Travel Diary: Hanoi with the Fuji x100v

I popped up to Hanoi recently for a short couple of days and while in between obligations, I tested out my new toy - the Fuji x100v. If you’ve read any of my other blog posts, you’d have read that I’d been using the x100s on a few trips to see if I could mentally cope with the FOMO of not taking my Sony kit. It’s been fun, but wow, I realise now that I was merely dipping my toes into the world of shooting with Fuji system. The x100v is the x100s turned up to 11. Completely different in such a good way. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Sony kit, and will use it whenever its work related, but when I’m traveling for leisure, the x100v is going to be, without a doubt, my camera of choice. Having a fixed lens camera that fits in a tiny little bag doesn’t feel like I’m packing all the kit for a work assignment…. In fact, it feels the exact opposite. I’m not worrying about which lens to bring, how many lenses to bring, which lens I want to use for certain situations…none of that. One lens, one camera.. it simplifies things to put it lightly. Not having to think all of that, it has freed up so much of my headspace and allows me to just shoot for the pure joy of shooting. If I’m being honest, the final image is probably secondary to the actual act of shooting. The process has become some sort of therapy and allows me to be present in the moment. I hope the images reflect that weight of casting off the technical “noise” in simpler more compelling compositions. But even if it doesn’t, that’s quite alright. I’ve had so much fun in this whole process and that’s what matters.

Staying Inspired by Playing tourist in my Own City

Photographers get bored. Something new and shiny grabs our attention, foreign destinations dangle in front of us like carrots. Our cameras sit on shelves when we’re home and not on the road or in the studio. It happens when you live in places people love to shoot, too.….…Or, maybe its me and not photographers in general. But I’d guess this happens to a lot of people. You’ve seen something a million times, the shine isn’t as bright as it used to be despite still being endlessly photogenic to so many others…it becomes the mundane. And, then you have a friend come in town and you get to see your city as a tourist all over again and all of a sudden its shiny again. This time, my good friend, Nev and his partner Jacky, dropped me a line that they were going to be in Saigon for a few days and they’d love to go out shooting like we did 8 years ago the last time he was in Saigon. So of course, I said yes and got excited to play tour guide and act like a tourist in my own town. Every time I step outside of my routine and go shoot in Saigon just for the pleasure of shooting, it’s always a good time. Seeing places with new eyes and all that, right?

On a side note, if you’re not familiar with Nev’s work, he’s one of the most talented people I know. Incredible artist and a damn good photographer too. He’s on his way up to Danang this week to paint a piece up there, so if you’re in the Danang area go check out Nam Jam Mural Festival, say hello and show him where all the good food is.

We went out a couple of afternoons/evenings happily snapping away and catching up on life. As he chatted about Saigon the last time he was here, the sheer change of the city became more obvious than I realized seeing as I’ve only seen the incremental change (albiet more rapid than most places) over the past years. The skyline is vastly different and the city has a bit of a different vibe these days. Looking at some of the images we took last time and going back to the same places was eye opening to see the differences. It was fun hearing an outside perspective and think about the city I live in from a new angle. Nev lives in NYC some of the year and left Atlanta a year before I did, so we waxed on about playing tour guides in our new adopted cities. It’s a fun exercise to get out there, find the beauty in what has become mundane or normal and have an amazing time with old friends. Enough waxing on poetic….

Travel Diary : Maldives

Over the Lunar New Year holiday, known as Tet ‘round here, it’s always a time to get off the grid, recharge the batteries and get ready for the upcoming months. Having planned this trip to Fuvamulah months ago, my calendar had plenty of x’s counting down the days to some island life and some underwater adventures. No underwater photos here, but plenty of that island vibe to go around. Though it rained a few days, I still love capturing those moments, too. It’s not all postcards and travel brochures. Oftentimes, we see these glossy images of famous destinations, Maldives especially with its ubiquitous drone shot of the overwater bungalow, and we never see the day to day type of images. Don’t get me wrong, those aerial shots of the overwater bungalows are lovely, but I could pay for multiple trips if I had a dollar for every one of these shots I’ve seen. Travel isn’t “perfect”… but because it isn’t, it makes us adapt and really dig into a new place. I could go down the road of traveling versus holidays/vacations, but you get my point. Lovely sunsets are interrupted with downpours, incredible destinations often take some hard and tedious journeys to get there, it’s….a process. Flat tires, delays, shitty airport food, unexpected flies in the ointment (or your soup)…. it all happens. I suppose I could boil it down to our expectations and how we self manage them but I’m sure I’d be ignoring some nuance somewhere. Whatever. Scrolling through the ‘gram leads us down this primrose path of picture perfect postcard bragging rights….. but sometimes that path ain’t pretty. Sometimes that path has puddles, a bit more rubbish than we’d like, and maybe we sit on the side of that path while we wait for a tire to be changed. But that’s the best part for me at least. The unexpected, the new, the moments where we have to get outside our comfort zones. All that being said, I wouldn’t characterize a bit of rain as hard yards or even begin to complain, but as I looked through these images, it reminded me of how there’s beauty in the imperfections.

All these images were shot on my little Fuji X100S. That new x100vi just got announced and has me wanting to pick up a new toy. Hopefully it won’t be on perpetual backorder like its predecessor. Edited in Capture One for those interested in post processing.

Tips and Tricks: Using Light to Simplify Compositions in Travel Photography

Living in Saigon, street scenes are usually busy, chaotic, and have a million things going on everywhere, all at the same time. It’s sensory overload sometimes even after a decade of living here. Shooting these scenes, it’s often easy to fall into the trap of trying to capture everything all in the same frame. We see so many interesting things and we snap away. But most of the time, the result is an image with about forty bajillion competing elements and the viewer is left wondering what the subject of the scene is. It’s like drinking out of a firehose. Not great. That said, there are many ways to avoid this, but one of my favourite ways is letting light guide my compositions, and my viewers’ eyes, to a clear subject. It’s a fun way to cut out some of the clutter and refine and focus your images when the scene is otherwise filled to the brim with everything….all at the same time. Look for little pools of light…and wait for it. Have a look around, anticipate interesting things happening in the light before you. Let light create shapes and guide your framing. No leading lines? Use a shaft of light to guide those eyes. Messy background? Drop down that exposure and shoot for the highlights. Put that messy background in shadows so it’s not distracting. And always remember, you don’t need to tell everything in one image. Create a series that’s interesting and tells a story through vignettes….kinda like those little pool of lights you stalked when you were shooting.

For all the folks interested in what gear I use, these were all shot on an old Fuji x100s. Yeah. the S. Nothing fancy. Just chasing the light.

What other little tricks can you think of to make otherwise hectic compositions cleaner and more compelling? Leave a comment below. Let’s see all those little things you’ve learned!

Travel Diary - Sri Lanka Part 3: Black and White Edition

As previously mentioned, I got a bit enthusiastic with my penchant for hitting the shutter and ended up with a mountain of images to go through. Normally, I try to cull down the numbers to have one of these posts, but it didn’t work out that way this time around. I generally don’t like mixing black and white images with colour images when I post, so here’s my take on Sri Lanka in black and white.

Travel Diary - Sri Lanka Part 2 : Southern Beaches and Galle

Making my way south from Columbo, I hopped on a train without a reserved seat. Needless to say it was an experience in standing less than 2 millimeters from every person on the train. Get in where you fit in is the name of the game. After getting off the train, I finally exhaled fully after basically holding my breath for 3 hours and the first inhale I felt that ocean breeze fill my lungs. Perfect. Midigama, Weligama and the old Dutch fort of Galle were on the docket for the next part of the trip. The hustle and bustle of Columbo gone, it was time to enjoy a much slower pace and unplug for the holiday.

Travel Diary - Sri Lanka Part 1 : Columbo

I got a little shutter happy this past trip to Sri Lanka and ended up with far more images that I cared to sift through, but with that, I had the fun problem of trying to pare down the mountains of images into something that would be not akin to drinking out of a firehose. So, here we are. This first batch of images are all from Columbo and it’s not hard to understand how I got a bit overzealous and snapped away if you get to travel here. While most people hop in and out of Columbo, I absolutely love shooting here. The Columbo Fort station, Pettah Market, it’s a street photographer’s dream. Keep checking back for parts 2 and 3 where we head down to the beaches and to the old Dutch fort of Galle. On that note, we’ve extended our Sri Lanka photography tour next year and so sign up over here and join us!

Travel Diary: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Recently, a last minute opportunity came up and I jumped at the chance to have a sneaky weekend in Siem Reap. Home to the temples of Angkor Wat, the last time I got a chance to visit Siem Reap was this past February on a similar last minute decision. I mentioned a slick shiny airport in the last blog post and, as I walked off the plane, I was greeted by a bigger, newer, shinier, airport. By bigger, l mean massive. Towering ceilings, seemingly endless gates, around a 10 minute walk from gate to immigration, it dwarfs the Saigon Airport. Just for a bit of context, Siem Reap, with its population of 250,000 people had 2 million people travel through their previous airport last year while Saigon, with its population of 10 million, accommodates nearly 40 million folks each year. I hope the size of the new airport doesn’t indicate the projected growth in visitors to this little corner of Cambodia. The thought of that many people swarming Angkor Wat makes my head explode.

As I hopped in my transport to the city, I asked the driver how long it would be as I had to hop on afternoon call, and the response of “around an hour” was a bit jaw dropping given the small size of Siem Reap. It’s not like you need to drive across a sprawling metropolis to get to land that would accommodate an airport. In any event, after I spent the hour commute trying to wrap my head around this new airport, I remembered how much I love coming here. Life slows waaaaaaaay down, the countryside is gorgeous, and all that red dirt reminds me of my Georgia roots. Pair that instant slowdown with the awe-inspiring temples of Angkor and I’m a happy man. I only ventured out to the temples for an afternoon, but it paid off in spades. Incredible light completely complemented a nearly perfect backdrop and provided just the cure for the hustle and bustle of everyday life in Saigon.

I’ll be posting more of these images over on Instagram so go give that a follow if you’re digging these.