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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.