Arthur "Fuse" Osmanov | Hanoi

© Arthur Osmanov-All Rights Reserved

Ah, Hanoi! A city made for street photographers, as New York City and Old Havana (and many others) are. The Old Quarter especially replete with natural and impromptu life scenes that make street photographers' hearts jump out of their throats...I could lose myself in that city for days, just ambling about, and take pictures of daily life as it goes on. No one minds your camera...they're far too busy living and making a living to care. All one has to be careful of is the lava stream of whizzing scooters and motorcycles.

Arthur Osmanov Dreams of Vietnam is a collection of monochrome street photographs of Hanoi, which he describes as being a city where everything happens in public, and human interactions are not hidden behind closed doors of privacy.

Arthur is a web designer and a travel photographer who's living on the road for a second year after leaving NYC. He spent half a year in Hanoi working and living around Tay Ho area photographed with my Leica m9 and Fuji X100s.

He also has a gallery of color photographs made in the area of Tay Ho or West Lake.

The Girls of Tết Trung Thu

A year ago, I was walking the streets of Hanoi's Old Quarter during my Vietnam North of the 16th Parallel Photo Expedition-Workshop, carrying my street photography gear: a Leica m9 and a Fuji X Pro-1. Hanoi's streets are replete with extraordinary life moments, ready for the taking by anyone with an interest to do so.

My group and I were there in late September just before the Mid Autumn Festival, which is known in Vietnam as Tết Trung Thu festival. Traditionally, this festival celebrates harvest and is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar. In recent years, it’s an occasion for young women (and men) to walk the streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter to show off new clothes, and to wear over-sized fake eyeglasses, and Minnie Mouse ears or antlers on their heads.

I thought it would be timely to feature a gallery of photographs showing the youthful, fun and innocent exuberance that envelops this time of year in Hanoi. The Girls of Tết Trung Thu was just added to my The Leica File (& X Pro-1) website, and is one of many featuring my work out of Vietnam.

The adorable young women parading the street were very keen to be photographed, and seeing my cameras, asked to be photographed, making the well known Asian ‘V’ sign and tilting their heads in a sweet way. 

Chris McGrath | Hanoi's Street Barbers

Photo © Chris McGrath/GettyImages-All Rights Reserved

NBC's PhotoBlog featured the work of Chris McGrath documenting Hanoi's street barbers. It seems that having one's hair cut in the street is a tradition that goes back to the 18th century. Many of the barbers are ex-military, have retired from the army and cutting hair is a way to augment their army pensions, or just to keep busy and socialize.

While I was in Hanoi, I saw a one or two of these street barbers but I read that few work in the city's Old Quarter as there's no space to accommodate their chairs and paraphernalia on its sidewalks. The cost of a haircut ranges from the equivalent of $1 to $4, depending on the barber's abilities and whether the client is a regular or not.

This series remind me of my own The Street Barbers of Manali, which I photographed while teaching at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in that northern Himalayan town. 

Roy Del Vecchio | Rajasthan

Photo © Roy Del Vecchio-All Rights Reserved

As I'm about to travel to India to lead my Sufi Saints of Rajasthan & Kashmir Photo Expedition & Workshop which starts in about a week, I thought I'd feature Roy Del Vecchio's photography of Rajasthan.

Rajasthan is known as "the land of kings" and is the largest state of India by area. In my view, it's the one of the most colorful and photogenic of all the Indian states, with considerable diverse culture and a long history.

Roy's Rajasthan gallery has some lovely photographs; some of which were made in the streets of the blue city, Jodhpur. Others were made in its famous Thar desert.

Oh, and don't miss his Vietnam gallery as well.

Roy Del Vecchio is based in Amsterdam, and travels frequently, especially to Asia. He travels independently and usually wanders around, exploring places, talking to people, who are the main focus of his photographs. He worked in Europe, Surinam, Costa Rica, India, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Mexico, the USA, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Morocco. His client list include Lonely Planet Magazine, Columbus Travel Magazine, D-Zone, FAO, UN-Water, Privé, Travel Sri Lanka, Web Designer Magazine, Publish Magazine, DMO Amsterdam, Grazia, BNO Vormberichten, IRD, Digifoto Pro, Dar Erbe Unserer Welt Magazine and others.

Back Story | The Recalcitrant Red Dzao of Sa Pa

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

During my Vietnam: North of the 16th Parallel Photo Expedition, I came across a Red Dzao vendor in a small village not too far from Sa Pa. Having an interesting face, not to mention her keen fashion sense of combining her traditional red head dress with a Burberry scarf, I thought she'd make an excellent model for some of the group's members who sought to have photographs of her standing on a rather rickety rope bridge.

She was sitting on the side of the dirt road which was the village's main street, selling some vegetables or fruits. Through an interpreter, I asked if she was agreeable to pose for us for a few minutes. She had a wide smile on her face all through the rapid to and fro, so I imagined she was about to agree....but I was mistaken.

Her response was that she couldn't leave her spot on the dirt road because she'd lose business. I pointed out that there was not a single soul visible, except for our group and we weren't interested in buying her  vegetables...and that the photo shoot would take a maximum of 5 minutes at most.

The to and fro with the interpreter started again, and I could feel the smiling Red Dzao was either really determined to drive a hard bargain or was just so accustomed to selling her small bunch of vegetables from the same spot, that she would never leave it for a minute until all was sold.

I didn't want to break my rule to pay for photographs, so I offered to buy her whole inventory of vegetables for what they were worth (probably $2 or so), against her acceding to our wishes. She hummed and hawed  for a while, but after I paid her for the vegetables and distributed those to some people in a nearby restaurant, she  finally -but still hesitantly- accompanied us to the bridge a few yards away.

To cut a long story short, we eventually realized that the tiny Red Dzao's reluctance to pose for us wasn't motivated by mercenary reasons at all...she was just scared by the thought of standing on the swaying old bridge.

It wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, and all ending well, she eventually returned home with the proceeds of her vegetable sales much earlier than usual...probably shaking her head at the crazy foreigners's persistence.

My being 6'3" tall meant I had to crouch a lot to be as short as Ms Red Dzao.

Justin Mott | Travel

Photo © Justin Mott -All Rights Reserved

" I hate and love taking pictures of conical hats; it really depends on the day." -Justin Mott

I was challenged (well, sort of) by Justin Mott if I could tell the difference between the photographs he shot for Conde Nast Traveler and those for The New York Times. I think I could tell, but it's now up the readers of The Travel Photographer to take up the challenge. 

A hint: if it looks too perfect and not too documentary-looking, then it's probably Conde Nast. In any event, you'll be certain to enjoy Justin's work which mostly spans 45 photographs of South East Asia (Viet Nam, Myanmar, Cambodia, etc) as well as Tanzania.

Justin Mott grew up in Rhode Island, and studied photojournalism at San Francisco State University but a year before graduating traveled to Southeast Asia, and eventually settled in Vietnam since 2006. He's been photographing regularly for The New York Times, among many others.

He is living in Hanoi, Vietnam and working throughout Southeast Asia on personal projects and assignments since 2006. In 2008, his work on Agent Orange Orphans was recognized in the PDN Annual and was awarded in the Marty Forscher Fellowship for humanistic photography given out by the Parsons School of Design in NYC. Justin is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and various other international publications such as Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Geo, L’Express, GEO, Bloomberg News Service, The Independent, UNESCO, Medecins Sans Frontieres, and the Discovery Channel. He won The Marty Forscher Fellowship Humanistic Photography Award. 

POV | Whoa! Vimeo Goes "Instagramish"!

Is the whole visual world going Hipstamatic & Instagramish???

Vimeo, which in my view, is the best video-sharing website available at the moment, has just added a new feature called Looks in its video Enhancer which provides its users over 500 professional-looking (and some not so much) filters that can be applied to videos for instant and stylistic visual effects.

Vimeo film makers and users can now preview a filter on a single frame of their uploaded video and compare it with their original footage before choosing whether to apply it or not. The intensity of a filter can also be adjusted using a slider, potentially giving the ability of the user to avoid the over-done look of Instagram and Hipstamatic filters.

Looks is available for free to all Vimeo users over the next 90 days. It’s likely to become a paid feature for both Vimeo Plus and Vimeo PRO subscribers.

I've tested it with one of my favorite video...Cafe Dao, made in Hoi An. I chose the Old Black & White filter, and although I think it might be a little too dark, it adds a welcome visual feel to the story of the elderly couple. I haven't decreased the intensity of the filter, and left at it's maximum level. With filters, one has to remember that less is better.

A word of caution...it does take a while to enhance a 3-4 minute video. I don't know if it was because the feature was just announced thus generating a lot of traffic to Vimeo's site, but it took about an hour to enhance Cafe Dao video you see above. And then a little more to convert it to HD. 

The new Looks feature is being powered by Vivoom, a new cloud-based video enhancer that can be customized and integrated by its partners such as Vimeo.

From the comments I've read on the various websites that carried this news, the reactions are mixed. Retro filters are not universally liked by purists and others...but my feel is that many will reconsider, especially as the intensity of the filters can be adjusted.

Back Story | The Dzao Of Sa Pa

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Here's the lastest addition to my Digital Wet Plates series of portraits.

The main square in Sa Pa (or Sapa) in northern Vietnam is the main hub of the town, and it hosts a large number of Red Dzao (pronounced Zao) and Hmong women who sell their handicrafts to local and foreign visitors. This market can remain well into dusk. I recall being engulfed by mist (or a low moving cloud) in the early evening whilst photographing the vendors.

The Dzao are the 9th largest ethnic group in Vietnam with a population of just under half a million. They are believed to have started migrating from China in the 13th century, and wear colorful costumes characterized by black trousers embroidered with flower or small star patterns. Their jackets are either red or black usually with embroidered borders.

The women wear a black or red turban together along with silver jewelry. As can be seen in the above photograph, the Dzao women shave off their eyebrows and foreheads (some shave their whole heads) as this is regarded as a sign of beauty in their culture.

The woman in the above photograph was busy embroidering a piece of fabric she hoped to sell to visitors. Note the threaded needle stuck in her headdress.

Global Post | The Year Of The Snake

Photo © Hoang Dinh Nam - AFP/Getty Images

恭禧發財!!!

The Year of the Snake starts from Feb. 10, 2013 and lasts to Jan. 30, 2014...and some Chinese traditional astrologers expect some political turbulence during the year, since in Chinese mythology, snakes were often associated with monsters, or with incarnations of monsters. Others believe that much-needed liquidity will be injected into struggling world economies, and that babies born over the next 12 months will be agile.

In China, an estimated 200 million people have already traveled to be with their families in what is considered the biggest mass human migration on Earth. And for another staggering number, it's estimated that more than one billion people worldwide celebrate Lunar New Year.

Global Post's PlanetPic is one of the first photo blogs to feature photographs of this celebration.

The Travel Photographer's Hanoi iPhoneography

Stephen Mayes, a director at the VII photo agency, recently made a splash in the blogosphere with an interesting interview featured on WIRED's Raw File blog, in which he expressed his view that mobile phone photography is a "pure implementation of the digital phenomenon", and that images made with these devices were not documents as such but rather a stream, or waves of visuals.

He also raised the point that the popularity of these images and the apps that make them are about a nostalgia for the past.

Although I am on Instagram, and use it and other apps quite frequently with my iPhone, I have yet to join the streaming aspect of it, preferring to take my time in sharing the images when I choose to, rather than joining the torrent. This will probably change once I figure out how to have two accounts on Instagram; one for my personal stuff and the other for my travel documentary photography.

That said, one needs to be careful with wily-nilly streaming, because the quality (or lack thereof) of the mobile images affects one's branding and reputation.

Whilst I grapple with this thought, you may want to sit back and get a feel of Hanoi's street life via my iPhone photography. 

The Travel Photographer's Hà Nội Streets (X Pro-1)

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

If there’s anywhere that lives life on the street, it’s Hanoi. 

So here is a gallery of 12 monochrome photographs made in its streets. For these I used my Fuji X Pro-1 and the Fujinon 18mm f2.0 lens and most were shot from the hip.

I didn't know this while on my last month's photo expedition-workshop, but it's said that Hanoi's Old Quarter consists of 36 streets (in reality, there's almost twice that number), each originally named for a traditional trade, and those eventually forming guilds. For instance, Hàng Muối (salt) Street was where the salt traders converged to sell their ware. Not surprising, since Hanoi's Old Quarter has a history that spans 2,000 years. 


This has now changed to a great extent, with some exceptions such as Hang Bac street (which I walked up and down many times) and that was and still is where goldsmiths and silversmiths plied their craft/trade. Most street names in the Old Quarter start with the word Hàng. Hàng means merchandise or shop.

In Vietnamese, the formal term for street is đường phố; the latter word not be confused with its delicious signature soup, but which is a staple of its streets. 

The Travel Photographer's Việt Nam Vignettes

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved

I realize that following my photo expedition-workshop to Vietnam, my blog has been perhaps overly focused on this wonderful country but that's what happens when things click, doesn't it? Whether photographically, culinary, culturally and people-wise...when a country clicks with me, it clicks.

No apologies whatsoever for the overloading...it's just that Vietnam was wonderful.

It's no secret at all that India is my favored photo destination, and that Bhutan and Indonesia come close...but Vietnam is now joining these two longstanding contenders.

So here's another photo gallery titled Vietnam Vignettes...the photographs are in color this time, and with an Alien Skin's Exposure 4 treatment. I used its Polaroid 669 film simulation, applied some added creamy effect and enhanced some vignetting.

It's essentially going back to my roots...sort of. All are travel photographs in the purest sense, with a few street photos included. No documentary photography...and no "travel photography meets photojournalism"...in these photographs.

And yes...one of the photographs is The White Honda & The Red Dress...one of my favorite street photographs of Hanoi. It's the third in four frames shot with the X Pro-1, and the woman's pose is just perfect.

They were mostly made with my Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70mm 2.8 lens, but a few were made with the Fuji X Pro-1/Fujinon 18mm.

To view my Leica photographs of Vietnam, you may want to drop by my other blog The Leica File, and for black & white photographs made in Sapa and Bac Ha, you can view them on The Indigo People.

Maika Elan: The Pink Choice

"I want to show simply how they care and love each other in daily activities."-Maika Elan

According to the web edition of Thanh Nien, an influential newspaper in Vietnam, Maika has changed Vietnam’s entire conception of what it means to be gay and in love with her seminal work The Pink Choice.

Sensitive and compelling...that's The Pink Choice in two words.

I'm not going to rewrite what has already been written on Maika and her various projects, but I have to mention a couple of things: first off I had written a post on her work two years ago, much before I met her at subsequent photo events, and I ended that post with this:

"In my view, Maika has an extremely bright future in photography."

I was right.

I subsequently met her in Siem Reap where we were both attending the Angkor Photo Festival, and invited her to work with me in planning and setting up my Vietnam Photo Expedition-Workshop, which she did. She helped me during the 15 days of its duration and earned the heartfelt appreciation of all involved.

The Pink Choice will be exhibited from the 15th of November to the 2nd of December at the Goethe Institut, 56 – 58 Nguyen Thai Hoc, in Hanoi.

Do go see it if you're there!

The Travel Photographer's Hát Tuồng

© Tewfic El-Sawy (click to enlarge image)

One of the cultural highlights during my Viet Photo Expedition-Workshop was the Hát Tuồng performance we attended at the Vietnam National Tuồng Theatre in Hanoi.

The Hát Tuồng theatre came from China in the 13th Century when Vietnam was warring against the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. It's said that a famous actor named was imprisoned by the Vietnamese, and the imperial court asked him to spread his knowledge of Chinese theatre to the children of the elite, thus its origins were in the royal court. It was subsequently adapted to travelling troupes who entertained commoners and farmers.

Regrettably, there were only 12 or 13 spectators during the hour-long performance, out of which 10 were the photographers in my expedition-workshop. It's rather sad that Hát Tuồng, which is certainly an important part of Vietnam's rich cultural heritage, is not more popular amongst the Vietnamese themselves, as well as tourists. The performers are all proud professionals, and I believe are employed by the state which wants to retain this culture alive. That said, its music is somewhat of an acquired taste.

In any event, I had a ball photographing some of the troupe members using my Fuji X Pro-1/Fujinon 18mm f2.0 whose low-light capabilities are really astounding.

All the photographs were made without flash, at f2.0 and the iso set at 3200.

The rest of the photographs are on my Hat Tuong Backstage gallery.

POV: The Travel Photographer's Vietnam Mourners

click image for larger version

click for larger version

All Photos © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

It's always a difficult decision to photograph moments and scenes of personal (and even public) sorrow for me (and certainly other photographers as well). 

Traveling in our bus during my Vietnam Photo Expedition-Workshop on our way back to Hanoi, and passing a small town, I saw a funeral by the side of the road and asked Maika to inquire whether we could photograph it. I made the decision to do so in a few seconds, principally because the funeral seemed to be public, not enclosed in a private space or in a home.

"The photographer in me wanted to stay as long as possible..."

The head of the family readily agreed provided I lit an incense stick and presented my respects to the memory of the deceased. This I did, and planted the stick at the shrine. The deceased was born in 1925, and his name was Cu Pham Van Bao. That done, I invited the rest of our group to join the congregation. Some did photograph, while others thought it would be too intrusive and didn't.

I was invited to drink green tea, and sat amongst the head table along with our host. The funeral rite is called le dua tang, and the mourning garb seemed to be made of very coarse white gauze...sort of what surgical bandages are sometimes made of. The women wore the cloth wrapped around their heads with straw crowns and a sash. The male mourners used walking sticks made of bamboo and acted as if they were limping and could fall without the stick’s support. These are indications of how overcome the mourners are.

I was surprised that there was a funerary band...and one of them seemed to be a professional wailer.

The photographer in me wanted to stay as long as possible...(had I been alone I probably would have), but while being allowed as a group into their midst by these Vietnamese mourners was immensely gracious, I also knew we were a distraction, and that our time was up after 15 minutes or so.

The Travel Photographer's "Cafe Dao (& Love)"

"No one in our village was as beautiful as she was...we liked each other since we were 12 years old..."

A foreign stranger suddenly walks up to you while you're relaxing on your front porch, with cameras dangling off his shoulders, asking to document your daily life. What would your reaction be?

Well, Thai Truang Dao happily said yes. Of course, Maika Elan was there to explain my purpose, but Mr Dao's hospitality went beyond the inherent politeness shown to a foreign guest. Allowing me into his home (and his life)...and at one point, gesturing me to go up the creaky stairs to photograph a now little used second floor, where his family's shrine and portraits were carefully laid out...is a testament to his kindness.

His candor during the lengthy interviews was natural, and brought Maika and I into their life which they shared for over 60 years.

Thai Truang Dao is a 92 years old Vietnamese, living in Hoi An with his wife, Thai Mo Ba. He established Cafe Dao in the mid forties, before the battle of Dien Bien Phu and much before the Vietnam War (known as the American War in Vietnam). He recalls Cafe Dao as being a meeting place for socializing, gossip and friendship, not only for good coffee.

Bao and his wife were school mates but after graduation didn't meet until she was 28 years old. Very unusually for a Vietnamese woman at that time, Ba hadn't married...waiting for Bao whom she loved but had never shown nor expressed. Meeting again by happenstance, they got married.

Bao wasn't drafted by the Vietcong during the American war due to his Chinese ancestry.

Snippets of their lifestory in just over 3 minutes.

You can also watch it in its native Soundslides format below (it's a better resolution).

©Tewfic El-Sawy- Maika with Mr Dao during the photo shoots.

©Maika Elan. Tewfic with Mr Dao at the end of the photo shoots

Initial Draft Story Board For Cafe Dao

Ehrin Macksey: Hanoi, Calm After The Storm

As my readers know, I was in Hanoi about two weeks ago, and one of my favorite street photography haunts was the Hoan Kiem district, especially in the streets where vendors sold toys, lanterns, masks, and other gaudy decorations in anticipation of the mid-Autumn festival in early October.  The crowds were simply overwhelming in the late evening when young people congregated there to have fun.

Ehrin Macksey, a photojournalist/photographer and filmaker living in Hanoi, decided to photograph the streets of Hanoi the first morning of Tet, another huge festival in Vietnam...after the chaos and bustle at the end of each January or beginning of February that characterize the period leading to Tet.

As you'll see from Ehrin's video of his stills, the calm that replaces the preceding chaos is eerie. He describes Hanoi as being in a Valium induced state. The streets are empty and one can hear birds clearly while walking down some of the larger streets in the city like Dai Co Viet.

I recommend a visit to Ehrin Macksey's website; especially his South East Asia Travel Photography gallery...a lot of gems!

Cao Đài: iPhonegraphy

I thought I'd feature a collection of the portraits of the Cao Đài adherents made with my iPhone during our visit at their temple in Hue.

As I wrote in my post of September 19, I had wanted to witness and photograph a Cao Đài prayer ritual for quite a while, and it was by pure serendipity that I discovered that this new religious tradition had just completed building a temple in Hue.

Cao Đài is a syncretistic, monotheistic religion, officially established in southern Vietnam in 1926. Its Adherents engage in ethical practices such as prayer, veneration of ancestors, nonviolence, and vegetarianism. Its opposition to communism until 1975 was a factor in their repression, and its practice was forbidden until 1997 when it was granted legal recognition.

Caodism (as it's called) draws upon ethical precepts from Confucianism, occult practices from Taoism, theories of karma and rebirth from Buddhism, and a hierarchical organization (including a pope) from Roman Catholicism. Its pantheon of saints includes such diverse figures as the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, and Sun Yat-sen.

I can only stress how gracious the Cao Đài congregation was during our visit...despite our many faux pas during their time of prayer, and how receptive and welcoming they were to our photography. 

The Lady From Hanoi

"I miss the quiet streets of Hanoi..."

Here's a vignette of a story produced by Humanity.tv which caught my eye, especially as I've just returned from Hanoi and loved its people, its overall buzz, its incredible food, and most certainly the slaloming scooters and motorcycles that whizzed past me as I crossed the streets.

The short movie clip is about Ms Nahm, who seems to be longing for the calmer days in Hanoi. I say 'seems' because there's no dialogue (only a musical soundtrack and some ambient sound) to explain who Ms Nahm is. All we get to know is what we see...and that she appears to be an artist (or sells artwork), lives with an elderly person (possibly her husband) and likes to dance.

It would've been wonderful to hear Ms Nahm's voice, and some of her narration...and get to know her a little better. She seems to be quite a character. If I was still in Hanoi, I'd look for her and hear her story.

The Travel Photographer's Vietnam Daguerreotypes

Here's the second of my Vietnam-related projects following my recent photo expedition-workshop....Vietnam In Daguerreotypes. This one is a gallery of stills, modified with Alien Skin Software to look like daguerreotypes. I recently installed the software and I'm amazed at its versatility and range of options.

I expect processing photographs with this software comes with some destructive element to it, but according to my very brief research, there are web tutorials that show you how to process photographs and keep their integrity intact.

The photographs were made with a Canon 5D Mark II (mostly with a 17-40mm), a Leica M9 (with a 40mm Voigtlander f1.4) and the Fuji X Pro-1 (18mm f2.8 XF Fujinon).

Very labor-intensive, the (real) daguerreotype is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. Exposure times for the earliest daguerreotypes ranged from three to fifteen minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture. Modifications to the sensitization process coupled with the improvement of photographic lenses soon reduced the exposure time to less than a minute. 

In comparison, the processing of a still photograph using the Alien Skin Software takes less than a minute, if that.

My first Vietnam project is an audio-slideshow titled Hill Tribes In The Mist, which is on my Vimeo Channel.