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So why take snapshots through the windows of bouncing minibuses for hours risking banging up your camera, getting carsick while looking through the viewfinder and missing out on possible conversations with fellow tourists?
Well, not having to talk to or listen to the complaining of other western tourists is already a great incentive to hide behind the camera on long bus trips.
But there are other benefits i.e. sharpening those photo journalistic skills of fast composition, rapid discovery of interesting subject matter and on the fly camera handling.
Also it makes a several hour trip fly by while having fun and last but not least to end up with some nice photos that capture special moments which truly disappeared into a not so reliable memory in a blink of an eye.
It was fun to do this high speed documentary photography and also educational, photographically and culturally speaking.
I was able to take a couple of seconds of peeks into countless Vietnamese homes and lives; and sometimes even capture an interesting moment.
The picture taking process had an adventurous feeling thanks to the drivers of the constantly bouncing, swirling, honking and speeding Vietnamese minibuses.
But I feel this method is quite invasive, even rude because people usually do not expect to see a camera sticking out the window of a speeding bus taking their pictures; they really did not have the time or the chance to object or prevent me from clicking the shutter.
A large part of people's life in Vietnam already lacks the level of privacy westerners are used to, although it seems everyone is quite comfortable with it.
Many houses are easy to look into through wide and always open front doors and disproportionately more activities take place in front of homes and on sidewalks.
Most of the time it was not practical to look through the camera's viewfinder because it was more likely I would get car sick or damage the camera while unexpectedly flying through the air after the driver cleared bumps or potholes on the road at almost full speed. Composition did suffer from not seeing the photo as I was taking it no matter how skilled I got with shooting from the hip. But giving up some control sometimes also worked in the favor of the photo resulting in a less conventional more free spirited composition.
With some practice as I was "shooting from the hip" (well, more like chest level) it was possible to level the camera (more or less), set a fast enough shutter speed, continuously keep things in focus and time the shots.
As with any fast action photography when the photographer sees something it means he or she already missed shooting it so anticipating what was about to happen was key even though I could not see further ahead more than a second.
An added aspect of experimentation was that instead of just automatically taking a photo of every person, house, bridge or field I passed and edit them later I tried to evaluate in a split second if the subject was interesting enough. Keeping my mind busy this way made multi-hour bus rides seem like a few minutes.
Photo taken during my boat ride between Chau Doc, Vietnam and Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the Vietnamese border checkpoint. The man is in the typical squatting position which is common from young to old age but for some reason it really stands out for me as visually unique. I guess Hungarians do not squat that much.
Interesting how simple and two dimensional the composition of this picturesque Cambodian rural scenery is. I took the photo with a telephoto lens from the middle of the Mekong River (meaning: from considerable distance).
I think the wooden thing was a bridge, not crossing the river but running alongside, not sure because the bus just sped by it but the lines of the horizon and the bridge looked interesting for a photo.
Even though this scene is very common for some reason this small slice of simplicity really popped out as an eye catching (and very green) subject.
Nice perspective of boats and river seen from my minibus as driving over a bridge.
I look forward to bridges for the simple reason that the bus driver might actally slow down to avoid being airborne so if something is happening on the river below there is a decent chance of catching it.
Scenic landscape with emerald green rice fields. I think I read "emerald green ricefields" in Lonely Planet, it is definitely something I would never say myself.
There are countless houses like this but I hope I never to get used to them and always enjoy viewing life along the Mekong River passing by.
Nice shot of fishing traps, rice fields and blue mountains caught from the fast moving bus; added bonus is the reflection of clouds on the water.
Universal truth of photography: a lone tree always begs to be photographed!
There is hardly ever a boring moment while traveling in the Mekong Delta or the rural areas of Southeast Asia which is void of eyesores like large freeways and concrete lane dividers. Here is a simple but exotic scenery of a woman walking through a field.
Contents of a fruit cart and flowers of a tree add plenty of color to this picture; given some time to set up a shot a much nicer still life photo could have resulted.
Nice light and shadows, colors and shapes. The lucky break was in the form of breaking for a bus stop so I had a few seconds to frame this photo and even take a few extras.
Blue and yellow always work together; this photo with a blue cyclo in front of a yellow wall is as Southeast Asia as it gets.
Simple image of a sign and colorful flags. It looked interesting against the blue sky and very symmetric between the two buildings.
I had such a short time to take the photo that one half is through the open window the other half has already passed through the closed section. Interestingly but not intentionally the closed window cuts the picture exactly in half.
Photo taken just before our minibus boarded a Mekong River ferry; Vietnam sometimes felt like good old communist Hungary.
