Street Portrait Potpourri from Amazing Saigon 🇻🇳

Starting with the cutest scene:

A moonkey boy. 😎 I was walking along the street, thinking that the photo day was over, I was so tired. Happily, I didn't put my camera into the backpack. I quickly took the first image but the sixth feeling whispered to me to wait a quarter of the second more. When I came closer, the mom slightly turned, and that added communication to the shot.

Happy.

The left person had an oriental-style tattoo on his back: two carp, a lotus, and a skull pierced with a knife. I saw it on my way and took a photo. Alas, the angle was bad. Then, I had to walk very close to them - terrible traffic from one side, and the sidewalk was occupied by bikes and other objects... And we met eyes, and I just saw this readiness in them and automatically asked if I could take a photo of them.

I like how they are looking at me in the image - wondering but spontaneously open... Bare chests, imperfect but real (I have extra fat too, no problem), also remove some sort of the barrier.

There are sunny days in Saigon in June.... Or better to say, sunny hours. 😀 I liked how the man was holding the pillar but I didn't manage to photograph them secretively so I decided to ask the consent. They agreed and the left guy showed a V-sign. However, the traffic in the background was unfavorable so asked them to wait a couple of seconds. And the left person, tired of waiting, returned to his initial pose so the original version of the scene was restored.

When we travel, we want to find not only other countries but also other times. Of course, a nice young woman in a rice hat on a bicycle is a tempting object for a photographer - everything like 50 years ago.

Besides, June is the rainy season in Saigon, rainy images are a must.

There is a thin line between normalizing the light during post-processing and killing the atmosphere. Here, I decided to leave the image slightly dark to save the vibes of a gloomy rainy afternoon.

Taking images of passing bikes can be extremely rewarding if you choose the place for the photo shoot with consideration.

But the feeling of fun disappears soon since the thing turns into a routine and that's a poison for creativity.

You can see the craziest things on the two wheels in Vietnam but, when you are ready to shoot, waiting may take a long time.

So, my advice is: take images until it's boring and then go - the lovely end-of-the-day light won't last forever.

But you hardly can avoid the whole topic of motorbikes since Vietnames live on them.

If you say "I know it, I saw it in Thailand", you are so wrong. Thais just travel on bikes. That's not a shade, that's a big difference.

You can see different things in Bangkok and meet all sorts of weirdos (including us, farangs 😄) but, in general, sitting on the bike with raised feet to the level of faces of passers-by... That's a shameful behavior if you ask my inner Thai person 😁

But that's Vietnam, not Thailand, different people and culture, so let's keep walking and watching the amazing urban life of Saigon City.

Sometimes, it's not a behavior, sometimes, it's poverty. Some outskirts of Saigon look awful. Besides, many people - I guess - come to Saigon from poor small towns to earn money and have no shelter except their vehicles.

I loved these guys against the white. I didn't approach them but asked with gestures if I could take images of them. They stood upright and smiled.

Another example of the remote consent 🙂 A friendly get-together by the road, and the noise of traffic is not a hindrance. I asked them with gestures being across the street.

In conclusion: the Vietnamese are fantastic models for a street photographer, no matter if you ask consent or not. ❤️

More stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out my previous posts on my personal Pinmapple map

I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 in May and June, 2024, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.