Ben Tre woman I met coming over a little bridge, Fujifilm Provia 100F

I had convinced myself I was going to wake up at 6:30am and start shooting if the weather was nice, and do some exercise if it wasn’t.  I did, in fact wake up in time, stagger to my door, and look out at the grey, hazy morning sky.  That’s as far as I got.  I happily got back in bed, vaguely hoping for better weather later in the day, and distinctly hoping for my headache to go away.  Happy New Year, indeed.

Thankfully the weather and my pulsing head both improved, at least marginally, and around 10:30am our guide took us on a long walk over to another island so we could check out an old house.

At that hour of the morning, the light was too hard to get good shots of anything directly in the sunlight, so I decided to try and get some pictures of plants and fruit using the natural, diffused light in the shadowed areas.

Green bamboo, Kodak ColorPlus 200

I had Kodak ColorPlus 200 speed film loaded into my cameras, which I can get for less about $1.75 a roll here in Saigon, so I wasn’t feeling shy about shooting off lots of frames and experimenting with stuff.  I’m actually really impressed with how the colors and details came out, especially considering it’s negative film.  I was particularly happy with this picture of a gourd I got.

A freshly picked gourd before being hung to dry, Kodak ColorPlus 200

I found it sitting on this table, under a little covered area next to a tiny old house.  I moved the gourd a bit in order to make a nice composition with the window in the background, but essentially this is just how I found it, sitting on an old rotten table in that beautiful, diffused light.

Eventually we came upon an old cable suspension bridge crossing a channel between the two islands.  The river ran almost perfectly west to east, with the sun able to cut a direct path overhead.  Adam and I had found our afternoon shooting spot – we’d be returning here at about 4 in the afternoon.

Our little snack shop in Ben Tre, Kodak ColorPlus 200

The bridge led over to a much more developed village, with cement pathways instead of dirt, and the occasional snack shop or noodle stall.  After stopping to get some much-needed water, we headed further into the village until we came upon the ancient house.

The house was actually pretty cool, built some time in the late 1800s.  Southern Vietnam was populated much more recently than the north and central regions were, and so old architecture is not nearly as easy to come across.  Structures built before 1900 are uncommon, and ones built before 1800 are almost unheard of.  This particular home we visited has been in the current owner’s family for several generations.  Out in front of the house were hundreds of small pots, containing “cay mai”, small trees that bloom with bright yellow flowers, usually coinciding with Tet holiday.  In southern Vietnam these flowers invoke a festive feeling in the locals, similar to how a Christmas tree does with people in the West.  The family at the house has been breeding them for years and years, and renting out the small trees to local families over Tet holiday.  Around the back of the house they raise fighting cocks, which they claim sell for 5-6 million Dong (somewhere around $300).  It would have been a great place to shoot, if it hadn’t been high Noon with such hard, white light.  I did, however get a great portrait of the nice old lady that invited us into the house and gave us tea to drink!

The friendly old lady at the ancient house, Kodak ColorPlus 200

Stopping again at the little snack shop on the way back, we had the woman running the shop make us “nuoc mia” – fresh crushed sugar cane juice on ice, usually with a squeeze of lemon or orange in it.  Fantastic.  This shot is a picture of her with her sugar-cane-mashing machine.  I shot through a roll of Ilford PANF 100 over the weekend, but most of it was just okay, nothing really stood out to me except this one shot.  Due to the low light I had to shoot wide open at f/1.8.  Because of the extremely shallow depth of field at that aperture setting, I had to focus on an area near the middle of her machine and wait for her to lean forward and grab the cane coming out the other side and try and catch the shot at the perfect moment.

Cane juice, the natural way to ingest sugar! Ilford PANF 100

After returning to our rooms, cleaning up a bit, having lunch and having a short rest, Adam and I set off together back to the bridge for some good afternoon shots.  We’d been hoping for some good sunset shots down the river, and maybe some nice shots off to the east with boats laden with fruit coming towards us on the river.

Well, things in the Mekhong Delta move at a slower pace than you might like them to at times, and very few boats came along.  While it was looking like I might not get that nice, wide angle sunset photo with boats and great colors in the sky, I wasn’t going to let that stop me from doing something else.  The light coming into the bridge from the west was perfect, and so I decided to crouch down on the opposite side of the path across the bridge and photograph people going past on their motorbikes and bicycles.  Adam and I sat there shooting for about an hour, waiting again and again to get good shots of people coming across the bridge.

Sunday drivers in Ben Tre. Fujifilm Provia 100F

Crouched down on a rickety little bridge swaying back and forth over a river while motorbikes zip past you can be a bit unnerving, but it makes for good photography!  After using up most of a roll of Fujifilm Provia 100F slide film, I got these couple of shots that I really liked, plus the portrait I used to start off this post.  The horizon was quite bright in comparison to my foreground, so I used a .6 graduated neutral density filter to bright out the blues in the sky.

Traffic piling up on the bridge. Fujifilm Provia 100F

And as far as photography goes, that was all we did that was worth talking about that weekend!  I could complain about how our tour the next morning got us to the floating market too late to see anything, and the rest of it was touristy and crappy, but you wouldn’t care.  Mini-bus rides are boring to talk about, and besides all that I’m out of decent shots to show off from the trip.  I won’t be taking any more trips until the first week of February, but I’ve got quite a few mornings off in the next couple of weeks, and some material from the last few weeks that I’ve been saving up to use in galleries.  More soon!

Window on the Vinh Hue police station, shot on Fujifilm Velvia 100F

New Year’s is not my favorite holiday.  It never has been.  In my experience, New Year’s Eve seems to be this holiday where every idiot under the sun figures they have an excuse to go out and be loud, drunk and obnoxious in celebration of what is really just an arbitrary date which no longer even correlates to the lunar cycle, thanks to the Gregorian calendar.  I don’t usually make special plans for NYE, and this year was no exception.  I was at home alone, and went to bed about 5 minutes after midnight.  Whoopee, it’s 2010, goodnight.

About a week before the auspicious date of January 1 arrived, however, my friend Adam invited me to go down to the Mekhong Delta for a few days with him and a group of his friends.  I hadn’t been out of the city in months, and the quiet and fresh air were sounding really, really nice, so I decided to take a couple of extra days off of work and head down there with them.  Thank God!

We set out from Saigon about 10:30AM on the morning of the 1st.  I was feeling well rested and energetic and ready to hit the road.  The same couldn’t be said for my all my traveling companions.  Being New Year’s Day it should have come as no surprise that more than a couple of people were nursing moderate-to-severe hangovers, and some lingering drunkenness was even apparent.  Cold beers were purchased and brought into the mini-van, and shortly after setting out one of the guys demanded we pull over on the side of the highway to buy some homemade rice whiskey.  I was getting a good idea of what the weekend was going to be like.  I was determined to preserve my sobriety long enough to get some decent photography done though!

The abandoned nursing station, Fujifilm Velvia 100F

The ride down was pretty uneventful, and it took us about 3 hours to reach a little hamlet called Vinh Hue in Ben Tre province, from where we would be boarding a boat to go to our bungalows.  We were dropped off in a little decaying town square with a mostly vacant market in the middle of it.  The town had a feeling of transition, like it was in the middle of being forgotten, yet still clinging to existence.  Even the old nursing station had been boarded up and forgotten, meaning the people living there now have very limited access to medical care.

Vinh Hue woman, with her son in the background. Fujifilm Velvia 100F.

As in most poor villages I’ve visited in Vietnam, the people were friendly and welcoming, and I enjoyed a slow hour wandering around, looking for interesting things to photograph and talking to the locals.

Our "taxi driver" on the Mekhong River. Fujifilm Velvia 100F

Our “taxi” finally arrived, a long, flat, slow wooden boat that was apparently going to take us to the far side of a small island in the Mekhong River.  My buddy Adam is a pretty avid photographer as well, and the two of us spent the boat ride trying to get shots of the boat driver and his 3 cute kids that came along for the ride.  These boat rides always sound like a lot of fun, but the reality usually winds up being that they’re quite loud, and you’re breathing in thick diesel fumes the whole time.  So much for enjoying the fresh air.

The boat driver's kids try to protect each other from the diesel fumes. Fujifilm Velvia 100F

Also, trying to shoot in overcast weather, on a moving object with 100 speed film while your boat is going under, through and out of thick, overhanging vegetation is a bit of a pain in the ass.  It’s situations like this that I *almost* miss shooting digital.

Boat kids. Fujifilm Velvia 100F

Needless to say, I was relieved when we finally arrived at our guest house, if you can call it that.  We were situated inside of a grapefruit orchard, a series of 5 or 6 little bungalows, some with double beds inside, others with bunk beds.  We had fans and electricity in the rooms, but shared detached bathrooms.  There was a great big covered common area, with a bar, large tables, and even a TV area, built just a few meters from the banks of the Mekhong River.  It was the only accommodation on the island, and our group of friends were the only people staying there.

By the time everybody got settled into their rooms, cleaned up and ready to start drinking it was already getting to be quite late in the afternoon.  It had been a bit grey and dreary most of the day, but just about an hour before sunset the clouds broke and we started to get some sunshine.

Backlit leaves in the fading sunlight, Fujifilm Velvia 100F

Adam and I set off hoping to find a good spot to get some sunset photos, but only made it to the end of one dirt trail that eventually just trailed off into the brush.  No good evening shots to be had this day, but I did get one shot I really like of some backlit leaves during the last few minutes of sunlight on our side of the island.  With that, our shooting light was gone, and it was time to call it a day.  Well, we did stay up quite late, but the rest of the night was filled mostly with eating and lots and lots of drinking, and this blog is supposed to be about photography, not beer.

Chinese fortune telling sticks in a shop in Cho Lon

Playing with different kinds of film is fun.  Lord knows I don’t really need any new excuses to go out and take more photos, but deciding that I need to test out different types and brands of film has made it easy for me to justify spending my hard earned cash, and helped me feel good about blowing off other responsibilities while I wander around and do my ‘research’.

During the few days following Christmas I was testing out Agfa’s APX line of professional panchromatic B&W films.  After playing around with a bit of Ilford’s product I was going to be a hard sell.  I started off with APX 400 speed film, first in the slums a couple of blocks away, and next at my friend Tim’s Boxing Day Party.   Another buddy of mine, Bryan, made the comment that Agfa film looks “old”.  By that I think he meant that it looks like old school photos shot in the 1930′s on old chrome films.  Judging from this shot below I’d have to say I agree with him.

Laundry lines in the tenements

Pretty much more than anything, I enjoy shooting portraits.  So, Tim’s Boxing Day party seemed like the perfect occasion to capture some of my friends in a festive mood.  For you Americans out there (or any other nationality, for that matter) who scratch your head like I did and say “what in the hell is Boxing Day?”, the answer is:  bent if I know.  Apparently the Australians, English, Canadians and probably the New Zealanders celebrate this holiday on the day after Christmas, and I don’t think anybody really knows what the purpose is.  It’s definitely not about the sport of boxing.  I think it might have something to do the fact that gifts come in boxes, however we Americans have removed all of our gifts from their boxes by this point in time, and are more concerned with using, wearing, eating, or returning said gifts than we are with the frigging boxes they came in.  It seems to me like an excuse to tack another day onto to the end of the holiday.  In America we basically have no intentions of working the day after Christmas anyhow, and so feel no need to make up yet another holiday and name it after a sport which we aren’t planning on watching that day.  But I digress…  let’s continue with the discussion of film.

So sad... and on a holiday, no less!

Here I seem to have captured Tim in a rather melancholy mood.  What’s wrong little buddy?  Chipper up and enjoy the day off of work!  Or at least appreciate the gorgeous tonal gradation in this photo, the subtle contrasts, and the way I caught the emotion and sense of longing in your face.

You photographers out there that are reading this know that one of the best things about 400 speed film is that it’s perfect for capturing action.  The high speed allows you freeze those moments that would be blurred and unusable if taken with the much slower 100 ISO film you might prefer for most other occasions.   Using Agfa APX 400 was exactly how I was able to catch this next gem.

Notice the subtle movement in Hiroshi's hand as he fondles Albin's goose

It’s the capture of special, timeless moments like these that drew me to the fine craft of photography in the first place.  It’s also what keeps my finger poised, quivering over my shutter release in expectation of the next fleeting scene passing in front of me that deserves to be saved for future generations to cherish and learn from.

Obviously I was pretty impressed with the results from this particular film – however I was still far more impressed with the Ilford PANF 100 I’d used.  To be fair, though, 400 speed film just can’t produce the same fine results as a professional 100 speed pan film can.  To really, honestly make a comparison I knew I’d have to shoot some of Agfa’s 100 ISO APX.  And so I did.

Agfa’s website claims that their 100 ISO panchromatic B&W film is fantastic for both still life photography and portraits, and that it’s perfect for capturing fine detail.  Well, the shot I used to start off this blog post is one of the still life pics I took, a shot of Chinese fortune telling sticks in a shop in Chinatown.  Basically, you hold the can of sticks horizontally and mumble some stuff while you shake the sticks around inside.  When one finally falls out you pick it up and read what’s written on it, and it will tell you what to do today, or who to stay away from, or what brand of washing powder you should be using.  Or something.  I’m not really sure, as I can’t read Chinese.  Anyhow, it turned out great, so, check.  Still life photography good with Agfa APX.  Next!

Detail of old wooden window shutters

They weren’t bullshitting about capturing fine detail either.  If you’re familiar with my work you’ll know that not only am I fixated on laundry lines, I also love windows, doors, and anything remotely resembling a shape affixed to a building.  This macro shot of window shutters came out beautifully, contrasty, sharp and detailed, with a really nice tonal range.  I only wish monitors were like 5 times bigger and my website would support files of that width so you could see how nice it is full size.

I still wasn’t sold for portraits, though.  The richness, the luminosity of Ilford’s PANF film really has me hooked.  But then I got this shot:

Cyclo driver outside a market in Saigon's Cho Lon area

No witty comments about this one.  I’m blown away by the beautiful, silvery tones produced here, and happy with the work I did.  I took this one with my 50mm that loves to eat my highlights, and this shot still came out great, so not only am I happy with my exposure, I’m also pleased with the film’s exposure latitude.  Sooo…  Agfa vs Ilford.  Who wins?  Damn.  I’m not sure yet.  Ilford is hard to come by here, but I have 5 more rolls of the PANF 100 speed, and my local photog friend Nam gifted me a roll of  PANF ISO-50 to check out.  On top of that, I just ordered 35 more rolls of various Ilford film from the States, and my local film supplier seems to have a bountiful supply of APX.  So, shucks…  guess I’m going to have to shoot another 50 or 60 rolls of film before I decide.

And now, before I go, I need to clear up one little unresolved issue.  Poor Timmy!  We left him looking so sad and forelorned, and I know you readers are pining for our dear friend’s tainted holiday, wishing he hadn’t suffered such a terrible emotional letdown on the auspicious event of Boxing Day, 2009.  Well, I’ll leave you with a shot showing Tim after we cheered him up, proof that we didn’t let our mate cry into his beer in sorrow at his own party.

Hey there Timbo - glad to see you feeling yourself again!

Anais Shooting a Game of Checkers

This morning I went for another walk in the Cho Lon area of Saigon, this time with my new buddy Anais.  Anais just recently got herself a new Canon 500d with a 50mm f/1.8 lens attached to it, and wanted to play around with her new toy.  I set a goal for myself as we set out, which was quite simple:  shoot through a roll of Fuji Provia 100F film to test it for colors and skin tones.

Checkers and Newspapers - Part Of Saigon Daily Life

Anais is super fun to hang out with, mostly because she’s a bit crazy, and she’s fun to shoot with, mostly because she reminds me of myself when I started taking photos.  By that I mean that she’ll snap a shot of pretty much any object she stumbles upon.  She’s 18, which makes her half my age, and walking around with her alternately makes me feel really young and really old.  While we don’t seem to share the same tastes in music, we do have a few things in common, one of which is that we both love taking pictures, and another being that we both dig old, torn up blue jeans and English workman style shoes.

Don't Leave Home Without 'Em

I like quirky people.  My girlfriend is fond of saying “Jake – all your friends are crazy, but in different ways.  And you too, you’re cuckoo too!”.  Yes, it’s true, most of my friends are twisted in one way or another, and Anais seems to fit the bill.  She likes making weird faces.  If you see her in a bar she’ll be the one bouncing up and down and running back and forth.  To top it off she’s got a filthy mouth that’s she’s not afraid to use in public, and a dirty sense of humor.  All in all, a winner in my book.

Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink, Say No More...

Well, this post was supposed to be about film, now wasn’t it?  Maybe I should veer back on course…

Since I wanted to test out Fuji Provia for skin tones and colors, it seemed pretty obvious to me what I should be shooting – portraits and fruit in some nice morning light.  The results, I must say, were very, very impressive.  I’ve sort of been moving up the chain, starting with color negative films and moving up into professional slide films, so it shouldn’t really surprise me that Provia is my favorite film that I’ve checked out so far, but I’m blown away by how fantastic the skin tone replication is.

Beautiful Skin Tones and Rich Pastely Colors

Color representation is gorgeous with Provia film, the only problem that I found being that the yellows are far too strong, with the highlight details being burnt out long before they are in other colors.

Banana Peddler

You can see on the portrait above that the skin tones came out perfectly – but on the bananas nearest his face some problems are showing with the highlight details starting to be lost.  I shot this with my 60mm macro lens, not my old school 50mm, and plus I wasn’t shooting wide open, so it shouldn’t be the lens causing contrast issues.  I was bracketing my shots all morning, and the shot I took that was one stop down showed great color on the bananas, but his skin was looking too dark, not to mention the light I lost in his eyes and under his cap.

Strawberry Red

Reds, however, were a completely different story!  After shooting digital for many years, I’m used to having to worry about reds burning out every chance they get.  Not with Provia.  In almost every situation, reds I shot today stood out bolder and brighter than they did in real life, however never over-saturated and never blowing out highlights when I suspected they might.  On Fuji Provia these strawberries turned out looking much more luscious and delicious than they actually did to me this morning in the market.

Color Conundrum

In this shot, the greens and oranges came out rich and bright, the reds are a deep crimson hue, but still looking natural – but take a peek at the yellow apples in the upper left hand corner.  The white styrofoam protective wrapping on them seems okay, but those bright yellows seem to be the only spot in the photo that turned out too hot.

Yellows, Hotter Than Hell

And finally, this last one is just a wreck.  My exposure seems great on everything in the shot except the yellows, which are just hot as hell and lacking any semblance of detail.  So – my conclusion for the day is that Fuji Provia is absolutely stunning for portraiture, does a really great job reproducing pastels, creates eye-catching reds that pop out of the frame and yet still look realistic, and is impressive with other colors in the spectrum…  until you get to yellows that is.  Watch your ass with the yellows.

After I ran through my roll of Provia today I popped in a spool of Agfa APX 100 black & white.  I fired off 25 of the 36 frames this morning and doubt it will take me long to get through the other 11, but with lag time on b&w processing here, and the New Year’s holiday coming up, it might be a week or so before we can look at them.  I’m hoping that the charming shot I got of Anais spitting in the marketplace came out well.  The big test for me with the Agfa will be whether or not it can stand up to the Ilford PAN 100, so it’s going to have a run for it’s money.

And for those of you who like to read my blog more for the stories than for the techie photog geek crap – keep your pants on, we’ll get back to that stuff in just a short while…

Old Doorway

I feel, much like the name of this post implies, that I’m almost completely starting over with photography now that I’ve decided to shoot only film.  Over the last week I’ve spent a few days wandering around and taking shots almost at random.  Not only am I experimenting with color film to see what the differences are in different brands, I’m also getting used to shooting in black and white, and playing around with some fixed focal length lenses that are new to me.  Specifically, I’m using a 50mm Nikon f/1.4 AI lens that’s very nice, but also super contrasty and I’m figuring out where and when I can use it effectively.  Simply using fixed focal length is a challenge for me as well, as I’m a spoiled little brat who is far too used to his zoom lenses.   I’ve got 3 cameras to shoot with now so I can keep different lenses mounted or have various films loaded and ready, however 2 of them are in the shop getting prettied up.  That makes it a bit difficult for me to take multiple shots for comparisons, however that will come next week.  My mornings are open for a week or so, so I’m praying for good weather early in the day.

As I’m out shooting I’m looking ideas for subjects I’d like to work on for a while, and using this time to both experiment with my new tools and start getting more developed ideas formed.  I’m going to work a lot in my own little area of the city, simply because there’s lots of interesting things and people around to work with.

Local Cyclo Driver

There are still several cyclo drivers in my area, although they’re a dying breed.  There are also great street markets, some really cool doorways and windows on old style houses, which are also disappearing, and lots of other crapola for me to work with and think about.  I’ve also been spending some time in some tenement buildings near my house, trying to capture the look and feel of the place, as well as some of the activities and personalities you can find there.  It’s really gritty and run down, but I love the atmosphere there.  The people there are usually surprisingly welcoming and easy going, so I should get some good material.

Carrot Circle

At the moment I’ve got a couple of rolls of film off being processed, both black and white and color, and a freezer full of different films I want to play with.  So, there’s more stuff coming soon, and I’m going to keep my posts organized into more narrow subjects like I have previously, rather than continuing with this “here’s some shit I shot this week” approach.  However, today, you just get a few shots of stuff I took while testing out Fuji’s 400 speed Neopan black & white film on the market streets behind my neighborhood.  Enjoy!