Ending My Southeast Asia Travel Photography Trip In Hanoi, Vietnam

September 5, 2008

I have been hanging around in Southeast Asia for the past 9 months and it is time to stop and sort through the thousands of photos I took in a calmer environment. In other words I am out of money.

The last stop is Hanoi where I will be flying home from. Although the colorful communist capital can offer photographic subject matter that would take a lifetime to capture I was not producing anything spectacular during my last few days.

Throughout this trip it was obvious that the more often I changed towns the more curious I stayed, the fresher the experiences and photos stayed.
Some photographers can spend a lifetime in one location where they grew up and never run out of photographic inspiration.

It is clearly not the case with me but I covered a lot of land during the last 9 months and I am pleased with what I have done.
It would have been possible to take one million images in nine months but early on I realized that quality was winning over quantity; this took a bit of time to accept.

As I return to Hungary I shall work on my Southeast Asia Travel Photography Coffee Table Books. Without grand illusions of selling thousands of copies I will make them for myself, whoever may buy them will be a bonus.

The following snapshots are from Hanoi; why even put them online? Showing just the winning pictures would not tell the whole story.

This typical walls segment was interesting to walk by but harder to capture in a meaningful way:

The towels keeping motorbike seats from getting hot were somewhat interesting but no matter how many different compositions I tried I could not come up with anything better than this:

No matter how geometric the lines and how cultural the advertising stamps are on the wall this is far from a quality picture:

Capturing a slice of life in the colorful Old Quarter of Hanoi might have been successful by including people in the shot or showing less wall and more substance here:

These advertising stamps are everywhere in Hanoi, I tried to use the widest angle I had and experiment, but still this is no bueno; a kid standing there would have helped:

Oh, I get it, the trip is over and Hanoi is trying to tell me to stop and relax:

This 9 month long journey was the best trip of my life. I am planning to return.