Happy New Year

Due to a slight technical glitch (some idiot forgot to remove the old DNS entries from the hosting service – oh, hang on, that was me!) my Blog may not be available for up to 48 hours (will probably be less, but it could take that long). A very happy and prosperous New Year to you all and thank you for your support since I started this Blog in November 2011. My New Year’s Resolution is to be much more disciplined and update my Blog daily!

New Years Eve Fireworks in Mackay

New Years Eve Fireworks in Mackay

New Years Eve Fireworks in Mackay

New Years Eve Fireworks in Mackay

I leave you with this, my last photos of 2013 and my first post of 2014!

(I’m not sure what happened with this post – I got a copy of it in my email, but it has never been published!  So, I’ll publish it anyway, even though it is a few days late!)

Vietnam – a personal project for 2014

Fun in Phan Rang

I am going back to Vietnam in 2014 (around Feb/March) and I am going to base myself in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and I have a two part project in mind.  I want to document the lives of the ethnic minorities in and around the Mekong Delta.  Vietnam has 54 different ethnic minorities, each with their own language, lifestyle, and cultural heritage.  I also want to help a group of orphans in Ho Chi Minh City from an orphanage called Allambie.

Ethnic Minorities Project

The fourth largest minority are the Khmer Krom, and they are now thought to number more than 1.3 million people and are found concentrated in the south, in the delta region of the Mekong River. They are ethnic Khmer and are often considered to be indigenous, as they have inhabited the Mekong delta since before the arrival of the Vietnamese.   My intention is to visit as many places as I can in the time I am there and document their life and culture through photography.

Allambie

The second part of my project is to create a photography programme for a small orphanage in HCMC called Allambie.   I was looking at volunteering while I was in Vietnam but found that it is quite expensive to volunteer through most of the organisations and not only that but I am skeptical of how much of that money gets to the people being helped and how much goes to the administration to cover logistics and infrastructure – I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but not what I want to do.  I came across the story of Suzanne Hook who is he founder of Allambie and was drawn to her story.  In short, Suzanne was an orphan after the Vietnam war and was taken to England by a group of nurses and adopted by an English family.  After many years, Suzanne decided to sell up all of her assets and went back to Vietnam to create Allambie.  You can see more of Suzann’e Story on YouTube.

I have been communicating with Suzanne and want to create a training programme for the orphans (there are only 6 of them in Allambie) to teach them Photography.  Not only to teach them for a couple of months and then leave, but to set them up with photographic equipment, computer equipment and software, a web site where they can sell their photographs and an ongoing support facility.

To do this I need your help.  If anyone can donate cameras, lenses or computers it will be a huge help.  I am also setting up a crowd sourcing site where you will be able to donate money to help fund this trip and also to fund the orphans.

Donations of equipment can be sent to MY Digital Photography, 10 Hawk Street, Slade Point, Qld 4740

Crowd Sourcing Site is Indiegogo.

Donate Here

Vietnam 2014

Vietnam – Phan Rang

We arrived in Phan Rang late on Wednesday night (about midnight) and then were up early for breakfast followed by a photo shoot down at the river.  We met up with a wonderful gentleman named Luc Pham Tam and had breakfast in a local eatery and Luc invited me to have a look at his photographs.  It turns out he is a well known and highly awarded Vietnamese photographer!

We went with Luc to a local river and Luc had organised some local village girls to model for us.  We spent quite a few hours at the river, then went back to the village.  A young boy and his sister were paddling a canoe so we all stood on the bridge and started to take photos.  They were really shy and hid under the bridge for about ten minutes!

After that, we took one of the local girls with us to a nearby sheep farm and took some photos there.

Another great day in Vietnam.

Ox Cart in Phan Rang

Local village girls using traditional fishing nets

Local Phan Rang girls playing in the river

Local Phan Rang girls playing in the river

Laying rice out on the road to dry

Local sheep at Phan Rang

Water buffalo grazing with the sheep

Water Buffalo at Phan Rang

Local Phan Rang girl

Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh City

Day 1: I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and was met by a wonderful photographer named Mai Huong and a Vietnamese friend of hers from the US.  I had arranged previously that Mai would take me around from HCMC to Hue, about half way up Vietnam.  Mai booked me into a hotel in the city and we spent that night and the next day just sightseeing – me with my Galaxy Notepad!   Mai and Tom took me to dinner and then Tom and I went for a walk around the city.

My first and I think my longest lasting memory of Vietnam will be the traffic!  Horns blaring, Mopeds by the millions (or so it seems!) and Chaos!!  However, this chaos seems to work – in a city of 10,000,000 people the traffic flows pretty well – albeit a little scary too!  I haven’t stopped laughing since I arrived – mopeds everywhere, going seemingly wherever they want – road, right hand side (the norm here), left hand side, footpath, in shops, in homes – they’re everywhere!  And not only the sheer volume, but 1, 2, 3, 4 or more people on 1 moped, mopeds carrying amazing loads – car parts, plants, lengths of conduit, bottled water and tonight – the best one I’ve seen yet – a guy on a moped carrying a large sheet of glass, riding down the wrong side of the road (and a pretty main road it was too).

Mopeds in Ho Chi Minh City

Moped carrying load

Bottled Water on moped

Mopeds Everywhere

Chaos

Day 2: The next morning I went for an early morning stroll through the markets across from the hotel.  At 6:30am these markets are already a bustling hive of activity!  Fresh fruit and meats (some recognizable, many not so!), cooked meals and all sorts of items for sale.  A typical Asian market.

The markets in HCMC

The chaos begins

Mai, Tom and I then headed out for breakfast.  I had told Mai that I wanted to eat local food so off we went to a local restaurant for some Pho (pronounced Ferh).

Pho

The table setting at breakfast

The restaurant where we had breakfast

The rest of the day was spent sightseeing and enjoying the local scenery.  I also picked up a new tripod which was a great deal (thanks Mai) and then we decided to leave for Phan Rang that afternoon instead of spending more time in Ho Chi Minh City.  Originally we were going to take Mai’s little Honda i10 but her husband was worried it wouldn’t handle the roads (in hindsight I think he was right) so somehow Mai organized a bus for us!  SO, instead of the 3 of us it was now 5 – the bus came with a driver and co-driver.  Hue the driver did the right thing and found an Australian flag to display in the front of the bus.

The bus for the trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Hue

So, after a bit of toing and froing, off we set for the 8 hr drive to Phan Rang Province.  What a fantastic start to my 18 day trip in Vietnam.  I’ll try and post every day but it is a bit hard because we are normally in a bus travelling along some not so great roads!

Sydney – Manly

As part of the Business Junket I went to in Sydney a month or so ago, we went to Manly on the Sunday for lunch.  While we were there I wandered around the Corso for a while and took a few shots.  It was a pretty miserable day but I managed to get a few decent shots.

Stanley the one-legged seagull at Manly Corso

Some of the artistic furniture in the Manly Corso

A seagull enjoying the showers in the Manly Corso

Artwork at the Manly Ferry Terminal

One of the Manly Corso Street Fountains

Street fountain in the Manly Corso

Indian Mynah at Manly Corso

Riding his unicycle through Manly

Metal Seat in the Corso, Manly

Random people eating lunch at the Bavarian Bier Cafe at Manly

The Many Ferry arriving in the rain

Fireplace in the middle of the Bavarian Bier Cafe

Booze at the Bavarian Bier Cafe at Manly

Sydney – Chinatown

I went down to Sydney a month or so ago for a business junket and then I had a few days R&R in Sydney where I basically just wandered around for a few hours every day taking photographs.  Because there are so many photos (damn Digital Cameras – too easy to take 400-500 photos in a few hours!) of my Sydney trip, I’ll break the Blogs into areas – in this one I will cover Chinatown.

I love Chinatown – particularly Sydney’s Chinatown.  I love Asian food – I could live on Asian Food (except for breakfast – there is only so much Congee with Dried Fish that a fella can eat – I do love Bacon & Eggs!).  Chinatown in Sydney is always bustling and alive and I am happy wandering around there for days – in fact I ate in Chinatown every day after the business Junket.  And whilst I meandered around, of course, I had the camera in overdrive and this is the result…

Street Performer – Chinatown

The Entrance to Chinatown in Sydney

Building Ornaments – Chinatown

Chinese Lantern – Chinatown

Statue – Chinatown

Restaurant Window – Chinatown