As mentioned in the Mission Creep blog post, taking a lot of photographs was one of my main objectives for the trip. In the planning phase I had researched and found MomentLives Photo tours run by Son Trieu. I looked through his webpage and really liked his work. Street photography is not something that I am either comfortable with nor experienced at, so I was excited to find a pro that would take me out to the real Hanoi to do some street photography.

He picked me up at 5:30 am at the hotel and it was raining pretty hard. Initially, these seemed like a big bummer, but hey, you got to work with what the world gives you. The goal for the day to was to learn more about street photography, general photography and try to capture some great “frames.”

We drove out to the famous “train street” where the train passes right through a neighborhood with little room to spare. That there are only a few meters on either side of the tracks does not deter the entrepreneurial-minded Vietnamese who set up all manner of businesses. Space is at a premium in Hanoi, so every available inch gets put to good use.

We sat there drinking a coffee at one of the shops on the track waiting for the train. It was raining hard and the lighting conditions were really tough … especially for my less than fast f4.0 lens. We talked about framing the shot and settings that might work.

You could see the lights long before the train showed up. I started firing off shots trying to keep the train in focus and my camera steady as the shutter speed was dangerously slow. I did manage to get a few cool images from it, but it was a challenge. We hung around taking more photos of the area and continued to talk about composition. Son was great. We had just started and I was learning a lot from him already.

We finished up around the tracks and headed down a narrow alley which was hopping with vendors and shoppers. Although it was getting lighter, it was raining pretty hard and the lighting conditions were difficult. What did become clear was that the rain brought out an explosion of colors and interesting photo opportunities.

We moved slowly down the alley and Son was talking through his thought process on how he found good photo opportunities. “You need to be patient.” His philosophy was really around the concept that if you slowed down, the world would reveal itself to you. He looked for good canvases and then just waited.

We parked ourselves next to a woman selling some flowers. It was great having someone that spoke the language. At first people were suspicious of us, but he chatted with them, made them laugh and pretty soon we became invisible or rather unremarkable. As he had said, the world just started to reveal itself to us in interesting ways.

We spent 2 hours in that alley way and covered maybe 300 meters of distance. At times it felt frustrating and that I wasn’t getting any good shots. The lighting was really difficult, but now looking at what came out of the session, I am happy. I learned a ton.

We decided to move on to our next location after the alley. I think we were both pretty impressed by the impact that the rain had on the quality of image possibilities.

There were two annoying things I was discovering about my new camera. It is pretty tiny, so when I am trying to shoot I randomly push buttons with my clubby fingers and put it into weird modes. The second is the battery life is not that great. I’m going to have to do some research on how to preserve the battery better. It probably didn’t help that I was looking at all the photos I had shot all the time.

Some of the vendors didn’t care we were there. Others engaged with us and a few were less than thrilled we were walking around with our cameras.

We headed over to what used to be a French government building but now was some kind of social club where dudes got together and played ping pong, drank tea, smoked cigarettes, and shot the shit. They were clearly having a great time and welcomed us in and didn’t mind us taking pictures. I think they knew Son pretty well. They poured us some tea and we hung out just being social at the social club.

We wandered around some more looking for good shots. The place was rich with interesting images.

We finished up and Son drove me back to the hotel. As we were chatting in the car and I told him what a wonderful day I’d had. I learned a lot, felt like I had seen some cool and different parts of Hanoi, and just appreciated his company on the journey. I asked if the “incense village” was worth visiting or was it just too touristy. Turns out that he ran photo tours out there as well and I could join one on the following day. Yeah! I hadn’t been sure what to do with my Sunday and now it was fully sorted.

I got back to the hotel and chilled for a bit, but I was so excited by my new-found courage and knowledge in street photography, that I headed back out into the mayhem with my camera.

The morning had been about capturing unique frames, but I also wanted to make sure I did a bit more documentary work for the blog to relay a broader view of the streets.

After a while I realized I was absolutely mentally fried and exhausted from being out in Hanoi all day. Way too much stimulation. I tried to make my way back to the hotel and got lost, which is surprisingly easy to do. I finally realized I had made a big circle. Ugh. I was getting crabby, my feet were sore, and my brain was fried.

I finally made it back to the hotel and collapsed in my room. I had wanted to go the night market but realized that was not advisable. I was hungry but just had no energy for the mayhem outside my hotel. So I headed up to the hotel restaurant and had a nice quiet dinner. Whew.

After dinner I pretty much crashed. I was done. Jet-lagged, overstimulated, this old dude needed to go to bed. But I was happy. The day had exceeded my expectations and I was very happy. I’ll have do a more careful review of the thousands of pictures when I get home, but hopefully you can get a sense for the streets of Hanoi.