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!

Saigon Punk Chronicles : Enter the Year of the Dragon

Another year end party and this one was a banger. I didn’t catch all the bands, school night ya know, but it was one of the funnest shows I’ve been to in ages. By the time Desolated went on, kids were hanging from the rafters and the stage was invisible under the sing along pile ons. Fucking amazing. When I first moved to Saigon, shows felt very different than they do now in the best possible way. It feels like a proper hardcore scene, though with some marked differences from the scene I grew up in. First, none of that stupid scene elitism. Everyone here, at least in my experience, is so down to earth, approachable, and welcoming. Secondly, the representation of women is far more than when I grew up. It’s so good to see.

The line up consisted of Desolated from the UK, Moneybag 1327 out of Kuala Lumpur, District 105, Diarsia, Elbow Drop, and Pizza Dua. I caught Diarsia, District 105, Moneybag 1327 and Desolated, so my apologies to the other bands!

Desolated

Moneybag 1327

District 105

Diarsia

Stage Dives and High Fives!

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.

Travel Diary : Komodo and Nusa Penida, Indonesia

It’s been crazy busy lately, so I’ve had a backlog of images from some travel earlier this year and I’m just now able to get to these. Over the summer, Komodo was calling and I definitely answered. The small town of Labuan Bajo was a dusty little town the last time I was there and while its still a small town, it’s definitely not dusty anymore. Looks like a substantial investment in infrastructure has led to a boom in development. Nicer roads, a massive increase in food offerings and considerably more tourists. It felt like a different place. It doesn’t look like its spiraled out of control, so I’m hoping it retains its laid back vibes for a bit longer.

Following Komodo, I popped back to Nusa Penida to see some friends and have a pitstop before heading back to Saigon. It’s always such a good look to not worry about going to see much and just slowing down to hang with friends. Only there for a couple nights, I didn’t get to shoot much, but the light was incredible and I couldn’t help but including a few frames in this post.

For the photographers, I travelled light and fast so I shot all of these on my little Fuji x100s.