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.

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

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”

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.

What is a photographer’s responsibility to the subject after the photography has finished? This has been stewing in my mind for sometime. I’m quite lazy about writing in my blog but I hope that I can get some feed back from others about this. Here are my thoughts.

I have done only a handful of stories, in each story there is a bond of trust between me and the person I’m photographing. We see each other everyday. They let me into their lives to document and then to show to other people. That is a lot of trust to give to someone with a camera and you don’t know.

It must be difficult for the subjects of photo stories after the photographer has finished the work. I wonder if they feel used or if they feel they are not important to the photographer anymore?

I mean really think about it. You make a new friend who cares about you and is interested in your life. This friend, with a camera, comes with you everywhere. They ask questions about everything your doing and why. This must make the subject feel pretty special.

Then, BAM!!!, after 2 weeks, this person with a camera says goodbye and you see them if your lucky one time a year.

This must be difficult for the subject. I wonder how they justify the photographer leaving them in their mind?

I do try to go see the people that have allowed me into their lives. When I do, they always say I don’t visit enough. I usually smile guiltily and say that I have been busy working but I have not forgotten them.

I wonder what some of the big photographers like James Nachtwey or Stephanie Sinclair think of this? Do they feel the same or do they just keep on moving and don’t look back?

As my life as a documentary photographer continues there will be more stories with more people. Then, there will be more people to visit to make sure they know I think they are important and that I appreciate them letting me into their lives. At some point it will become impossible to visit everyone. I hope they will understand.

So, should I feel guilty or not if i can’t find time to go visit the subject of a past project?

I’m trying to rationalize it. No conclusions as of yet.

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.

I have been following the blog of Brent Foster for about a year now. He works similar to me, that being that he works in photography and film as well.

Lately, there has been a new breakthrough in DSLR technology. We can now do video with the same DSLR body and lenses we use for photography. For people like Brent and myself this is amazing!

Yesterday Canon announced that it will be updating it’s firmware for video on the 5D Mark II so that users can use manual control instead of the hindering automatic functions it now has. This new firmware will allow users to control the aperture, shutter speed and gain (ISO) and we hope that it offers 1080 24p as well.

This is a major breakthrough for people who are working in photography and film. I couldn’t be more excited to have these options available to me.

I have always been interested in multimedia photography ever since i was first introduced to in by my friend Justin in late 2006. I started reading blogs like Multimedia Shooter and studying classes from Mindy McAdams at the University of Florida.

For me, i think multimedia is not just the use of sound and photography. Sometimes i see people who add music to some images and they say they have made a multimedia.

I apologize to those people. I’m sure they worked very hard on what they did, but to me, it is not really giving justice to the tools available to them.

Multimedia is the use of photography, film and sound (interviews, ambient sound, music) so that they are all being harnessed to take advantage of the power each media form gives. This lets the viewer become closer to the story and understand more.

Photography Vs. Multimedia. One is not better than the other. They are just tools like in a construction workers tool belt. They each serves a different purpose.

We can now start see we have more demand from clients and newspapers to do video. There is new technology to do this from DSLR manufactures and we have this new way to present our stories and photography. So, my question to photographers is this:

Why are you waiting for?!

Other people are catching on and not just in the photojournalism area. You can see fashion photographers (Steven Klein, NYC & Esquire Magazine June Cover) starting to do both photography and film using The RED system and the 5D Mark II.

Almost every newspaper in America and Europe ask their photographers to do video as well as photography.

This is not a fad. This is the direction our industry is going. So come… on jump on…. it is only bumpy in the beginning.

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.

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.

I got an Honorable mention for my documentary video “Bop” at NPPA’s contest The Best Of Photojournalism 2009. The contest is designed by photojournalists for photojournalists.

Now in its eighth year, the Best of Photojournalism (BOP) is the world’s leading digital photojournalism contest. BOP is a project of the National Press Photographers Association.

Considering the list of other award winners, MediaStorm, MSNBC, Washington Post, The Las Vegas Sun and the Mercury News I feel very honored to be placed with them.

You can see the awards page here: http://bop.nppa.org/2009/web_sites/winners/index.php?cat=DOV&smc=INDE&place=HM1

Thank you to everyone who helped me make this film.

-Ehrin