Photo Friday: Farmer Lady selling aubergrines in Da Lat, Vietnam

This is my second time trying out black and white film =) and it was the final trip of the year in Da Lat, Vietnam.

It was interesting how these 2 photos turned out. The first one was what I intended to capture, a 'clean' photo with nothing in the background. Very difficult as this was a crowded market, but it was at the end of the market and the lady, the road, the 2 panniers balanced by a bamboo rod just came together.

I took the second photo almost as an afterthought.

I showed them to many people, both photographers and non-photographers, and all of them liked... ... the second one. It tells a story, it shows a scene, there is some feeling there. So this is really interesting to me, finding out about what people like and improving on my skills. One friend even ventured, what if I took this lady in more, varying angles? I'm sure the result would be interesting and I really love to wander around in markets like these to find such topics, the 'everyday life' part of travel photography. And I'm doubly glad that out of this trip there are some photos that turned out well, which I liked very much!

Last trip of the year: Onward to Da Lat, Vietnam

Sunrise near Mount Bromo with tourists, Feb 2013. Taken with a toy camera, Superheadz.




Dreams. 

It's nice to have them, isn't it?

Very early on in 2013, I made a small travel wish, a dream I kept to myself. That I would journey to these 2 South East Asian countries that are really, not that far away from Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia. It's almost a shame that given my love for travel and interesting landscapes I've not been to these countries. Early on in 2013, somehow the budget ticket prices were really high, too high for me to make a purchase on these flights. I monitored the ticket prices throughout the year and finally got a great ticket price to Cambodia - booked in May, travel date October. I had also booked a ticket to Vietnam - to see the hill country of Da Lat and hopefully journey to the sand dunes of Phan Rang - but unfortunately wasn't able to make the trip as I was in Europe and it didn't make sense. 

It's actually amazing then, in a couple of days, I am journeying to Vietnam! My new boss gave us an unexpected vacation on the 30 - 31, so despite being new and really wanting to save my leave for something longer, I can go on this trip! It is really unexpected and my heart shines with joy just at the thought of this small wish being completed, surprisingly, at the end of 2013. And who knew that my boss would be the one to fulfil this dream, in a way?

The main plan is to go straight to Da Lat, with cooler weather, and then hopefully visit a couple of villages, the nearby mountain (1900 ft) by jeep, and make my way to the sand dunes at Phan Rang. I'm taking this opportunity to brush up on my film photography skills too, getting over my fear of using the large zoom lens. 

So far, the Tamron lens that I put usually at 50 mm did take quite nice photos. 

I'm glad always that people like what I photograph, part of the joy of travel photography is that I did inspire people to go on such trips - at least two people I knew of went to Mount Bromo after seeing my amateur shots, and that is a reward in itself. Fingers crossed for all the equipment to work smoothly, I don't like to carry anxiety on a vacation!