photography Festival. I was very honored to be able to show my work with so many other great photographers. Thank you again to Noi Pictures for helping me out with everything. Above is a little write-up about the Photography festival by Photo.fr
If you would like to see the photo story you can see it here A Mother’s Love or watch the photofilm/multimedia I made where the woman Lan tells her story in her own words Film:A Mother’s Love
The Process
I have an idea…. and that is it. So to start to understand how I am going to approach it I am beginning my process. Of course, like all creative people I want the result of my work to be great and to communicate my idea to other people. My process is to go out, experience, shoot, analyze, write down new ideas and approaches and then go out again and shoot. I will try to get access to places, meet new people and slowly let this idea mold itself into something more concrete.
I will be posting images here as I go through my exercises. For the mean time this will be filed under, “The Process”
Travel Photography: Laos – Architecture & 1 Random
This is my last post about Laos for the time being. At the end of our motorbike trip my wife and I ended up in Luang Prabang. What a beautiful little town. I couldn’t help but be drawn in by Luang Prabang’s architecture, symmetry or singularity.
I also have two photos that I took that are really quite simple. A tree standing alone on the side of the road and an umbrella alone on the side of the road. I have always loved the resemblance of man made objects to their natural ones. These two photos are my attempt to convey that idea. I’m glad I did try to show this as it made me see how I could make it more visually readable and that I would like to pursue this idea more. I will look out for more of them in my daily photography wanderings in Vietnam and abroad.
As always, thanks for looking.
Travel Photography: Laos – Markets
You just can’t go traveling without seeing at least one market. A lot of editorial photography assignments coming to Vietnam and SE Asia have to do with markets and what they sell in them.
In Vientiane , there really wasn’t much of a tourist market, but in Luang Prabang they had a huge night market. As my wife went shopping for gifts for friends and family back home I decided this was a good time to practice my two approaches to tourist sellers.
Tourist sellers or people at a market that get lots of tourists are usually the places assignments will send you. Problem is that most of these vendors are very jaded in having their photo taken. You usually have two ways you can approach market photography, 1) talk to them and make them like you enough to let you do your work. 2) The sneak attack. Wait in a place and take your time waiting for the right moment to lift up your camera to take the 1 or 2 photos before the vendor yells at you.
I prefer number 1 and use it most of the time, but number 2 is sometimes necessary.
Most of the photos below were done using the first approach, but the old woman at in the market looking off into the distance was done using approach number 2.
Either way, after i take a photo I usually show the people and tell them thank you in their local language and shake their hand. If I’m their long enough to print the photos then I usually bring them their photo within a week. Least I can do and it also shows the vendors the difference between tourist photos and a photographer working.
Thanks for looking and for your comments.
Travel Photography: Laos – Landscapes
I have never been a big landscape photo taker, but always an admirer of beautiful landscapes made by men or by nature.
I think when working on an assignment it is important information for the viewer to have an over all idea of where you are. Landscapes really help transport the viewer to the place you are and more often then not people love looking at them.
Going to Laos i knew there would be some beautiful vistas, but i was also lucky enough to shoot some topography and a panorama or two. Laos is really a beautiful country and for landscapes you couldn’t ask for anything more. While driving through the northern mountains my wife and I were in awe of its relatively untouched beauty.
Thanks for you comments and for looking.
Click on the photos to see them larger
Travel Photography: Laos – Portraits
I have always loved taking portraits of people, but for about 3 months I have been looking to change up my approach and style to portrait taking.
I still haven’t figured out what exactly I am trying to get, but I’m getting closer to being temporarily satisfied. So in order to keep on pushing myself along to find what i’m looking for I assigned myself to do portraits of people. Some of them from me talking to the people and asking them if I can take their photo and others not.
Here is what i ended up with in my 9 days in Laos.
Thank you for looking and as always comments are appreciated.
Click on the photos to see them larger.
Travel Photography: Laos – Agriculture
Here is my next category which I assigned myself during my trip, Agriculture. If you missed why i’m doing this you can go back here to read my first post: http://www.blog.ehrinmacksey.com/2011/01/05/travel-photography-laos-objects/
For this category, I decided to focus on 2 subjects. The people working in the fields and where they are working. I wanted to show people for the obvious reason of who are the people growing the vegetables. For the second part I wanted to show where they are working so that it would give the viewer a sense of place of the environment.
If I were to go back in time I feel like I missed some detail shots in this category. I would probably go back and shoot some of the tools they use and/or detail shots of the vegetables the grow. I think if I had captured that then I would feel more happy with this self-assignment. That being said I am happy with what I did capture.
The great thing about this self assignment is that I learned something new and understand more about where I want to go with my photography.
Once again thanks for looking and your comments.
Click on the photos to see them larger.
Travel Photography: Laos – Objects
I recently went on vacation with my wife to Laos. When I started thinking about the trip I was very excited to be able to shoot in a place that is new. It has been a long time since I have been able to go travel and shoot some photos for myself. It also provided me with the opportunity to try out some new approaches to photography.
I have been working on expanding my visual range and grow as a photographer. In order to push myself to look at things a little different I decided to break up the things that I would shoot into categories. This forces me to focus on the category at hand.
This was the first of the categories that I created for my self, Objects.
To me it has never been that interesting to shoot still objects. I have always had to have people in my photos and never looked twice at a still object. I have begun to think differently about this for many different reason and on further inspection I was happy with what I found.
Everyday I will be posting a new category from my trip and talk about each category I assigned myself. I hope you will look at them and give me some comments. It is a process, but i’m liking what I am discovering about myself and the new visual avenues that are arising.
Thanks for looking.
Organizing & Memories
I have finished up a long commercial project (will be posting that in a couple of months) and have been starting to prepare for 2011 in Vietnam. 2010 was an amazing year for me in both photography and film making and I know that 2011 will be even better. I started organizing all my photos into a massive lightroom archive so that they are more easily referenced when I need them.
Through this process I have come across some photos from Van Mon leprosy village that I like but didn’t make the cut in telling the story of the place. Storytelling isn’t always about showing your favorite photos, but to…. tell a story. These photos are more like singles, but moments that I liked when I came across them again.
When I look at these photos, it reminds me how alone and isolated the people at Van Mon lived. It also reminds me that I need to go see them for Tet this year and see how they are doing.
Normally I would leave these on my hard drive as the project has been finished for over 3 years now, but I found inspiration to show them from fellow photographers Aaron Joel Santos and Julian Abram Wainwright who have also been reminiscing on their older work and it inspired me to do the same. Hope you kind gentlemen don’t mind?
It is really good for me to look at my old work, see my mistakes and think about how you would do something different today. Thus is the process of continual growth. Never be content and always look to improve.
Thanks for looking.
Possessed by Gods – Work in Progress
Been busy busy busy working on a commercial for the last 2 months and it is finally finishing that up.
I had some time the other day to go do some research into a new project which right now i’m titling, “Possessed by Gods”. I still need to do some more research on other direction I want to take it, but here are some pics from yesterday. More updates soon.
UNESCO Annual Report outtakes
I’ve been pretty busy as of late doing annual reports, commercial, corporate and event jobs as well as working on a long format commercial film spot.
Awhile ago I was out on an UNESCO assignment for their annual report. They were looking for iconic images of their international Director on her historic trip to Vietnam. As always, shooting VIPs here in Vietnam consists of a lot of pushing, shoving, security grabbing and go go go time. It is not for timid people with poor balance that is for sure.
The one thing that is fun about these gigs is listening to the meetings between the big boys/girls. Always great insight into what this country is up to.
Here are some outtakes from this shoot. Some of these I took when I had 5 min to look around where I was. The others just didn’t make the final edit cut for different reasons but I still liked them.
Thanks for looking.
3 hours of Hanoi’s 1000 Years
Thursday morning my wife Trang told me that the streets near our house and the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum would be closed for the practice of Sunday’s parade.
I thought it might be a good time to go out see what they are doing and take some snaps. I left my house at 3:00 and shot until 6:00, which was a great way to spend the afternoon.
Girls dressed up in Ao Dai, event workers shifting out propaganda posters and military personal dotted the area around the mausoleum. People visiting from the countryside came to see what their capital had prepared for them on Sunday’s anniversary. Vietnamese people are at heart very kind and easy going people. I really had a great time walking, talking to them, having my photo taken with them and of course taking snap here and there. The only thing that was a little bothersome was all the police being rude and forcing people from watching the preparation of the parade from the street.
To me it is sad, because most Vietnamese are proud of Hanoi and want to celebrate the 1000 year anniversary. Only authorities and VIPs were allowed to see the parade in person leaving the rest of the population to watch on government TV with advertising.
Besides all that, it was nice to meet friendly strangers who were more than willing to let me take some photos of them. I couldn’t ask for any more than that for a Thursday afternoon.
Backpackers & Yogurt
As of lately I have been feel that my photography work is not progressing as fast as i would like it to. I asked my agent/buddy Francois at Noi Pictures to get me some local editorial assignments which will force me to go out and shoot things i’m not used to shooting.
As most photographers know, local or regional magazines pay…. how do I say it in a nice way…. way way way below standard editorial day rates. This is why in the past I stayed away from them. Now though i am happy i changed my mind. They are fun assignments where i get to meet some interesting locals and shoot some stuff i normally wouldn’t get a chance to shoot.
All in all, it is good practice when i have free time and it’s fun to meet some different locals.
I had two stories this week. One on Kinh Do Cafe which makes all their own deserts and yogurt from scratch. The owner was a super nice old guy and the fresh yogurt with honey and fruit is amazing. I really enjoyed talking to him and taking his portrait, eating the free cake he made me eat (i didn’t want to be rude) and shooting the shit with Ian the writer.
The other story I was assigned was about backpacker fashion. I took some portraits of Tiffini, the owner of The Drift Backpackers Hostel who sells those crazy baggy backpacker pants in Hanoi. If they were gold they would totally be MC Hammer pants.
Since the the article was supposed to be about backpacker fashion I took to the streets and did some fun portraits of backpackers and their fashion. I had a really good time with this and half way though my portraits I decided to do 1-2 second shutter releases while having my subjects standing in the middle of the road. I got some pretty nice results out of it due to the traffic driving around the subjects, but it was difficult to keep the subjects still for 1-2sec.
Unfortunately, I can’t show them here right now since most of the photos were chosen by the editor and I only have a few out takes.
So with out further boring you with my writing here some out takes from those two assignments. Thanks for looking.
Hoa Binh Hydroelectric Time Capsule
Last weekend was a national holiday in Vietnam. My wife and I went with some friends to Hoa Binh to spend the night at a man made freshwater lake. It’s glassy water was dotted with small islands similar to Ha Long Bay. This lake was a little eerie to me as it seemed to be very still with very little life in it or around it. Maybe, this is due to not seeing much wildlife or this could be very normal for this kind of body of water. You see, this lake was made to be a reservoir for the Hoa Binh Hydroelectric plant. Underneath it’s still waters lies 3 villages and the now islands, used to be hills or mountains. Even though it was quite quiet and a little eerie it was still nice to see and even more interesting to explore.
The next day we all went to see the Hoa Binh powerplant, which in in it’s heyday was a symbol of great national pride. This place was like taking a step back into time. A time where the computers were the size of the room, you had big colorful lights blinking on and off and that, 1970′s Industrial Communist design is everywhere. Amazing place.
I have driven through Hoa Binh a handful of times and I can’t believe i have been missing out on this gem.
This dam was made in partnership with the USSR. That is right, USSR. Most of the writing on instruments is in Russian and you can see “Made in the USSR” marked on all of them. This was very much a highlight for me to see.
As i was about to enter this catacomb of Industrial Communism, I was stopped and was told i wasn’t allowed to bring my camera. Such a shame, as it would have been nice to have better high resolution photos of this place. Oh well.
As i entered the tour, i whipped out my iPhone and started to shoot away. No one seemed to care about my iPhone so i shot as much as i could. Our tour guide, a government employee that does the day to day work at the plant, was drunk off of rice wine and was very proud of where he worked. On a few occasions, he forgot about me in is his self-involved explanation of his fine facility and left me to wonder around by myself. So here is a short photo essay about the great Hoa Binh hydroelectric plant.
Enjoy!
Potain – Annual Report Photography For Vietnam Project
In December, right before i went to America for a month, I shot a commercial job for the crane and heavy machine company, Potain. They wanted me to shoot the Son La Dam and the cranes from their company for their annual report. They told me that they had 8 Cranes on site, which was more than any other job site in the world for them. They also wanted the photos to only contain their cranes and not cranes from other companies. Fair enough right? That was what i thought.
At the time i thought that this would be a fun job, little did i know there were 20 operational cranes at the job site and that the Son La dam is a OSHA nightmare. As you can imagine, it is dirty and wet, very very dirty and very very wet. There were fine particles of soot everywhere you walked and when mixed with water (they are building a dam, so there is lots of water) became a super slippery substance. If you haven’t been to the dam, this place is HUGE. To get from one place to another was all done with hand made 1 bar rebar ladders bridges. Let me tell you, slippery mud and 1 bar rebar ladders, is not a good time. (see the first photo below)
Before the shoot, I was informed by the advertising company that hired me, London Based SE10 , that i would have a full day to shoot at the location. I thought this was great! I would shoot from 6AM until 6PM and have lots of time to go everywhere on the site.
Unfortunately, when i got in to the van full of advertising and sales execs to go to Son La (7 hours away), I was told I would only have a few hours to shoot the job as the execs i was traveling with were on a tight schedule and had to catch a plane to China.
No problem.
So what did i do, I shook loose my handler (It is a Vietnamese Government dam, every foreigner gets one) and shot the shit out of that dam. It was DAM fun (sorry I had to say it). I knew i needed about 25 solid photos for the client, so once i got those i had some time to take a few shots of the workers on the site. Here are some of my photos for the client and of the workers at the dam.
All in all, even with the time pressure, I am so happy to have done this job. My client was super happy writing me, “Best photos we have had in years.”
I love it when everyone is happy.
Photography award for NGO work – Photo Philanthropy
Last June I submitted my photography work to a new award contest. This contest is different from many other contests because it specializes in photography work done with an NGO. The organization that held the contest, Photo Philanthropy, believes in the power of photography and it’s combination with NGO work. They know that this combination is a sucessful format in not only informing people on what the NGO is doing, but to impact the decisions of the audience to help either financially or in other ways.
There were more than 150 professional photographer entries to this contest from all over the world.
Even though I did not win the big award I was given 1 of 4 honorable mentions which I graciously accepted.
Any photographers or NGOs working with a photographer should mark their calendar to apply and support this kind of award.
It is truly a great for everyone involved and I am happy to see it existing.
PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris Competition
I just got word today that I won some awards in this years PX3 competition.
I have to say that i’m really happy to get these and thank you to everyone who is supporting me and pushing me to do more and be better.
Intel Chairman Of The Board
I had an assignment to go shoot Intel’s Chairman Of The Board, Craig Barrett, as he traveled around Hanoi.
Mr. Barrett really hates photographers which is what he told me in so many words. So it made the job interesting.
Kenzo Fashion Show
Here are some photos from a show i did a month ago. I really hate shooting fashion shows in Vietnam as the event organizers set up the lights like crazy people, well at least for photographers.
