Treasure Chests

I'm really loving Xanthe Berkley's time capsule idea which I have now rechristened 'Treasure ​ Chest' because that  concept really resonates with me. The idea of digging up forgotten treasures from the past and bringing them back to life really excites me.

We have piles of albums from our pre digital days but virtually never look at them. Likewise the thousands of holiday snaps stored on the hard drive ​don't often see the light of day, (or should that be screen), either.

Treasure Chests seem so accessible though - you can store them on your hard drive or on UTube or Vimeo, unlock them, and for a couple of minutes the magic and memories flow out, then you can put them back in the chest until the next time.

I am still beavering a way at my Vietmanese Vignettes ​ - here is number two which features the world heritage site of Halong Bay and the fishing villages at Nha Trang

Vietnam Vignettes 2 Coastal Journeys from Barbara Evans on Vimeo.

A Sense of Place - Week ONe

I have just started Kat Sloma's course 'A Sense of Place'. In this first week Kat has posed the question 'Do you travel to photograph or  photograph as you travel?'

Thinking about this question I realise I photograph as I travel.  However I  try to take my camera with me most days as you never know what unexpected treasure you are going to find, even when you are  somewhere you know well.

Both these sets of pictures were taken during an impromptu lunch hour walk last summer.

I derive a lot of pleasure from coming upon things unexpectedly so would not always want to plan my travels around things I have identified that I really want to photograph. I also think taking photos of famous monuments is often very difficult, unless you are able to spend days in preparation. Thus my recent photos of Angkor Wat were not particularly successful whereas I was really pleased with a picture of the captain of our boat on Halong Bay that I couldn't have planned for in the same way.

 

Similarly my attempts to capture the Temple of Literature in Hanoi weren't crowned with success but I was very happy with the pictures I took of some of the young people I saw there.

When I came to look for photos to illustrate this point, I realised I had already deleted most of the more general views of the Temple of Literature!

It will be interesting to see whether, as I get more deeply involved with photography, my perspective changes on this!

Holiday Snaps - Sharing the Fun?

Holiday photographs present an innate dilemma - what do do with them once you get home? In the past, before digital cameras, we used to send them off to be processed and end up with physical evidence of our holidays which we could put in a album or allow to gather dust on a shelf. Of course we can still print off our photos but I suspect most of us just don't bother.

Modern alternatives include make a book of memories using Blurb or similar, uploading the whole lot on to Flickr or a similar platform and sending our friends and family the link, or uploading to Facebook or another social networking site.

This year I have come up with another alternative - the time capsule. As I have mentioned before I am taking a course with the wonderful Xanthe Berkley which is inspiring me to do things a little differently and I plan to make a series of 2 minute films which capture the essence of different parts of the holiday. check out the first one here.

Vietnam Vignettes 1 City Life from Barbara Evans on Vimeo.

 So far this is proving very successful - when people have asked to see photo's I have sent them the link and a surprising number of them have actually watched it and commented favourably. I think a real plus is that you get get a sense of a place very quickly and can always watch again if you want to focus on a particular aspect.

Holiday Snaps?

We have just returned from a wonderful holiday to Vietnam and Cambodia, our first major holiday since I became really passionate about photography. This has presented me with a number of challenges, the first being why I am taking photographs? What is the purpose of it? The 1,800 or so pictures I’ve taken they can probably be broken down into the following categories:

Photographs of things I want to remember I’ve seen.

These come under the heading of traditional holiday snaps, not necessarily things that are intrinsically beautiful or fascinating, but things that appear ‘different’ or unusual that I want to record so that when I get home I know I haven’t imagined them.

The photos were taken at the tomb of Tu Duc at Hue where dressing up clothes are available for anyone who wants to play at  being emperor and concubines. We were lucky enough to arrive just as this group were ready to have their photo taken. 

Photographs of famous monuments / beauty spots.

Tricky this on several counts, when you're on a group tour, as we were, you don’t get to pick the time of day or light in which you see places. Plus I’m still saving up for a wide-angle lens. Plus you can almost always get a postcard that is better than anything you can take yourself unless you can inject another point of interest into the photo (other than yourself!) to make it a little different.

The top picture is one of the temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the bottom one is from our cruise on Halong Bay - both of these are UNESCO World Heritage sites

Flowers, colours, shapes that may or not speak directly of the place you have been visiting but have a universal appeal

I love these lotus flowers for their colour and shape as they unfurl - they also happen to be the national flower of Vietnam as well as India

 People, the life of the country. Photographs of people wearing local dress, national costumes, doing every day tasks or on special occasions 

Luckily for photographers most people in Vietnam seem happy for you to take their photo and will often smile and  wave to show their approval if, for example, they are passing on a motor scooter (more about traffic in a later post)

The first of these pictures was taken on the Meekong Delta. The other two of women tending rice paddys and a herb garden were taken on the drive to Halong Bay from Hanoi. 

‘I woz here’ photos

I’ve never taken very many of these and have always felt slightly baffled by the number of people who seem to feel that a photo of a monument isn’t valid unless they are in it as well, to prove they’ve actually been there. That said, I did take a few of this type of photo this time mainly with my iPhone  to pop on to Facebook.

These were taken outside Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum in Hanoi, at the Cu Chi tunnels in Siagon, demonstrating exactly how small a space the Viet Kong were living in during the war, and enjoying a fresh coconut drink whilst travelling on the Mekong Delta