Blue Dragon
About a month ago i met cool and friendly Ruth Mortimer who works for Blue Dragon. Blue Dragon is an local Hanoi organization that gives underprivileged kids a better chance at life. Ruth asked me if i wouldn’t mind donating some time to the organization and make a short video for them. I was happy to help.
I had one day of filming as i am in the middle of another project. This made all the shooting very fast. Ruth did a great job helping me organize the kids and getting the interviews done quickly.
The video is a thank you video to World Vision for their generous support.
So here it is, hope you enjoy it.
Tungsten Lights
I love going out at night in Vietnam. Especially in the evening to the parks. Everywhere you look is full of life. Teenage dancers practicing, the elderly drinking tea and playing chess, footballers showing off their skills, skateboarders gliding by and lovers holding each other. This scene was not as common as when i first came here. You of course would see many many people doing traditional things like drinking tea, exercising and playing chess, but skateboarders and dancers were not so common.
In a park, it seems like the glow of the tungsten lights lets people relax and enter into this sanctuary of freedom to do whatever they like. In Hanoi it is a special place.
Fashion – Vietnam
I went to a fashion show a couple of weeks back. I was asked by a friend of mine to go and shoot some of the clothes and models. After talking some more about fashion with some of the Vietnamese designers i was interested in their lives and work. I may pursue a story at later this year in order to shed some light on this thriving and competitive world where looks and attitudes rein supreme.
Hoi An
My brother is visiting me. So my girlfriend and I thought it would be a good idea to go down to Hoi An for a couple of days to relax.
I grabbed my flash light and my camera bag to see if i can get an opportunity to try out a couple of ideas i have had for some photo. These photos are of some local girls ridding their bikes.
The other thing i really love about going to Hoi An is that the local food is so different than in Hanoi. Here is a photo of a man selling some of those lovely noodles in Hoi An.
The allies of Hoi An are small and provide the casual walker an easy idea of what life would have been like here in the early 1900′s. Every house you walk by you can see people through their old windows going about their daily routine.
The next day we had decided to go to an old ruin called My Son.
All in all it was a great little trip.
Confict of Interest – KL Christmas
I recently visited Malaysia and was in it’s capital Kuala Lumpur. As i walked around the beautiful city i went to one of the many local shopping malls located there. When i walked in i was greeted with a large Christmas tree and Christmas music such as, Joy to the World and jingle bells. Now from my knowledge and from what i have read on Wiki about Malaysia is that Islam is the largest and official religion of the federation.
So this was quite confusing to me. The majority of the people i saw there, that were Malay, were traditional Muslims. Also most of the tourists i saw in KL were from some sort of Islamic background, as all the women were dressed in the traditional all black and you could only see their eyes.
Christmas is a religious holiday celebrating the birth of Christ. At least this is what we are all told.
So to see Muslims walking around in this festive atmosphere was quite interesting to me.
Maybe they don’t care? They just want to go out with the family and buy things like everyone else?
To me Christmas has no religious meaning. It is the time of the year where you see your family and old friends that you haven’t seen.
I wonder what Christmas means to them?
The people of Tonlé Sap Lake
After spending 5 days in Siem Reap some friends and i decided to go out to the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. We took a friendly tuk-tuk out to the lake and tried to commission a boat for the day. We had been told that the normal price was $45 a day. When we showed up we found out that the local tourism police were running a racket. They were insisting that we pay anywhere between $60 to $100 a day. We walked away and found a nice fisherman who was working on his own and not with the police. Once the Tout saw us doing that he immediately told one of the his fellow tourist officers to come interfere. The tourist officer told us that we have to take one of the “official boats” and that we could not take a boat with the fisherman. Having been in Cambodia many times i never believe what these “official people” say. Most of the time it is a scam. So i asked him to please see his ID so that i know that he was an official tourist officer. Of course he did not have one. Figures.
The so called tourist officer did manage to stop our fisherman from taking us unless we agreed to pay him $25. So we did and then jumped in a boat and tried to enjoy our little trip out to see the people that live on this lake.
The majority of the people living in the lake live are surprisingly Vietnamese. Our friendly fisherman told us that the majority of them stayed after the the war with the Khmer Rouge and have never returned to Vietnam. They even had a floating school that taught only in Vietnamese. My friend Francoise told me that at the time of the fighting between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam many of the Vietnamese Soldiers defected from the military because there was too much fighting at the time. Vietnam had just finished the war with America and now had two conflicts, one with the Khmer Rouge and another with the Chinese. So some of them were tired of all the fighting and decided to stay and live in Cambodia.
The fisherman took us to a remote village about 2 hours away by boat. This village was special due to the it being next to a “floating forest.” Many of the people living near or in the floating forest rely on it to provide them the wood, food and money from tourism. The children in Cambodia make you fall in love with the country. Lots of happy smiling faces. Even when they are asking you for some money they do so half hardheartedly and just want to talk with you and have fun.
We later took a smaller boat through the floating village and it was a serene and beautiful place full of bent trees sprouting up from the depths of the lake letting in little rays of sunlight. I really loved this place and was happy we made the trip.
Exhibition At Ankor Wat Photography Festival
I found out some months ago that my work was selected to be shown at the 2008 Angkor Wat Photography Festival. So now I’m on my way to to Siem Reap, Cambodia once again to meet people and hopefully make some connections in this difficult industry. The body of work they will be showing will be my coverage of Post-Leprosy treatment in Vietnam.
I have to say that i’m quite honored that my work was chosen by both the curators Sujong Song and Christian Caujolle. The other photojournlists chosen to show their work are needless to say amazing. Most of them are quite famous in the photography world and come from prestigious agencies like, Getty, VII and Magnum.
After deciding that i was going to pursue a career in photography and film some two years ago i feel that now more than ever i’m on the right track.
I hope that with more exposure of Post-Leprosy treatment in Vietnam that the kind people that opened their lives up to me for this project will get the recognition, help and resources they need. This is my main love of photography. It has the power to help people and to bridge connections and connect people that would normally have never been known.
Finished
After months of meeting different organizations, officials and documenting my 2 stories about leprosy in Vietnam, my work is done. You can see my finished work at http://www.ehrinmacksey.com/Multimedia.html
I have asked a couple of people who are considered experts in the industry to review my work and i happy to receive that they thought very highly of my work.
When you spend so much time both emotionally and physically on a project like this you hope that it truly touches people and makes them want to help or understand more.
Here are some of my reviews below and thanks again to everyone for their support:
Duck Rabbit – where photography, art, audio and journalism collide
Back To Work
So tomorrow I’m back to work on my project. Above you can see where I eat lunch and dinner everyday when I’m there. Like I posted before it is …. rural. I’m really excited to go back since now i feel very confident with my new video equipment and I got some addons to my video equipment from my friend Justin. God Bless his little heart as getting electronics and video equipment in Vietnam is quite difficult, at least good equipment.
So I’m out in the sticks again to work more on my epic Multimedia/film. Next week i have to conduct a couple of interviews so I hope I will be able to post more about my trip to Sapa, Vietnam.
I truely can’t wait to go back and start working on my video ideas for this project.
Wish me luck.
Week of Work
Well, I have been working like crazy to get my new websites up. I’m designing one for photography and another one for web design.
On top of that I have finished a new website for a group of talented journalists who I have joined in our quest for freelance multimedia. The website is http://www.ontheroadmedia.com
I very happy with the work I did on this website, it looks simple but is advanced in the navigation and operation.
Besides that I got some crazy skin things happening to me lately. I got smacked in the face with something while driving on the road (motorbike). Then I got some strange rash under my arm. Well things like this are kind of normal when your living in a developing country and should go away soon, I hope.
I attached a photo of my apartment. Nothing crazy or anything just so you can see that I’m not living in a hole.
I’m going to go out for more shooting next week so I will hopefully post some new stuff soon.
Project
Last week I went to the countryside to do some more research into a personal project i’m working on. The setting for the place was beautiful as the newly planted rice was growing and was a lush green. The birds and insects clamor away as the people of this nearly sustainable community work next to them. They grow all their own vegetables, rice and meat and work together to help build houses or to work on other community projects.
I met the director for the community, a jolly, stained and crooked tooth man. He has a kind heart and has worked as a doctor/director for the community for more than half of his life.
He told me about how they had come to receive two more rejections from the outside world. A pair of 9 year old twins who were born with a horrible skin disease called Lamellar ichthyosis or fish scale disease. Their parents had kept them hidden in a dark area of a dirt floor house for most of their lives. The parents must have thought that the skin disease would later go away, but at the age of nine they found themselves abandoning their children at the front gates of this community. The twins were accepted here and treated as normal. Probably one of the few places in the world they would ever feel like that. More than likely they will live out their lives in this community.
The people in this community have lived lives of persecution. Not for something they did or that they could control, but for how they look.
As I listened to the stories and poems of their lives, it immediately breaks down my emotional barrier protecting me and keeping me objective. Their lives were full of isolation, rejection, murder and suicidal tendencies. Only recently in the last 5 years have they felt happiness or that people might care for them.
I spent two days there gathering resources, listening to stories and observing the daily lives and needs of these people. They were so kind to me, a stranger, they are all open and willing to share their life.
On the second day I met up with the poetry club. They read some poems they had written. They were not harsh poems about the hardships they had endured in their life, but poems welcoming me as a friend. After they were finished telling me their poems I was expected to address them. I almost lost it and nearly cried. After 2 days of being consumed by this place, feeling its kindness towards me and seeing the living conditions and deformities of these people, it finally caught up to me. I was emotionally drained. As I’m sure others would be if they listened and saw the same things.
I will go back every week from now until I finish the project. I hope to share more stories later with you.
Thanks for reading.
My Neighborhood – The Lake
So a month ago I moved from my house to an apartment. The house was too big for me and the furniture and other things were breaking so I decided that it was time to move to a newer place.
I moved into this great new apartment (I will post photos later). The difference between this new neighborhood to my old neighborhood. More like how the majority of Vietnamese live in Hanoi. So I started to go out and document the area I lived in.
There is a park and a small lake near my house. It is polluted and not kept up with and kind of run down which to me gives it some character.
So here are some photos of that area. Later I will post some photos from the network of allies in which I wander through every day.
Thoughts and Progress
So I have been studying. Not a shock for those of you who know me. I seem to always be studying. I have found that many people in the industry in which I’m trying to break into are blogging like crazy. Sharing thoughts, ideas, links, projects and their lives. When I first thought about blogging I really didn’t think much of it. I would think, “yeah those people have too much free time.” But recently, one blog that I used to follow everyday died out of existence. For the last week I have honestly missed it. The author wasn’t ranting and raving about this or that, but sharing knowledge and helping with the progression of a new industry and connecting people who would have not been normally connected.
This is really what I think is great about blogging. It took the lost of a blog for me to realize the power of a blog.
For right now i’m going to try Blogger and then later move to a WordPress if it is needed.
So to my friends and colleagues I hope you enjoy my postings.