I realised that I’d forgotten a couple of favourites when I was writing up the trip over the last few days, starting with this one:
1/800 sec at f5.6, ISO 100 at 135mm
…and it reminded me of a mini moral dilemma that I had on holiday: taking people’s pictures without asking. It’s one thing to be running around at a wedding and taking ‘candid’ shots of people that you know. It’s another to be pointing your camera at strangers in passing, and it was the first time I’d ever done it.
I didn’t come up with any clear idea of how to address this in advance of the trip, other than being pretty sure that if I didn’t take any pictures of local people it would limit the opportunities, and almost certainly be something that I’d regret.
I’d say that 95% of the shots of people that I took were while we were on the Mekong and Perfume Rivers. These were generally at distance and – statement of the obvious perhaps – having clear water between subject and photographer makes it a lot easier. Regardless, the woman in the picture above is unrecognisable with the mask over her mouth.
My primary exception to the whole gig was this lady, and I think it’s my only worthwhile shot from a couple of days in Hoi An:
1/30sec at f5.6, ISO 1600 at 135mm
Straight after this shot, trying to sell me her wares she said ‘take my picture’. I gave her some money so I think we both came out of it ok. [One passing observation on post: I’ve used a despeckle filter to remove some of the noise. I think it’s come out ok for an ISO 1600 shot.]
Right at the start of the trip when we were sheltering from torrential rain in Ben Thanh market in Saigon, I watched a non local bloke with a 200mm zoom frame up a picture of a mother and her baby from less than 3 feet away. The mother was watching him, giving him contemptuous looks which he merrily ignored, and walked straight off without a word after taking the picture. As I say I was working this stuff out as I went, but it struck me as pretty rude…
